C1E12: Swamp Things

Morning in Barelben The FGC steps out of The Mossy Door, with Sable in the lead. The morning air is a wet kind of cold, given the humidity that permeates the swamp vicinity. Over a hot breakfast, she laid out the basic plan:

1. Granny's house is usually found on the opposite side of the Ounterloch. It's a good 50 miles across at the widest point. 2. There's a bridge that lets you go around, but you have to back out of the swamp to get there, and that would cost vaulable time. 3. There's an abandoned outpost called The Faithful's Folly,  or just The Folly for short. It sits at a forked tribuary that flows into the Ounterloch. It's used by smugglers and guides in equal measure, and there's usually boats there, albeit in varying states of disrepair. It's also close to one of the narrowest points in the lake, making it a good spot to get across. 4. We'll hike to The Folly, grab a boat, get across, and hopefully not get killed in the process (there are lots of nasty things that live in and around the Ounterloch). 5. The round trip will involve at least one overnight stay, depending on how fast you make progress.

Once she gets you to granny, she'll wait for you outside the house. Assuming you come back out, she will help get you back again. If you find your friend on the way, so much the better.

> Glancing around the city, not a lot of folks are moving. It seems like the nature of the swamp town is a little bit of a slower pace of living by the nature of the location. The few folks that are wandering around the streets are slowly getting to their daily chores and business. No one seems to be particularly interested. A few folks look over because you are a gathered motley crew on the edge of town, but there's no one who seems to be very focused in what's going on. > The path out to the open swamp takes you down from the central area of town and into what seems to be the oldest part of Barelben. The entirety of this section of town is standing in between one to three inches of water, and is slowly sinking into the swamp.   Your feet become submerged, and it’s like slowly wading through a tide at the beach. This district is also very much the impoverished side of Barelben. If you could imagine an area of the swamp more impoverished than what you've already come across, this is it. Buildings consist of small huts and hovels, mostly made of stone. Algae and other swamp plants grow from the bases of these buildings up the sides, where the water reaches. There’s a fountain that has crumbled in on itself, with brackish water that has seeped into the ruins. It is a sober reminder of Barelben’s more prosperous past. > As you move past the outer edges of Barelben, you hear the bugs beginning to grow louder with the distant cicada/cricket sounds in the distance echoing through the swamp. There is a low fog that is fairly prominent this early in the day. You can see about 15 or 20 feet beyond the barrier of the outer swamp before the moisture begins to pick up. You see just the shaded trunks of trees beyond that for another 60 or so feet before it becomes completely obscured by fog.You have traveling about 30 feet of general visibility, and then it begins to get obscured beyond that. With the limited visibility, your other sense engage. The incessant hum of the insects mingles with the musky stench of decaying plants and stagnant water. Echoes of history > The swamp teems with life despite it’s decidedly decayed and squashy presentation.  The mists in front of you clear only slightly, revealing the low remains of a wall and a single, standing vaulted arch of grey stone that rises proudly from the moss at its feet. Collected on the edges of the muck, or emerging from stagnant pools, the odd drab yet bold flower, plant, or fungus emerges towards the faint light, and the pools themselves occasionally glisten with a rainbow sheened, oily substance. Taking a moment to examine the arch, our adventurers realize the markings are a pre-calamity form of script, and that the arch was a roadside shrine to The Change Bringer. Beyond this arch lies the beginnings of a path, made of boards of varying width and repair, swollen with moisture.

The Change Bringer's ArchThe archway is surrounded by exotic flora and fauna, and the FGC takes a few minutes to harvest swamp things and set puddles of Swamp Oil on fire.

Khoraka takes a moment to pay his respects. His clothes are rifled by an unseen wind, and he's left shaken. His friends take the opportunity to ask a bit about the history of his whip and his powers.

A path ill-traveled > You pick your way over the path and down into a low lying area where a river meanders, achingly slowly, across the swampy floor. The river is roughly 45 feet across at its widest point. Scrubby trees dot the sides of the path, and lichen slowly eats away at the soft, rotting wood under your feet. You pass soft and swollen tree stumps and patches of moss-like grass. Through the swirling fog, You see a bridge that crosses the river. The river waters break around several large objects just to the left of the bridge from your vantage point, in the middle of the dank waters. Stones? Monsters? > As the fog before you clears in lazy patches, you realize it’s not a stone; it’s what was once a well-appointed carriage. A short distance downstream are the mostly-decomposed, skeletal remains of several horses that pulled it. The cause of their accident is clear; the bridge that you saw from further away is washed out on the far side of the shore. There’s a small islet in the middle that holds the pilings that supported the bridge at the center. The bridge on this side is badly damaged as well. You also realize that the carriage must have a dark history... because there's a corpse flower [https://www.dndbeyond.com/monsters/corpse-flower] growing not far downstream from the wreck. And it doesn't like people. At all. STINKY VEGETABLE ZOMBIE BATTLE ENSUES!

Atmospheric Playlist Since folks liked my swampy music, here's the playlist I was using.