Encyclopaedia Elysia | Places / Lake Cora

On a rare sunny day (image from Environment News)

Lake Cora is really more of a sea than a lake at some 800 miles at its widest. Situated in south-eastern Elysia, it is a salty, peaty wetland where most crops fail and game is too dangerous for the average family to hunt.

Creatures like the wraith live here, and man-eating plants like the tepua, so it's little wonder that most folk avoid the place. Nevertheless, a few intrepid settlers built a couple of small villages on its shores, and while most of them have long since fallen into ruin, places like Danurai survived.

The lake's waters are nearly intraversible, so thick are the reeds and grasses that grow beneath its glassy surface. This, as much as the dangers of the wildlife, means that crossing the lake for a short-cut is impossible. Instead, travellers must circumnavigate the entirety of the lake, passing far too close to Banshee Bogg for comfort and providing ever more fodder for the marsh's legends.

Few people travelled here, unless they were merchants or hunters, before anka taxis made tourism possible. Even now, stories of the dangers — from terrifying encounters with the wraith, to people bursting into flame upon encountering a swarm of lampyridae — tends to put most commoners off.

Yet for those willing the brave the lake's traps, there is great profit to be made. For this reason, wildcrafters and hunters provide the area's biggest income, and there's plenty of work for caravan guards.