The Boglands

The Boglands: The Sinking Mire of the South

The Boglands stretch across the southern and southwestern reaches of the Gloomwood, a vast, ever-sinking expanse of murky waters, shifting marshes, and treacherous peat bogs. The land is ancient and deeply tied to both the spirits of the dead and the living magic of the forest, making it one of the most haunted and mysterious regions within the Gloomwood. While the rest of the forest is shadowed and tangled, the Boglands are open, damp, and veiled in an eternal mist, where the ground itself seems uncertain—firm one moment and devouring the next.

This part of the forest is covered in a perpetual mist, with stagnant pools of dark, brackish water and the occasional hiss of escaping swamp gas. The bog has an eerie, otherworldly feel, and the air is thick with the scent of sulfur and decay.

The air is thick with moisture, the scent of rot, wet earth, and faint floral sweetness mingling with the ever-present tang of stagnant water. Creaking trees rise from the mire, their twisted roots barely clinging to the soft, unstable soil. Strange luminescent fungi and ghostly lights flicker in the mist, leading the unwary into the depths of the marsh. There is an eerie silence, punctuated only by the occasional splash of something unseen moving in the dark waters or the distant, echoing croak of an unseen creature.

Few dare to travel through the Boglands without good reason. Legends of sunken villages, lost spirits, and creatures that rise from the waters to drag victims down make even the bravest hunters uneasy. The Fenrow family, who live closest to the marshes, are some of the few who have learned to navigate its treacherous terrain.

Unlike the solid forest floors of the Heartwood, the Boglands are an ever-changing landscape of wetlands, sinking marshes, and waterlogged groves.

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Flora of the Boglands

Despite its deadly nature, the Boglands are home to many strange and potent plants, some of which are used in healing—others in poisons and dark rituals.

• Black Cap Mushrooms (Edible, Corrupted Variant): Found growing along rotting logs and the edges of the water, these small, round mushrooms are prized for their earthy flavor. However, the corrupted variant, found near spirit pools, has a sickly green tint beneath the cap and emits a faint, foul odor. Those who consume the corrupted variety suffer terrifying hallucinations or worse—become lost in the bog, their minds consumed by something unseen.
• Widow’s Veil (Corrupted, Poisonous): A creeping vine with dark, glossy leaves and clusters of small, black flowers that emit a sweet, sickly scent. It grows along partially sunken trees, feeding off the magic seeping through the swamp. It is highly toxic, causing nightmares, hallucinations, and eventual madness. It is often sought by witches and dark alchemists.
• Bog Lantern Blossoms (Medicinal, Fey-Touched): These small, white flowers emit a faint glow at night and are said to be favored by the fey. The petals can be brewed into a tea that enhances dreams, allowing the drinker to communicate with spirits. However, they also attract the attention of things best left undisturbed.
• Fenroot (Medicinal, Purifying): A long, dark root that grows just beneath the surface of the bog water. It is known for its purifying properties and is often used to treat poisoning and illness. However, Fenroot spoils quickly once harvested, requiring skilled herbalists to prepare it immediately.

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Fauna of the Boglands

The creatures of the Boglands are adapted to the swamp’s harsh and shifting conditions. Many are stealthy, quick, or highly venomous, making survival in this part of the forest even more difficult.

• The Fenrow Warden: A massive, ancient snapping turtle, covered in moss and lichen, said to be older than any living villager. It moves slowly through the marsh, but its bite is strong enough to crush bone. Some claim it guards the oldest parts of the Boglands, protecting hidden secrets and sacred places.
• Pale Bog Frogs: These large, ghostly white frogs make almost no sound and move unnaturally slow. They are completely silent, but their golden eyes are rumored to see beyond the physical world, glimpsing spirits and hidden dangers.
• Willow Eels: These long, ribbon-like eels move through the Blackwater Streams with eerie grace. They are blind but can sense movement in the water. Some villagers swear that if an eel wraps around your ankle, it is an omen of death.
• The Mirelurkers: Strange, hunched humanoid figures seen moving through the thickest mist of the Boglands. It is unclear if they are spirits, fae, or something else entirely, but those who follow them never return.
• The Wraith Crane: A massive black bird, standing as tall as a man, often seen at the edges of the Whispering Bog. It watches travelers with unblinking red eyes. Those who follow it report losing time, finding themselves wandering the bog for hours or even days.

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The Corruption’s Influence

Though the Boglands have always been hostile and treacherous, the dark entity’s influence is making them even worse.

• The spirit pools have become stronger, their whispers now louder, more persistent. Those who gaze into them for too long see visions of death and despair.
• The Mossy Henge is said to be changing, its stones weeping black water, and the symbols upon them shifting when no one is looking.
• Shadows move beneath the Blackwater Streams, larger than eels or fish, as though something far older and far hungrier has begun to stir beneath the water.

Even the Fenrow family, who have lived on the bog’s edge for generations, have grown uneasy. Jonas Fenrow, once skeptical of spirits, has become paranoid, believing something in the Boglands is watching—waiting.

The Boglands have always been a place of mystery and death, but now, something else has taken root within them. Something that does not belong.

Trees: Mostly willows and alder, their roots submerged in the murky waters. The willows’ long, trailing branches create a veil over the pools, and their leaves drip constantly with moisture.

Flora: The Boglands are home to marsh grasses, patches of reeds, and clusters of pitcher plants and sundews—carnivorous plants that feed on the insects buzzing over the stagnant water. Frostmoss clings to the bases of the trees, and patches of toadstools grow in the damp soil.

Features: Small peat bogs and sinking pits are common hazards. Hidden among the reeds are ancient wooden walkways, half-sunken and rotting, suggesting that this area was once traversed regularly by the forest’s original inhabitants.

The Whispering Bog

Location:

Near the eastern edge of the Boglands, where the land begins to dip into marshland.

Description:

The Whispering Bog is a vast, eerie marsh filled with stagnant pools of water, towering reeds, and thick fog that rolls in from the forest. The ground is soft and treacherous, and the bog is said to be haunted by the spirits of those who drowned within its depths. The fog that clings to the ground whispers to travelers, leading them astray, though those in tune with the forest’s magic can find safe paths through the mire. The name of the Whispering Bog comes from the sounds released as small bubbles of gas pop from the small mud holes. Either it be natural or carrying the vails of the lost no one knows, but one can easily image heaing crying souls faintly moaning their eternal damnation.

Selene’s Influence:

Before the darkening, Selene’s magic kept the bog in balance. While it was always a place of mystery and danger, it was also a place of renewal. The waters of the bog were rich with life, and the plants that grew here were used in powerful healing salves. Selene would often come to the bog to cleanse the land of lingering spiritual energies.

Notable Features:

The Spirit Pools:

Scattered throughout the bog are small pools of water that glow faintly at night. These are said to be places where spirits of the dead gather, and those who seek to communicate with them can do so here. The waters of these pools are both beautiful and dangerous, as lingering too long can lead to visions—or madness.

The Mossy Henge:

Hidden deep within the bog is an ancient circle of moss-covered stones, similar to the one near the witches' home. It is said to be a place where the boundaries between the living and the dead are thin, and rituals performed here are particularly powerful.

The a circle of half-sunken standing stones juts out of the marsh, covered in thick, hanging moss. The stones are older than the village itself, and the symbols carved upon them are almost worn away by time. The ground within the henge is firmer than the surrounding bog, making it a rare solid refuge for travelers. It is believed that fey and spirits gather here, and those who sleep within the henge claim to wake with strange dreams—or to whispers in a language they do not understand.

Current State:

The Whispering Bog has fallen almost entirely to the corruption. The fog that once guided lost souls has thickened into a choking mist, and the Spirit Pools now reflect twisted, malevolent faces. The bog itself has become a place of death, where the ground swallows those who walk too far into it, and ghostly apparitions attack the living instead of communing with them.

The Mossy Henge in the center of the bog is now a locus of dark magic. The stones are covered in black moss, and the area around them is constantly cloaked in shadows. Rituals performed here are now twisted, amplifying the dark magic rather than connecting to the spirits of the forest.

The Blackwater Streams

Slow, winding streams snake through the Boglands, their waters dark and thick, stained with tannins from the trees. These waters hold little life, save for twisted catfish, long eels, and ghostly pale frogs. Travelers fear these streams, as some do not reflect their own image, instead showing distorted figures or things moving just beneath the surface.

The Sunken Groves

Once part of the outer Gloomwood, these patches of dying, half-submerged trees mark where the bog is slowly reclaiming the land. Here, the roots of trees twist above and below the water, making for treacherous footing. Strange fungal growths sprout from the bark, glowing softly at night, and the air is thick with the scent of decay.

Feral Elves

The Fenstalkers (Boglands – The Most Numerous, Unpredictable, and Ruthless)

Description: The Fenstalkers are the largest and most feared of the feral elf clans, dwelling deep within The Boglands, where mist-wrapped ruins and treacherous quagmires conceal their hidden villages. Their warriors paint their bodies with mud and swamp-lichen, masking themselves in the damp stench of the fens, making them almost impossible to track.

They are fierce hunters and ambushers, using bog hounds, reed-wood bows, and poisoned spears to strike down their enemies before fading back into the murk. Their deep-rooted connection to the dead gives them an eerie presence, and it is whispered that their witch-doctors can call upon the spirits of those who drowned in the bog to aid them in battle.

• Hostility Towards Humans: Extreme. The Fenstalkers blame humanity for much of the corruption creeping into the forest, believing that human greed and weakness led to Isolde’s rise and the spread of the dark entity. They view all humans as trespassers and defilers and take gruesome trophies from those they kill. No human is welcome in their lands.
• Allegiance to the Witches: None. The Fenstalkers distrust all witches, seeing them as usurpers who claimed the mantle of the ancient forest spirits. However, some Fenstalker elders still remember Agatha’s rule before the darkness, and there are whispers of a fragile, unseen truce between the last of the old shamans and Agatha’s surviving allies.
• Famous Fenstalkers:
• Ruvac the Mireborn – The war-chief of the Fenstalkers, his skin stained with the black ichor of the drowned, his voice like the whisper of reeds in the wind. Said to be able to vanish into mist at will.
• Aelara the Hagcaller – An ancient, half-mad witch-doctor who speaks with the voices of the dead, her tongue blackened from years of drinking bogwater mixed with spirit’s blood.
• Varak Two-Spears – A younger warrior, rumored to be touched by something darker, wielding weapons of bone and shadow, more feared than even his own kin.

The Drowned Hands (Boglands – Ghosts of the Mire)

Description: The Drowned Hands are a cursed people, their clan elders said to have made a pact with the spirits of the bog centuries ago. They have an unsettling, spectral presence, their skin often stained ashen-grey by swamp minerals. Unlike other elves, they avoid the trees, preferring the sinking ruins and half-submerged burial grounds scattered throughout the Whispering Bog.

Their warriors are silent killers, striking from the water itself. They craft bone weapons and reed-woven cloaks that let them vanish into the murk, and they never speak above a whisper—for they believe that to raise their voice is to invite the dead to claim them.

• Hostility Towards Humans: Severe. They blame humans for disturbing the resting places of their ancestors and trespassing in their sacred waters. They drag intruders beneath the bog, letting them drown and join their ghostly ranks.
• Allegiance to the Witches: None. They see all witches as outsiders who interfere with the forest’s fate. However, there are rumors that some of their elders have spoken with Agatha in secret, searching for a way to undo their ancient curse.
• Notable Figures:
• Nymira the Drowned – A shaman with corpse-pale skin and eyes that seem to see into the spirit world. Some claim she has already died once.
• Erlis of the Mud-Slick Blade – A hunter who kills without a sound, dragging bodies into the swamp without leaving a ripple.

The Rootfangs (Boglands – The Snake Hunters of the Mire)

Description: Unlike most elves, the Rootfangs are scavengers and opportunists, more akin to wild animals than warriors. They live in small bands, lurking along the winding waterways of the fens, where the trees grow half-submerged and the ground is soft and treacherous. Their diet consists of serpents, fish, and swamp lizards, and they are masters of poison, using venom harvested from bog-cobras and mire toads.

They are known to lurk in trees, striking down with fang-toothed daggers or simply letting the bog itself claim intruders. They do not seek honor or glory, only survival.

• Hostility Towards Humans: Unpredictable. They do not attack humans outright but view them as food, trade, or prey. A Rootfang elf might sell a captured human to the Fenstalkers, eat them, or let them go if they bring something useful.
• Allegiance to the Witches: Isolde. The Rootfangs have always worshipped something dark, and some have offered their poisons to Isolde’s servants, believing her rise will spread the swamp’s dominion.
• Notable Figures:
• Zathis the Fang-Eater – A warrior with sharpened teeth, said to drink poison daily to strengthen himself.
• Morna the Black-Vein – A poison-brewer whose dark blood has made her immune to every venom in the swamp.

The Mireborn (Boglands – The Keepers of the Deep Pools)

Description: The Mireborn live in floating villages on the deepest, stillest parts of the bog, where unnatural silence fills the air. They claim to be descendants of something older than the elves, a lost people who walked the marsh before the first trees grew. Their skin is unusually dark, and they paint their faces with clay in intricate, spiral symbols.

They are guides and watchers, known to warn others of dangers rather than seek war. However, when they fight, they use long hunting spears and net traps, dragging their victims down into the black depths, where something older than time waits below.

• Hostility Towards Humans: Neutral. They ignore most humans but will hunt down and kill anyone who disturbs their waters.
• Allegiance to the Witches: Agatha. The Mireborn recognize Agatha’s power and sometimes offer her knowledge, for they believe she is one of the last true speakers of the old spirits.
• Notable Figures:
• Oris the Deepwatcher – A seer who has looked into the black waters and returned changed.
• Ulan of the Sunken Path – A warrior who hunts solely at night, his weapons laced with paralyzing swamp-spores.