The ruins of the Gorathi provincial capital rise from the mangrove swamps of northeast Lethos—massive stone towers still standing after three centuries, their foundations drowned in brackish water, their windows dark and empty. Crocodiles nest in the flooded plazas. Birds refuse to roost on the walls.
The Rootborn live here.
They are the descendants of those Gorathi who survived the Night of Roots by accepting the jungle's terms. No one knows exactly what that means—the Rootborn don't speak of it, and the other peoples of Lethos don't ask. Physically, they no longer resemble the Gorathi of three centuries ago. Their skin has taken on greenish or grayish tones; their eyes have adapted to the permanent twilight of the ruins; their movements are too fluid, too quiet, as if they've learned to move like the water itself.
The Rootborn keep to Qlyp Augo. They harvest fish and crabs from the flooded streets, tend small gardens on the upper floors of the towers, and maintain a cold, careful distance from the other peoples of Lethos. They attend Vigil meetings but rarely speak. Their representative votes according to some internal logic the other villages have learned not to question.
What the Rootborn do in the ruins—what they remember, what they worship, what they guard—is their own business. The other villages are content to leave it that way.