The Drift

The Drift is a free people of some 8,000 who live in nine floating towns of lashed-together barges on the Wenvorm, the Nollen and the Tsanha, and on Lake Surmave itself. They ferry, smuggle and trade, and are loyal only to the current. Each barge-town elects a Helm, and the Helms meet in a Helms' Moot at the Wenvorm mouth every spring. Their faith is the river's own, with the Road Spirit's honesty and, on the lake, the Drowned Court's knotted cords; by their founding myth the river gave a drowning man a plank on condition that he never touch the bank again, so the Drift are technically never on land. Every child is named twice, once by its parents and once by the river, which the Helm reads from the first ripple the child makes, and many Drift folk tattoo a river-fish on their arms for every year on the water.

See also: Threeoars, Slowwater, The Mill Reach, Seven Ropes, Surmave Float, Mudbank, Tsanha-Drift, The Lantern, Ford's End, The Wenvorm Mouth