The Bog Creatures

The Lurker Toad is usually anywhere from one to three feet long with the occasional four or five footer here and there. They can weigh up to 100 pounds. Some stories allege that if they live long enough they can grow much bigger but most reasonable people would consider that unsubstantiated nonsense. The Lurker Toad comes in a plethora of colors and patterns various shades of black, brown, green, and grey, with brightly colored stomachs flecked with any number of random colors in any random order. The Lurker Toad has exceptional camouflage and can wait motionless for hours while it prepares for the large dragonflies of the bog to pass by. The Lurker Toad's most unique quality is its ability to both mimic sounds it hears and to seemingly remember them for later use. It is capable of repeating long sentences and even allegedly reproducing the song of a Bjonsí. This ability to mimic vocalizations has allowed the Toad to ambush small birds and even Rot-Rats.Though the Toad is quite poisonous the most dangerous part of it is its barbed tongue which can tear skin from flesh and flesh from bone. The Bog-Dwellers have developed a resistance to the effects of the toads poison.

Rot-Rats can get up to three feet in length and weigh about 20 pounds. They generally live in a communal fashion, with there being usually a dozen or so individuals in the pack. Rot-Rats are highly intelligent and are occasionally tamed for companionship by the bog-dwellers. Their bite is both strong and lethal as they carry a host of diseases and plagues in their saliva.

Mud-Jaws are usually between three and six feet in length but can sometimes grow larger. They are large, slippery amphibians with very wide mouths and sharp hooked teeth. They have wide, crescent shaped heads and bright colors which they hide by covering themselves in mud. Like the Lurker Toad the Mud-Jaws are ambush predators that often lay motionless and covered in mud as they wait for prey to either stumble upon them or become stuck. Due to the sheer strength of its bite, a Mud-Jaw is capable of killing most any creature that roams the bog.

The Snapweed is an easily avoidable threat if one is cautious enough when roaming the bogs. The plant grows out long ground covering vines from its center that are coated with countless sensory hairs and spines. If any pressure is sensed on one of these vines, it instantly curls up and entangles the victim while curling it back into the central pit of the plant to be digested.

The Bjonsí are a true mystery. In the dim twilight of the dusk and dawn the Song-Spirits gather in the mists upon the water to wash the blood from their ethereal raiment, or so it is said. From dusk into midnight and unto dawn the Bjonsí float and wander aimlessly about the bogs and hills sobbing inconsolably to themselves. Perhaps they were human once, but there are whispers that they are perhaps older than man. You do not know of anyone alive now who has looked upon the face of one of these creatures. They are unnatural and by all accounts an abomination in the eyes of nature. That which cannot survive should stay dead.

The tales passed down from Vredda describe them in the following way; They are all female. They look out upon the land with their eyes shining and wide like searchlights upon the landscape, their cheeks bright red from many tears. Their forms appear as skeletons with only the thinnest of pallid skin stretched across their slender bones. A diaphanous shroud of aether wafts about them as though it were garb to cover their nakedness, their long willowy arms and gaunt fingers outstretched to embrace the empty space before them. When they know someone is nearby the Song-Spirits sing, and only Vredda was able to live to recount what it sounded like. By her account it was a low and pleasant song, a tune that was equal parts beauty and horror, it was a lament of some kind filled with profound sorrow. Though hearing it did not kill Vredda the first time, she was never able to smile or laugh again. It is whispered that when she heard that mournful melody, a part of her most certainly did die. Since you have never seen one, you wonder if perhaps it is all myth, but the Ardri are not an inherently superstitious people.

The Wights are horrid beings. It is said that they can be smelled long before they can be seen and that their very essence is that of putrefaction. They are shorter than your kind and nearly hairless with some oil black protrusions dangling from their heads. A thin, pustule coated, grey skin covers their slight frames. A split runs down each of their faces vertically from their brow to their chin, revealing waxen jawbones and tar colored gore. They sulk in the lowest parts of the wetlands and wallow in decay whilst they wait to pull victims under the surface. Like the Bjonsí they have human-like attributes, though they are definitely NOT human.