The Big Swamp
A tentative swamp-crawl campaign that I've been slowly working on that is comprised of the various swamp-oriented modules and settings I've collected over the years.
So the scholars of Nilfenberg write
Before men staked out villages on the reed-choked margins, the Big Swamp was an empire. The Axolittians, amphibious philosopher-kings, ruled the region. Their empire thrived on strange waterworks and canal-cities. They cultivated pearls, silk spun by swamp-spiders, and vast fisheries of blind eels. Their reign ended mysteriously. Their kin remain as the primitive orange-scaled Salt Lizards, which still live among the ruins in the deeper swamp.
In their place rose the Jade Empire of the Serpent Men, architects of monumental obelisks now half-sunken in the fen. They bred men as slaves, taught them the craft of marsh iron, and worshiped their serpent gods from atop ziggurats that now slump beneath moss and mire. When their empire broke, men and their houses spread into the Big Swamp, first as the People, then founding the towns that cling to the drier edges of the Big Swamp, and then outward into the greater world, establishing cities like Schleswig and Nilfenberg.
Modules Cited & Used
- Square Crawl Travel Procedures in Meatheads by Blark
- Dwellers in the Bog by Jean Luc Larviere-Lacombe
- Putrescence Regnant by Manuel Pinheiro & Andre Novoa
- Batrachian Swamps by Micah Anderson
- Fever Swamp by Luke Gearing
- The Darkness at Nekemte by G. Hawkins
- The Bottomless Pit of Zorth by G. Hawkins
- Pestilence at Halith Vorn by G. Hawkins
- Lair of the Frog God by Chaoclypse
- Sepulcher of the Swamp Witch by Christian Sahlen
- Pestilent Gifts by Lettuce
Why are You Here?
- Criminals from Nilfenberg sent as punishment out into the Swamp to kill the Mud Cultists.
- The Nilfenberg Cartographer’s Consortium aims to accurately map the Swamp for taxation purposes, seeking new avenues of Capital for the Crown to fund the War out West against Republican forces.
- Schleswig’s merchants are seeking the lucrative fortunes of fishoil, Ulckian pearls, and lurksilk to sell back in Vastland proper.
- Sponsored by the Royal College of Fathmu the IV, an archaeological detachment is sent with an armed escort to study the ancient Axotllian ruins and return with any interesting artifacts, flora, and fauna to display in the Vastland Museum.
- Sacrifices from [INSERT CULT HERE] that have escaped and seek their way out of the Swamp.
- The Holy Circle of the Immaculate Flame of Schleswig has sent you, the Witchbreakers, to stamp out the Drowned God cult that festers within the Swamp after their prior Witchbreaker, Gert von Hammer, has been reported missing from the town of Clink.