Semitropical Swamp

Voracious scavengers, giant maggots feed constantly, gorging themselves on the dead in preparation for their transformation into giant flies. Their pallid, corpulent bodies are the size of human children, and their rasping teeth are capable of eating even the bones of a corpse. Giant maggots have no legs, and move with a disturbing undulation as they crawl over their meals. Giant maggots feed for 2 weeks (often moving from one corpse to another) before entering a pupal stage, after which they emerge as giant flies.

These small, intelligent, humanoid tree frogs live in primitive societies deep in the forests and marshes of the world. They hunt giant insects and eat fruits and flowers from their tree homes. They often barter with more advanced creatures for metal and gemstone ornaments. Grippli hatchlings develop into adults in less than a year. Unless they meet a savage end from a forest threat, they can live 60 years, their skin graying and losing its luster as they age. A grippli stands just over 2 feet in height and weighs 30 pounds.

Stirges are vicious, blood-drinking swamp pests that prey on wild animals, livestock, and unwary travelers. While weak individually, swarms of the creatures are capable of draining a man dry in minutes, leaving only a desiccated husk in their wake. Closer to mammals than insects, stirges carry their bodies through the air on four fleshy wings, searching out warm-blooded prey. They are fond of hiding near watering holes and waiting for travelers to drop their guard, then swooping out to attach and drink their fill by thrusting their long feeding tubes into unprotected veins. After feeding they f lap heavily off into the mud and reeds to lay their eggs and rest until hunger drives them to hunt again. Stirges are usually 1 foot long, with a wingspan of twice that, and weigh just under a pound. Their coloration is rust-red or reddish-brown with a dirty yellow underbelly, though stirges that have not fed in some time are often pale pink, their color deepening as they gorge.

Much like their tiny cousins, giant flies feed upon carrion. Wholly monstrous, these disgusting creatures have been known to sometimes attack still-living foes, particularly when they are hungry or living creatures disturb their meals. Some species of giant fly bear their larva live, ejecting piles of undulating giant maggots from their engorged abdomens rather than laying eggs in decaying corpses.

Giant frogs have razor-sharp teeth lining their mouths. They are 6 feet long and weigh 200 pounds.

These invertebrate parasitic relatives of the worm lurk in stagnant or slow-moving water, waiting for a suitable host.

While not technically a dinosaur, the plesiosaurus is often found in waterways and swamps where dinosaurs and other megafauna are common. Long-necked and swift, these ambush predators prefer to dart in, bite a foe, and then swim away to hide while they wait for their victim to bleed out before swimming back to feed. Numerous species of this creature exist, from marsh-dwelling varieties to creatures that spend their entire lives at sea.  A plesiosaurus measures 11 feet long, though nearly half of this length is neck, and weighs 1,000 pounds.

In some lands, nixies are evil creatures who lead folk to drown in their waters, either by captivating their targets with song or by assuming the form of an animal or humanoid and tricking a hunter or explorer into dangerous waters. These evil nixies prefer dwelling in festering swamps or blighted fens, and are typically known as bog nixies. The fact that a bog nixie can grant minor wishes, ironically, only increases their opportunities for evil, as brave or foolish explorers deliberately seek them out.

Giant dragonflies are rare compared to other varieties of giant insects, and fortunately so, since they are voracious hunters of warm-blooded prey, including humanoids. The creatures typically lair in overgrown or lightly wooded areas, using foliage as cover. When they spot potential prey out in the open, the dragonflies swoop to the attack, using their superior flight speed and maneuverability to run most prey to ground or carrying off smaller foes to eat them somewhere safe. Giant dragonflies feed on carrion when fresh prey is not available, and the scent of a fresh kill often attracts them. Many swamp-dwelling cultures attach religious significance to brightly colored and ravenous giant dragonflies, particularly boggards. The frog-men attach particular significance to a giant dragonfly’s color, and their priest-kings often refuse to eat anything but specific colors of giant dragonflies. Giant dragonflies lay clutches of eggs in swampy terrain or areas of standing water. Their young, called nymphs, voraciously eat carrion and small prey, growing and maturing rapidly until they sprout fully functional wings and become adult dragonflies.

This horrifying cloud of ravenous, blood-draining parasites eschews the stealth of a lone leech’s methods in favor of swift and merciless feeding.

Tentamorts are eerie ambush predators, preferring to let prey come to them rather than seeking food out, and relying on their excellent senses to warn them of approaching meals. A tentamort possesses several tentacles, most of which are used for locomotion but two of which have evolved for singular purposes in securing food. One of these longer tentacles is covered with tiny, sticky nodules and is capable of constricting prey, while the other ends in a long, thin stinger. The tentamort’s method of attack is to grab its prey with its constricting tentacle and sting the grappled target with the other. Tentamort poison is particularly horrific, as it swiftly liquefies the creature’s internal organs into a rancid slurry the monster can then drink with the same stinger, siphoning out the fluid with foul sucking sounds. Larger creatures often require multiple stings (and multiple failed saving throws against the venom) before they can be fully absorbed by a tentamort. Tentamorts are almost mindless, possessing just enough intellect to make crude animal judgments about peril and food. Once a tentamort has grabbed prey, it tends to focus entirely on that creature, ignoring attacks upon it from other sources as long as its current victim remains a source of nutrition. After a tentamort finishes consuming a creature, all that typically remains are the bones and skin. A well-fed tentamort uses the hollow corpse of its meal as a sort of incubator for its eggs, injecting the body with a caviar-like mass of black eggs that mature in the rotting carcass for several weeks until a dozen or so hand-sized tentamorts hatch and crawl out of their host’s orifices. Depending upon the availability of other prey, anywhere from one to six of these may survive, feeding on rats and Tiny vermin, until they eventually grow to adulthood. Tentamort young look like dark blue starfish with a single red eye in the center—they do not possess their longer, specialized tentacles until they mature. A young tentamort often attaches itself to a larger predator, clinging to it much the same way a remora clings to a shark, dropping off to feed innocuously on its host’s kills while the creature sleeps. Some tentamorts grow much larger than their human-sized kin. Known as greater tentamorts, these ogre-sized creatures have at least 10 Hit Dice and are Large sized. Their two specialized tentacles grow to 20 feet long, providing the creature with greater reach than a Large monster normally possesses. Greater tentamorts are never found in groups, for these creatures can only achieve such monstrous size through cannibalism, as if there were some key nutrient in another tentamort’s body that allows them to exceed their typical physical limitations. Some of these creatures have mutations giving them two tentacles and two stingers. Yet the most disturbing quality possessed by these monsters is their unexpected intellect—greater tentamorts are often as intelligent as humans, or more so. They cannot speak, but possess an eerie form of telepathy that works only upon creatures they are in physical contact with—a feature they often use to “chat” with their food as they eat.

Infamous among travelers for its deadly poisonous bite, the emperor cobra is a foul-tempered snake typically encountered in bogs. The snake’s scales are generally a dark green, with a pale green or even ivory underbelly. Its eyes are bright red and lack the distinctive serpentine slit most snake eyes possess. Emperor cobras are often trained to serve as guardians in temples. They are 16 feet long and weigh 200 pounds.

Horrifically enlarged versions of the common mosquito, giant mosquitoes bring death on swift wings. A single specimen can drain the blood from a human adult with shocking speed, while swarms of fist-sized mosquitoes can lay waste to herds of livestock or entire villages. In the wild, giant mosquitoes prey upon megafauna like dinosaurs and other huge creatures. Giant mosquitoes grow to 6 feet in length, and weigh up to 150 pounds. Variant species of giant mosquitoes exist, although not in the great diversity seen in many other giant vermin. The most common variant is the smaller goblin mosquito (a giant mosquito with the young creature template), but stories of Large jungle mosquitoes (giant mosquitoes with the advanced and giant simple templates) are not unheard of.

Mudlords are agile creatures made of living mud. Some are natural elemental creatures, and others were created by long-term mixing of earth and magical water, such as by an enchanted fountain or pool leaking into the surrounding soil. Regardless of their origin, mudlords are xenophobic and highly territorial. They avoid contact with humanoid creatures, and go to great lengths to ensure their mud filled lairs are far from any humanoid settlements. If a group of humanoids settles too close to a mudlord enclave, the mudlords aggressively attempt to eradicate the humanoid infestation from their lands. Because its natural form is a loose pile of mud and it can flatten itself even further, a common mudlord tactic is to blend in with a swamp, quicksand, or other depression in the earth (using its freeze ability to resemble a mud puddle) and wait for intruders to approach. Among their own kind, mudlords are rambunctious and playful, engaging in wrestling matches, mud throwing contests, and races. They have been known to ally with earth, mud, and water elementals, but consider themselves the superiors in these alliances because of their greater intelligence. Exceptional mudlords often become druids, oracles, or rangers, and are more tolerant of humanoids, often accepting tribute from tribes of boggards, goblins, or lizardfolk in exchange for truces. Some arise from contaminated sources (such as a demon imprisoned in water) and these might ally themselves with fiends, slimes, or other strange creatures. A typical mudlord stands 7 feet tall and weighs 250 pounds.

No simple garden pests, giant slugs pose a serious threat to those caught in their path. Folk who dwell near swamps and other regions that support giant slugs risk losing livestock and even their homes to these enormous beasts. Giant slugs constantly wander in search of food, their preference being fleshy organic material, which they slice into smaller, easily gulped chunks with their rasp-like tongues. What strange inf luence might have caused the first giant slugs to grow to such monstrous proportions is unknown, but today, giant slugs breed true and birth their oversized offspring after a fleshy, squirming courtship ritual. After mating, a female giant slug lays just over a hundred eggs, each approximately a foot in diameter. The mother slug guards this clutch fiercely and aggressively attacks any creatures that wander too close. Giant slugs inhabiting swamps aboveground mate once a year, and those who live in the area know better than to go into the swamps during this month. Deep below ground, some subterranean races use giant slugs as mounts or guardians. Creatures like mites, who have a strange empathy with vermin, can be used to keep giant slugs docile, but in most cases, those who would use giant slugs must do so with great care, keeping them well fed until they are needed for battle. Frightened whispers report armies of troglodytes using giant slugs as siege mounts. One particularly disturbing tale mentions a vast underground cavern inhabited by scores of skum and aboleth-controlled aquatic giant slugs with strange, mind-numbing abilities infused into their acidic saliva.