Red-Netters

Introduction
Although wooden boats will be slowly eaten away due to the stomach acid and other fermenting substances of Carrion Lake, the consistency of the liquid allows metal canoes and rafts to easily float. The drivers of these craft are known as Red-Netters: a community of - essentially - fishermen with the most foul of prey.

Perched on their rafts with heavy metal boots to keep them stable, the Red-Netters propel themselves with long poles or oars. To catch their prey they employ flexible metal nets, which look roughly like a large grid of barbed wire. With the wire spread as wide and submerged as deep as the fisherman can manage, they slowly skim across the undulating carrion to sieve the surface for their prize: valuable monster parts, and the thrashing spawn of Bloated Maws. Consuming the flesh of these sea creatures it what grants the Red-Netters their ability to withstand the fumes of the Lake.

Examples of treasures to be found within the festering blood-sludge of Carrion Lake include the indestructible teeth of Polisher Wurms and precious stones which may have ended up stuck within the folds of intestinal scraps.

Home
Though some Red-Netters build their wood-and-hide homes on the outer edges of the Lake, this is known to be a temporary and dangerous measure taken only by the truly poor and desperate. As the the liquid of Carrion Lake is constantly rising - albeit very slowly due to its immense size - sooner or later any structures built on the ‘shore’ will be engulfed by the bloody waves and quickly dissolved by lingering acids. In order to protect their livelihood and families from this grisly fate, more established Red-Netters join their successful brothers and sisters on an enormous metal barge floating close to the Lake’s centre.

Resembling a sheet metal shanty town - or perhaps no more than a garbage dump with lanterns - the nameless barge-city is a haphazard collection of metal parts, armour pieces, and especially broken Grinder Dwarf machines that somehow found their way to the mire of the Lake. Due to the viscosity of coagulating blood, the artificial island has no issue floating steadily on the surface of Carrion Lake while it's waters continue to slowly rise, day after day. All houses on the barge have roofs to keep out the ‘rain’ (the dripping of blood and entrails from the cave ceiling high above the Lake).

For those with no sense of taste or smell (such as constructs, the undead, and those who have eaten of the Bloated Maw), this salvaged metal city is a hub of trade, information, and simple social interaction. Adventuring parties desperate enough (as all who come near Carrion Lake are) may find themselves desiring to visit the Lake and its humanoid inhabitants purely to be able to interact with a society of people who are actually living together in relative peace.

That is, until the last lantern goes out and the Ooms return.