Moss River

From Praemal

The Moss River is an icy river that winds through Tulgey Wood and across the Anvil Plateau before dropping down alongside Hangman's Pass. Once in the lowlands, it quickly merges with another river.

The river begins from an underground spring deep within Moss Pond. The black waters of the pond are nearly as cold as the glacier lake near the summit of nearby Green Mountain. The dark and slick moss that cover the rocks on the pond's banks (and reappear along much of the river's length) give the Moss its name.

From there, the river winds south and southwest to Maidensbridge. It shoots through the middle of the hamlet, swift, narrow and deep. Residents fish there and draw water from the river, but it is too treacherous to swim, bathe or boat along the river at that point.

Below Maidensbridge, it begins to widen and slow, splashing through mossy rocked rapids, turning south, then southeast and finally east. Small streams enter the river from the south in the vicinity of Wit's End. By the time it slides through the village of Foxton on Moss, the Moss is wide and gentle. Sheep drink from the water as they graze on its grassy shores, and residents fish, swim, bathe and boat on the river, although the river's current is still strong enough that boating mostly consists of going downriver quickly and little else.

The river burbles under the stone bridges that straddle the Moss in the baronal seat of Middleborough, powering the Middleborough Mill waterwheel and providing a convenient way for residents to float timber downstream to the pass. Some other commercial traffic also rides down the river on small barges.

Shortly before reaching Hangman's Pass, the baron's men have constructed a stone fencing in the water, to stop barges and timber from tumbling over the waterfall and dashing into splinters below. Here, the goods are transferred to waiting carts, which carefully pick their way down the pass to the town of Goblin Falls below.