(Upper Dunwater River — between the Drowned Forest and the Hool Marsh)

Along the Dunwater River, a few leagues south of the Drowned Forest, stands the Outlaw Stockade, a fortified riverside camp that serves as haven, trade post, and black market for the unwanted.

The stockade’s high timber walls are bound with rope and scavenged from wrecks. A watchtower overlooks the river banks, and a heavy iron chain lies coiled near the docks, ready to be raised across the channel to halt boats or trap unwary travelers.

At its heart, a cluster of wooden longhouses, rough cabins, and trading sheds crowd around a central bonfire pit. At night, the light of the fire flickers across the water, sometimes song and often times a brawl echoes out onto the river.

The Den of the Lawless

The Outlaw Stockade shelters those who have nowhere else to go; bandits, smugglers, assassins, deserters, pirates, and worse. Most are humans from Keoland, wanted for crimes ranging from thievery to treason. The Keoland garrison in Saltmarsh keeps their names on a list but lacks the manpower to hunt them this deep into the marshes.

The camp functions as a neutral ground for illicit trade:

• The Sea Princes send runners upriver to exchange coin for stolen goods or information.

• The Bullywug of the Dunwater trade swamp herbs, poisons, and hallucinogenic toad oils in return for tools, iron, and ale.

• Primewater’s agents occasionally contract assassinations or “retrieval work” through intermediaries, ensuring no trace leads back to Saltmarsh.

Despite its chaos, the stockade is ruled by The Charter, an unwritten code enforced by a democracy of killers, smugglers, and ex-pirates.

The Factions Within

The Outlaw Stockade is home to uneasy alliances:

• Humans (Majority): Outlaws, thieves, pirates, and ex-smugglers. They control the docks and maintain the river chain.

• Demi-Humans: Dwarves, elves, and halflings outcast from their kin, tolerated for their skills as smiths, scouts, and traders.

• Humanoids: None. The stockade’s inhabitants hate goblinoids and orcs, killing them on sight. Only the Bullywug are spared, their role as swamp traders protected by The Charter.

Humans and demi-humans live in separate quarters within the stockade and rarely mingle. Violence between them is frequent but contained, usually settled in the fighting ring behind the alehouse.

(See: Ghosts of Saltmarsh, Chapter 1 — “Dunwater River”)

Key Features

• Twin Docks:
  Two crude wooden docks on opposite banks of the Dunwater. A heavy iron chain can be drawn between them to block the river or drag boats ashore.

• The Longhouse:
  A timber hall serving as tavern, gambling den, and meeting hall. Known as the Driftwood , it’s run by Bran Korrin, a former Sea Prince pirate turned quartermaster.

• The Smokehouse:
  A collection of huts where smugglers cure fish, brew rotgut, and distill swamp whiskey. The air around it stinks of yeast, peat, and smoke.

Encounters & Hooks

• Wanted Men: PCs may find themselves hunted by the Keoland garrison or offered a bounty to infiltrate the camp.

• Primewater’s Contract: A contact approaches with a job “off the books” that leads back to the stockade.

• The Silent Docks: A merchant vessel goes missing near the Dunwater. The wreck is found downstream, its cargo stripped, its crew nowhere to be found.

• The Bullywug Pact: The PCs stumble upon a meeting between the Outlaws and the Bullywug.