Boneyard (Riddleport)

This deceptively named place actually serves as the city’s dump and ship’s graveyard rather than the intended final resting place for the once-living, though there are certainly enough corpses that end up concealed here to give most city graveyards a run for their money. Its name is derived from the many old hulks and collections of ships’ ribs that protrude from the swampy ground. The whole area is a partially flooded salt marsh that is generally 2 or 3 feet deep, although some hidden patches of quicksand are much deeper. The tidal influx keeps a mild current swirling through the marsh that stirs the garbage around until it collects in various clumps of decomposing compost that eventually form stable isles— some supporting considerable vegetation—within the swamp. Abandoned ships are towed up into the swamp from the bay during high tide by flat-bottomed skiffs and then set adrift. They quickly settle into the shallow waters, and the pull of the tide here is too weak to float any of them back out, though some of them do slowly change position over time due to the inexorable tidal forces. Several scavenging creatures are known to inhabit the fertile scavenging fields of the Boneyard, including the dangerous swamp barracuda and immense cockroaches. In several places, numerous ship hulks have clumped together, forming tangled warrens of chambers interconnected by plank bridges, ropes, and crude ladders. Many of these are inhabited by packs of wererats, all of whom belong to a larger family run by a charismatic but still horrifically filthy killer named Ziphras (LE male wererat human rogue 4). Ziphras and his boys periodically venture into Riddleport in rat form to search for new opportunities for robbery, smuggling, and other highpaying crimes.