Marécage Langue‑Crochet - Rencontres Aléatoires
- One night while drinking with the hearty people of Kirya—their suspiciousness dispelled by our honest enjoyment of their honeyed nalewka—we heard it called Varlet Well and the Devoted Drown. Their stories say that long ago, by her father’s greed, a local beauty came to be betrothed to a despicable old man. Rather than feel his clutches, she stole her own dowry and offered it to the god of the pool if he would save her from her fate. The wicked spirit agreed and bid her cast herself into his waters, where she promptly drowned. They say that ever since then, the maiden has sobbed, filling the pool with her tears, and has offered her hand to any man who nears, pulling him in to join her in death. Tomorrow, I would meet this maid myself.
- —From The Record of Truan Iolavai
Creatures of the tangled bogs and murky waterways of the north fill this month’s entry into the Bestiary. Emerging from these fetid depths come the ahuizotl, the leshy, and the nuckelavee, creatures long warned of in the folklore of the real world, while Neil Spicer’s savage bog strider makes its deadly debut in this volume’s adventure. Ed Greenwood’s calathgar, a frosty, flowering menace of Iobaria, also creeps in from the frigid frontier, threatening all who encounter it with a freezing death. Any of these creatures might rise from the bogs featured in this month’s adventure or emerge from the depths of Iobaria to visit new menaces upon the people of Avistan.
Swamp ThingS
The Slough, the third region of the Stolen Lands that the PCs explore and the setting of “Blood for Blood,” is both dominated by and named for the Hooktongue Slough. A vast pit of mud and mystery, home to tales of monstrous creatures and dark magic, the Slough hides all manner of dangers, both natural and drawn there by the foul things that fester within its depths. While many of the creatures found in this Bestiary fit well, and others included in “Blood for Blood” might see multiple uses, GMs have a variety of other options to add danger and flavor to their adventures. Foremost, Chapter 13 of the Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook presents useful details on marsh terrain, with the rules for bogs and quicksand being of particular use. GMs might also look to the rules on suffocating found on page 445 of the Core Rulebook to recreate hazards with the risk of drowning. As several of the creatures in this volume’s Bestiary live beneath the sea or within the muck of reeking bogs, their tactics often rely upon attempts to grapple air-breathing creatures and drag them down to watery ends. While many PCs possess options to avoid the gradual death of drowning, NPCs often make perfect targets to help inspire a bit of fear of what lurks beneath the waves. Several creatures from previous volumes of the Kingmaker Adventure Path might prove helpful, specifically the tendriculos from page 28 of volume #32 and the mudmen from page 15 of volume #33. Finally, GMs expecting to run combat encounters in this region, either as part of this volume’s adventure or from the random encounter table presented below, might also consider using the GameMastery Flip-Mat : Swamp, specifically designed to supplement battles in this boggy terrain.
The Slough Random Encounters
| Hills | Lake/River | Plains | Swamp | Encounter | CR | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| — | — | — | 1–6 | Quicksand | — | Core Rulebook 427 |
| 1–6 | 1–8 | 1–3 | 7–10 | 1d4 constrictor snakes | 4 | Bestiary 255 |
| 7–15 | — | 4–11 | 11–13 | 2d6 zombies | 4 | Bestiary 288 |
| 16–25 | — | 12–20 | 14–15 | 1 basilisk | 5 | Bestiary 29 |
| 26–39 | 9–21 | 21–36 | — | 1d6 elk | 5 | Pathfinder #31 80 |
| — | 22–27 | — | 16–17 | 1 ahuizotl | 6 | see page 80 |
| 40–48 | — | 37–47 | — | 1 ettin | 6 | Bestiary 130 |
| — | 28–35 | — | 18–22 | 2d4 giant leeches | 6 | Bestiary 187 |
| — | 36–42 | 48–52 | 23–30 | 2d6 boggards | 7 | Bestiary 37 |
| 49–53 | — | 53–55 | 31–35 | 1d6 calathgars | 7 | see page 84 |
| — | — | — | 36–43 | Camouflaged spiked pit trap | 8 | Core Rulebook 421 |
| 54–61 | 43–46 | 56–62 | 44–47 | 1 dark naga | 8 | Bestiary 211 |
| — | 47–53 | — | 48–53 | 1 giant slug | 8 | Bestiary 254 |
| — | 54–63 | — | 54–59 | 1d6 swamp eels* | 8 | Bestiary 119 |
| — | — | — | 60–62 | 3 green hags | 8 | Bestiary 167 |
| 62–65 | — | — | 63–66 | 1d6 basidironds | 8 | Bestiary 28 |
| — | 64–69 | — | 67–71 | 2d8 bog striders | 8 | see page 82 |
| 66–72 | — | 63–71 | 72–74 | 1d4 dracolisks | 9 | Bestiary 170 |
| 73–78 | 70–77 | 72–76 | 75–77 | 1 nuckelavee | 9 | see page 88 |
| 79–87 | 78–84 | 77–84 | 78–82 | 1d6 will-o’-wisps | 9 | Bestiary 277 |
| — | 85–89 | — | 83–85 | 1d6 chuuls | 10 | Bestiary 46 |
| 88–93 | 90–95 | 85–90 | 86–89 | 1d8 shambling mounds | 10 | Bestiary 246 |
| — | — | 91–93 | 90–91 | 1d4 treants | 10 | Bestiary 266 |
| — | — | — | 92–93 | 1 hezrou | 11 | Bestiary 62 |
| 94–98 | 96–98 | 94–98 | 94–96 | 1d6 spirit nagas | 12 | Bestiary 213 |
| 99–100 | 99–100 | 99–100 | 97–100 | 1d4 adult black dragons | 13 | Bestiary 92 |
- Same stats as giant moray eel