The Modsen Marsh Deathcaps

Deathcap pikemen stand guard behind an ancient barricade.

The next day my guide took our small party - that is, myself, my footman, my butler, my valet, my scrogsman, and my underscrogsman, to the town of Modsen Marsh, where I was promised an audience with the Queen of that locale. Being only accompanied by the barest bones of my staff, I protested that my appearance and retinue would not be befitting a royal welcome, though the people of Cist seem less particular about the formalities of royalty than we do in my homeland.

I was told that the town was a mighty citadel the like of which, the world has never seen the like of which, a redoubt from the mud and squalor that typified the land I had traveled so long to see. I was told of its mighty walls and bastions, of it's paved streets and riches, and marveled that such an enclave of civilization could exist in such a dismal place. I was bitterly disappointed and shocked in equal measure when our slog through bracken and ankle-deep water ended, and our destination hoved into view. The town may once have been a mighty citadel in the days of yore, but the mouldering pile perched on a low knoll was not the city I had imagined. Certainly, it was ringed by walls of plastered masonry, but many of these showed signs of burning and in places patched up with piles of wood and unmentionable detritus. Through its gates, we found buildings of a similar state, the rising damp soaking their charred foundations with black mould and causing them to slump. The burghers of this dismal settlement went about their way, hawking chunks of wet tubers, making rough clay clod-pots, or else shambling from building to building. Evidently from the reaction of my guide, this was the very height of metropolitan expectations in Cist, and I made an effort to appear unfazed by this dismal sight.

We were met after an awkward delay by a troop of the Queen’s soldiers, the so-called “Deathcaps”. They were clad in coats of rough brown sacking, with red bandoliers and black bicorne hats. Each man carried in one hand a rough-looking pike, and in the other, a square shield of planks and rusting iron. I enquired of my guide as to why they carried no firearms, who explained that the true wealth of this town was in its harvesting of ‘firefungus’ - a highly volatile plant that, when dried, can be crushed to make a powder to fuel the mighty guns and muskets of countless armies. If a defective firearm - and indeed, all firearms in this age are defective - were to go off, the whole town and the wet caves which grow its bounteous harvest could be blown to the very heavens themselves...

From E.G. Quern's 'Travels in a Distant Land'.

A column of Deathcap pikemen patrol the muddy trackways of Modsen Marsh.