Tunstead

Tunstead marks the edge of Sanctuary’s southern influence. On the edge of the infamous Mosquito Swamps, Tunstead’s houses and paths are built on stilts above the swampy ground. The swamps around Tunstead are true to their name, hot and humid with millions of buzzing mosquitos. Most of the swamp is covered in marsh trees, with long root systems holding the trunks above the water. The people who live in Tunstead are grim, simple folk. They live at the edge of the swamp and share an uneasy, unofficial truce with the Lizardfolk, who have lived deep in the swamp since The Relocation, or perhaps even before.

Most citizens work in the clay fields, digging, transporting and baking clay in to bricks. The clay earth beneath the swamp is ideal for making the bricks that Sanctuary and other settlements use to build their more permanent structures, but it is hard, dirty work. Others come to Tunstead in search of wealth, as huge gold nuggets have previously, although rarely, been found in the swampy, soft earth. The promise of wealth lures many opportunistic or desperate people to Tunstead; however, many more people have died to monsters than have struck it rich.

The mayor of Tunstead, Gomer Three-Tooth, is the sixth generation of his family to live in Tunstead. His father was the major of Tunstead before him. He is a fair but simple man, without any real stomach for fighting.

First Swamp War
In the year 22, Sanctuary tried to force the lizardfolk from the swamp but the slippery mud favoured the lizardfolk and, despite vastly outnumbering the lizards, Sanctuary's army could make no ground. The founding council was forced to retreat in the year 24; either that or risk mass desertion by the exhausted, muddy and discontent military. Sanctuary suffered casualties four times greater than the lizardfolk in what has since come to be dubbed the First Swamp War.

Second Swamp War
In what is mockingly called the Second Swamp War, Sanctuary devised a plan to take the swamp by using stealthier tactics. The plan was to send groups of Hunters in to the swamp to take the lizardfolk by surprise, assassinating the lizardfolk leaders and leaving them vulnerable to the following attack by the military. However, nothing went to plan. Lacking the advantage of numbers, most Hunters were picked off by monsters before ever reaching a lizardfolk village. Those who managed to avoid the monsters found that the numbers of the lizardfolk were far greater than expected and had no choice but to immediately retreat back through the dangerous swamps. It is commonly believed that the total failure of the founding council’s plan to take Mosquito Swamp was the catalyst of the subsequent Black Invasion.