WHat could be the economical backbone of a pre-industrial swamp village?

>WHat could be the economical backbone of a pre-industrial swamp village?

I have a part of my setting that is a river delta with giant mangrove trees. They make a living bringing luxury lumber from much further upriver through their swamp so it can be sold to ships waiting at a harbor just off the coast. Since there is no good way the swamp dwellers have a monopoly on the trade. The delta also lets out into a substantial coral reef where the swamp folk will dive for pearls of unusual size.

>why would people live there?

The mangove forest can be a death trap for those who dont know how to navigate it. The swamp tribes originally arrived there when their enemies were chasing them. When the tribes saw the trouble their enemy (Lich controlled Not!Aztecs) had in attacking them there they decided to stay. In the centuries since its been pretty peacful and now with Felizeenian traders coming in the tribes are making a great deal of money.

>what would they eat?

Fish, fruits, some rice and roots. Most of the money the tribes get from their lumber/pearl trade they spend importing a wider variety of food and finished items they cant produce on site.

>how do they make money?

Transporting lumber, selling large pearls (about the size of a fist)

They build raised platforms in the roots of the giant (around 200 ft) mangoves and wrapping around the trunks.

I tried to google "medieval mosquito net".
Didnt find much, but one thing led to another and I found this

Those are some culty getups right there.

Logging and gator leather. In D&D, swamps have dinos, which is pretty rad.

Give your cultists loose pants instead of robes. You don't want to be walking around with robes in a swamp.

priests do not heed the needs of the common folk

>WHat could be the economical backbone of a pre-industrial swamp village?
Sales of peat for fuel.
>why would people live there?
Because they can't afford to up and leave. Also, peat.
>what would they eat?
Pigs, whatever crops they can farm on dried patches of swamp.
>how do they make money?
they're subsistence farmers, the pittance they make from a cartload of peat every so often pays for seeds and new livestock.
They also host adventurers hunting the local wildlife, but most of that goes to paying adventurers to kill the whatever that's killing the pigs.

Ask the Venetians.

Peat? It used to be an important fuel and I think it might still be in parts of the world

Maybe the swamp is the shortest way between to major cities and the swamp people are the only ones who can safely navigate it. So they have a sort of shipping monopoly in the area

>WHat could be the economical backbone of a pre-industrial swamp village?

Mostly natural products: Fish, Shellfish, Meat from water fowl, and large reptiles such as alligators, crocodiles, or even dinosaurs if they remain indigenous to your world.
Extremely powerful medicinal herbs, plants, and fungi as well grow in swamps of all kind; swamp flora was at one point the only source of natural antibiotics during pre-modern times and even today medicine manufacturers continue to explore the swamps of south america and africa looking for medicinal plants to copyright and sell for thousands of dollars.
Peat is also an exceptional resource, but not all swamps possess commercially sustainable or even easily accessible peat. A "Peat Bog" is not the same sort of environment as a tropical, muggy, humid, everglade-esque kind of swamp; peat bogs are the ducks-unlimited kind of marshland, where as a swampy swamp is more vines, ferns, and alligators kind of swamp.

>why would people live there?

Most people live in a Swamp because they were ostracized there- most human cultures do not willingly move in or occupy swamps of their own free will, but are forced to make lives there due to competition. Life in a Swamp or even a dense Jungle is a very, very, bad time- filled with parasites, biting insects, and a damp environment that is very unkind to a species adapt for flat, open, pasture land.

Brickmakers

> rice
Ding ding winrar is you. Rice naturally grow in swampy areas. Rice fields are the backbone of many Asian civilizations.

Also, swamps are usually at the estuary which is next to the ocean. Combine with a good harbour and you get a trading village. Combine with a strategic location and you get an entreport. This was how Singapore became an international shipping port.

Peat was a very valuable commodity, and it is typically gathered from swampy wetlands.

Balance it out by adding a poncho? It's like a robe, but for your torso!

some meme im not getting here?

They farm and grow mushrooms. Milk snakes and spiders for their venom and sell it. Hunt creatures like beavers for their fur. Reptiles for their hides. Fish for smoked/salted meat. Cut down trees for logging/timber. And they can still farm.

And the Priests/Nuns aren't bothered by the mosquitoes because they are always carrying around special incense made from native plants/herbs, that happen to be a strong repellent for mosquitoes.

Fun fact, smoking your feet the same way you smoke fish to get dried meat can go a DAAAAMN long way to preventing all kinds of illnesses/diseases/parasites in any kind of swamp.

Hell, just remembering to place your bare feet around the campfire so they can dry out at night can make a considerable difference. This is the main reason why indigenous tribes who live in those regions haven't been wiped out in just a couple generations.

Believe it or not, but things like athletes foot can be outright fatal without modern day medicine.

Hell yeah, I f*cking love swamp villages!

>how do they make money?
Magical gems for magic use, rare ingredients for alchemy, peat for fuel and the occasional discovered ancient corpse of someone sacrificed to the gods.

Big iron, salt Peter, peat, coal.

That's just the stuff that's not alive. Other than that you can still fish and have rice paddies.