Froghall

[Ollie]

The ancestral home of House Marsh, the keep of Froghall lies along the wetland coast of the Saltspear, near the lazy mouth of the Fever River. The surrounding land is heavily wooded to the south and east, swampland to the west, and a long stretch of salt marsh to the north.

The keep itself is actually more of a wooden manor house, yellowing paint with dusky green framing, set on a solid stone foundation. What the hall lacks in outer defenses, be they stone walls or wooden palisade, Froghall makes up for in its moat. The floodwaters from the nearby salt marsh form a huge pond around the stone base of the keep, surrounding Froghall with a huge moat, leaving it inaccessible but for by one of the tiny skin boats favored by the crannogmen.

The quarters inside are small but comfortable, more or less warm even throughout the winter. Hanging from the outside of Froghall, several yellow banners emblazoned with the ten green frogs of House Marsh flutter and hop in the breeze, bringing to life the hundreds of croaks of the hidden toads in the surrounding pondwater moat.

[Ollie]

The body of Lothar Marsh, the renown swordsman, is finally brought home to be put to rest. The pallid, decaying crannogman is lain in the bottom of skin boat adorned with yellow and green paint. Lothar's sons dress their father in his favorite bronze-scale armor before smearing the stripe of black mud across his forehead. His sword rests at his right, an obsidian dagger at his left, and on his chest is a deep slice of wierwood carved with a tiny face, white on one side and red on the other.

As the tidewaters begin to rush out and the marshwaters into their moat in the evening, each crannogman of Froghall slips a small strip of parchment into Lothar's skin boat. Each carries a message to the Old Gods, be it words of hope, private wishes, or words to loved ones passes on. The boat is untied and sent out with the tide, each man, woman, and child smearing their own brows with mud, tears slipping down their cheeks. In the distance, and solitary bullfrog croaked once, then fell silent with the tide.