#Swamp Hunting

[big8cola]

oc stuff yeahhh. yea

[kirby-the-gorb]

[dailyadventureprompts]

Dungeon: The Tithing House

For decades the gang of highwaymen known as the Gallerwood Outlaws were famed and feared for equal measure, melting out of the forest to rob merchants, nobles, even mages, before vanishing back into the trees. Even after their awful deaths at the hand of a bountyhunter some years ago folk still sing of their deeds, and of the secret hideaway in which they stored their ill gotten gains.

Adventure Hooks:

Folk have been saying that the ghosts of the Gallerwood outlaws have been stalking the roads near where their bodies were hanged, still looking for one last haul. The party are tasked with investigating rumours after a fearful carter was set upon by these spectres, losing something precious in the process. This provides the excellent framing for a first adventure as each member of the party can be invested in retrieving something different out of the carter's cargo giving them a reason to work in the same direction.

As they investigate, the party will discover that these ghosts are infact local toughs who have dressed up and painted themselves phosphorescent cave lichen in order to shake down passers by. After giving them a thrashing and a Scooby-Doo unmasking, the party can retrieve the stolen goods and return to the inn for celebratory drinking. In the dead of night one of the party awakens to a shadowy figure looming at the foot of their bed, spectral face illuminated by the ghoul-light that flickers in the bowl of their pipe. Evidently the story of the party's antics has spread, and it appears one of the real ghosts of the Gallerwood wants a word.

Frauds and phantoms aside,  entirely possible for the party to stumble across the dungeon while exploring the surrounding swampland, only realizing it served as a bandit hideout after stumbling into the remnants of their camp. 

Setup: The ghost introduces himself as the late Cullen Carver, once founding and now final member of the Gallerwood outlaws. Cullen has an offer for the party, and is willing to guide them to the cache kept by his fellow bandits if they will perform for him a last request. As Cullen explains it, neither he nor the other outlaw spirits will be able to rest so long as there is no end to their tale, and there can be no end so long as the mystery of their hidden treasure remains unsolved in the common imagination.

Cullen is in high spirits despite being dead, so the party should expect some gallows humour as the hanged man leads them through the swamp's hazards, eventually arriving at the outlaw's secret base: The Tithing House, a long abandoned temple of Erathis concealed within the depths of the wilderness that's become infested with all sorts of mire creatures since the thieves met their end.

Challenges & Complications:

The Outlaws kept their treasure in the temple's crypts, and to access these the part are going to need to venture through the gauntlet of dark chambers and traps the bandits set up to keep eachother's hands out of the cookie jar. Cullen can help with some of these, but the whole point of the traps was to keep his fellow thieves honest. The only other way into the vault is through a heavily reinforced door, the key to which is currently in the possession of the bountyhunter who hung the Gallerwoods from trees in the firstplace.

While the party has the pick of spoils, Cullen points out a particular chest kept apart from the rest and calls upon them to fulfill their end of the bargain. This chest was Cullen's nestegg, put aside from numerous heists and robberies to be delivered to his wife and children in the event of his death. With no surviving highwaymen to carry out the promise Cullen's REAL unfinished business comes to light. The party can keep their word, or they can snipe the treasure for themselves, earning the spectre's undying enmity and curse to boot.

To get out of the the Tithing House the party will need to face off with a demon of avarice.. but not in the traditional form of bossfight. He'll approach just as they're leaving the dungeon, taking the form of a plump old man with a grandfatherly smile who wears the spotless robes of an Erathian friar despite the flooded cemetery in which they stand. He is all calm words and politeness, congratulating them on making off with such a fine haul and urging them to never mind that silly old ghost and his wishes, banishing Cullen beneath a nearby grave so that they can talk cordially. The Smiling Friar explains that he had a deal with the highwaymen; feeding off the greed of their crimes in exchange for concealing their hideaway and passage through the forest. There's no reason the party couldn't renew the deal, become the new band of legendary thieves, save that they'll have to forsake their ghostly guide and his last act of charity. Should they turn him down the Smiling Friar will call up the dead of the cemetery to slaughter them, clearing the way for the next band of ambitious treasurehunters.

Art 1 Art 2

[reality-detective]

Connecting Dots 🤔

[arrayed-in-purple]

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐖𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐰𝐨𝐥𝐟 𝐨𝐟 𝐅𝐞𝐯𝐞𝐫 𝐒𝐰𝐚𝐦𝐩

𝐒𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐛𝐲 𝐑. 𝐋. 𝐒𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐞

𝐀𝐝𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲 𝐆𝐚𝐛𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐥 𝐇𝐞𝐫𝐧𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐳

𝐆𝐨𝐨𝐬𝐞𝐛𝐮𝐦𝐩𝐬 𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐩𝐡𝐢𝐱 𝐬𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐬 "𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐩𝐲 𝐂𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐬"

[peliginspeaks]

Today I bring you month-old doodles of Hallowrove having a rough day at work. Tomorrow? Who knows?

[drkmatt3rstudio]

Commission | Atlas Games Cryptid Hunt Pt 3

At the beginning of the year I was contacted by a publishing company and contracted to make all the art for an upcoming puzzle book they were making. I spent 5 months working on this, and I have so many pieces it’ll be broken up into multiple parts! This was the first half of Batch B.

Can I just say, I had no clue what the Rhinelander Hodag was before doing this commission??? It's one of those cryptids that was proven a hoax by the man who claimed it existed, and it is the funkiest lil creature I've ever seen.

The kickstarter has officially ended, and I found the link to the publishers listing, Cryptid Hunt releases for both digital and physical sale in July!

If you like my work and would like to support me, check out my links to my social media

instagram | facebook | shop website | buy me a ko-fi

[creaturesfromelsewhere]

New Tales of Florida Gothic - Chapter 6

"Despite my ghoulish reputation, I really have the heart of a small boy. I keep it in a jar on my desk." Robert Bloch

Whenever a freshly dug grave appears in your yard, you know it's time to kill again.

Although not native to Florida, many swamp witches cultivate Aspen trees for use as an extra set of eyes.

With basements so uncommon in Florida, most police never think to look for hidden trapdoors.

Something has been clawing at the trees in the swamp behind your house. A direct challenge to your territorial hunting grounds that cannot go unanswered.

Florida homes that survive hurrricanes unscathed are usually protected by the old gods, not the new.

Warning signs in Florida should be taken seriously. Very seriously.

creaturesfromelsewhere 11/22/2023

[witchhuntress]

Inada: This comic strip was supposed to be uploaded at the beginning of this year. It's now too late.

But from now on, our New Year has just begun!

*The date on Mai's phone is January 1

Spring festivals are underway in Japan this month so it is a kind of new year celebration too XD

[headspace-hotel]

-1032856342812477596

Mangrove Swamp/Jungle seed

[ferret-who-likes-robots]

another spoiler for the swamp things @missterious-figure fanfic im making!

I give us a cat,because I give reader a cat in a few of my fanfics and I love cats >:D

Heh heh, the start of the walk >:3

[theinvitedrider]

[lunasilvis]

Where would a woman be without her slippers/loafers/cozy indoor attire. you tell me 💛

[dailyadventureprompts]

Born from waters tainted by the arcane, the species known as mindleeches are a mostly innocuous pest that mostly trouble the dreams of apprentice wizards. Sometimes however, the psychic energies they feed upon can link the squirming beasts together in a nightmarish mass compelled to devour and terrorize to sustain it's makeshift consciousness.

You can feel it before you see it, a whisper of sensation in the corner of your mind that tells you that something is touching you slowly rises into a wave of discomfort and writhing fear. This is how the Mass hunts, questing out with its wordless telepathy for anything capable of response, something it can track down and feed upon until it is comatose and exsanguinated. Life for the mindleech mass is short and unplesant, like a fire it exists in a state of constant consumption, growing each time it is fed but needing to feed more and more as it grows. The creature is either then destroyed or the limit is hit and it devours its own consciousness, collapsing back into a pile of egoless animals.

In their natural state, mindleeches and their ability to sense and drain magic can be quite helpful, as they're often used to treat arcane maladies much the same way their mundane cousins can treat poor circulation. A jar of the lil buggers can likewise be used as a quick fix for detecting magical auras.

Adventure Hooks:

When sent to the swap to gather some leeches as a favour for the local healer, the party have no way of knowing that a dark artifact has been dropped into the local waters, imbuing the creepy crawlies with a malign sapience. After they defeat the beast, the artifact will come spilling out on a tide of wiggling wormbodies, leaving them to decide what to do with it.

A hazing prank between students at the local magic college went too far and one of the apprentices ended up drowned in the sewers during a storm. Before they died their body ended up swept into a nest of thought leeches, who absorbed the student's fear and resentment and began to swarm. Now the Mass hunts students and faculty through the pipes and drains of the school, leaving the sort of bloodless bodies behind that may have the party thinking they're hunting a vampire.

Though it was once a place of beauty and arcane might, the elven enclave of Xor'Izil is today nothing more than a boggy ruin. None alive today remember its downfall, save for the colony of mindleeches that now dwell in its flooded foundations. Bred for a now forgotten war, the leeches burst free from their containment and in a single day and night devoured the inhabitants of the elven city, granting it a stockpile of psychic energy that has sustained the Mass through centuries. Now in possession of the semi-digested consciousnesses of a coterie of elven warmages, the Mindleech Mass seeks to evolve itself into a sustainable, and even more dangerous form: A Worm-that-walks. In order to do so it'll need a suitable vessel to devour and then possess, say a powerful mage allied to the party.

Mindleech Mass belongs to Magic the gathering,

Art by Kev Walker

Initial stats Stats by the mtgtodnd converter

Formatting thanks to the Griffglyph monster maker

[raddest-hat-showdown]

🎩RADDEST HAT LOSERS ROUND👒

Choose who will make it into the Loser's bracket!

[quoth-the--raven]

Love these tiny references