Encyclopaedia Elysia | Places / Danurai

Danurai looks like a worn-out, run-down town on its last legs, but in truth the weathered, wooden struts and dreary, blotchy paintwork is a result of the near-perpetual mist and the wet, salty air coming from Lake Cora. In actuality, the town is probably the most prosperous in Daire, with hunters and wildcrafters coming from far and wide both to partake of the lake's more profitable ingredients (such as tepua pollen) and to test their mettle against Elysia's toughest monsters (like the wraith).

Everything is made of wood and reeds here. A large forest used to blanket the southern shores of the lake before the people came, but over time was thinned out to make room for the town (and to provide the building materials).

By necessity, the town was built on stilts across a spit of land at the centre of the lake. As a result, Danurai is almost completely isolated with only one route south and around the massive lake (and crossing the eastern edge of Banshee Bogg on its perilous way), since crossing the water itself is almost impossible. In recent years, trade has opened up a little with more and more anka taxis taking cargo from the road, but these are an expensive alternative that only the wealthier merchants can afford — which means there are still plenty of opportunities for caravan guards!

Landmarks

Because the lake is so difficult to navigate, even on a sunny day, the citizens of Danurai had a bright idea. They set down markers across the lake and along the shoreline by chopping down trees and carving their remains (usually into simple, but noticable, shapes).

Danurai's way-markers were originally intended only to guide lost souls back to the town, but as the locals became more familiar with the area, the markers got more and more complex. Such a marker now can tell you exactly where you are on the lake, how far it is (in miles) to Danurai and the nearest village, exactly what dangers or goodies you're likely to encounter in the immediate vicinity, and various other things the local hunters might wish to communicate.

Of course, most strangers to the area can still only decipher the simplest of a marker's communications — the way to safety — but the locals have developed almost an entirely new visual language and seem to enjoy developing it further. Artists among them have even taken to braving the lake just to replace simpler markers with wooden statues and totems to make them more obvious, and to lend an air of mystery to their lake.

The largest of Danurai's markers isn't on the lake, however, but on the spit of land leading into the town. A totem roughly the size of an adult human male was placed on a wider stretch of Danurai Spit to assure travellers that they were on the right path, but when people still got lost, a second, larger monolith was added at the junction of the two roads east and south from Espur and Alexshire. Since then, fewer folk have disappeared into the fog without a trace, but the dangers of the lake are still too numerous to count.