The third in my series of d100 random encounter tables by terrain type for the Furthest Lands continent, this time swamps and marshlands. Plains/grasslands, and forest/jungle were the other two, and there are at least seven (not counting the *Special* table) more in various stages of completion. Ideally I would've spaced out swamp and jungle more, but I needed to get the swamp list finished to head off some players.
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Swamp - 33%/day
01-02 Giant
Salt-Fen Spitter – a thirty foot amphibious worm that sprays acid
and corrosive enzymes from its bulb-like head.
03-04 Catoblepas
– the body of an emaciated water buffalo, the lumpen head of a
warthog on a shaggy giraffe neck. The catoblepas kills any creature
that meets its eyes, and poisons the area around it. All the food it
eats is rotten and ruined, and it remains hungry at all times. Some
enjoy submerging their bodies in deep water, letting their massive
heads float on the surface, found this way they are incredibly
dangerous. Milk and live animals are quite valuable. It is said
that if a catoblepas could be fed from an early age food that
wouldn't rot, it would mature into a beast of another nature.
05-06 Quicksand/Sinkhole
– suffocating quicksand or a random sinkhole appears beneath party
and/or in direction of movement.
07-08 Tanystropheus
– crocodile-sized, low-bodied reptiles with long stiff necks. Fish
and bird eaters, will attack a person only territorially, in
self-defense, or desperation.
09-10 Marsh
Squirterhorse Family – well camouflaged dog-sized seahorse-like
fish, uses their blowgun snouts in the manner of a deadly archerfish.
Fires a spray of acid and enzymes that slowly consume metal, quickly
consume organic material, and has no effect on stone.
11-12 Fasinaa
Group (1d6)
1. Hunters
2. Bandits
3. Trading
Group
4. Liar of Tsugumi
5. Sorcerer
6. Ranger
13-14 Giant
Mosquito Swarm – massive man-sized mosquitoes, capable of
completely draining a person of blood in minutes. Many carry
horrible blood-borne diseases, and the victims of others return from
the dead as withered zombies.
15-16 Swamp
Zombie Herd – the putrid flesh of many swamp zombies carries a
great threat of disease and infection, may be submerged and attack
waders, or be surrounded by a nauseating stench.
17-18 Choke-creeper
- strangling vine monster.
19-20 Bronzebeak
Fisher - giant kingfisher bird with a metallic beak, huge, aggressive
and territorial. Attacks characters wearing shining objects (armor, jewellery, iridescent fabric) who it confuses for fish.
21-22 Giant
Vicemouth Turtle – massive, car-sized snapping turtle, swallows
prey whole or severs limbs.
23-24 Marsh
Rats - oddly intelligent, tool-using, plan-making rodents of unusual
size.
25-26 Ogres
(1d6)
1. Freshly Cursed: hateful, sadistic, a great parody of an
iele, berserker.
2. Freshly Cursed, Mage: a great mad
spellcaster, random magic specialization.
3. Second Gen.:
Warrior
4. Second Gen.: Priest
5. Second Gen.: Sorcerer/Wizard
6. Second Gen.: "Paladin"
27-28 Swamp
Filth – a collective term for various oozes and jellies of the
marshlands.
29-30 Electric
Eel – a normal or a giant electric eel, giants can discharge two or
three times as often as normal eels, both are highly valuable
captured alive.
31-32 Fenflies
– giant biting flies, some leave stinging lightly poisoned wounds
(weakness, pain), some leave diseases, some insert eggs into wounds.
33-34 Lanternhulk
– a bag-like creature, like a great toothless mouth, large as a
room, its slug-like foot an anchor buried beneath the surface.
Draped in plants, filth, and natural illusions it can resemble a cave
if it wishes to hunt during the day. At night the Lanternhulk earns
its name, displaying various forms of bioluminescence, lights within
its mouth, lights on mobile tendrils, as well as floating biomagical
light effects. Prey that enters the creature's mouth is enfolded,
sometimes suffocated, sometimes drugged, eventually dissolved.
35-36 Bear-frog
– a head and powerful forelimbs reminiscent of a bear, partly
furred, with the elongated leaping back legs of a frog. Unlike the
famous Owlbear, the Bear-frog is a “natural” animal, though it
shares the Owlbear's preference for attacking magic-users.
37-38 Koolasuchus
– massive, spade-headed amphibious salamander, can swallow M-sized
prey whole.
39-41 Otyugh
(single/pair) – the Wretched Sages, the repulsive and often
murderously hungry otyughs are common in the swamps, where they dine
on and bathe in decaying matter. Because they are in constant
telepathic communication with every being they encounter, and despite
their poor intelligence, they are sought out occasionally for the
wisdom of fools. Otyughs in pairs are engaged in philosophical
argument and are eager for outside input... or a quick snack.
42-43 Suitable
Elemental (mud / water / death)
44-46 Snake
(1d4) – as usual, every snake is intelligent and able to speak.
Venomous and constrictor snakes love hostage situations and making
deals, spitting snakes often work in concert with other creatures,
intelligent or otherwise.
1. Venomous
2. Giant
Constrictor
3. Venom Spitting
4. Elder Serpent - giant,
venomous, highly intelligent, wizard or cleric spells.
47-48 Giant
Sundew – a massive deadly sundew plant, slightly mobile, vaguely
aware. Positions itself at choke points, waterlines, feeding and
nesting grounds. The peculiar odor of its digestion attracts oozes.
49-50 Brown
Pudding – this gelatinous creature will consume any organic
material, but vastly prefers larger living prey, for this reason they
are often encountered semi-dormant in “pudding pits”, their
orifices concentrating downward, slowly dissolving the decaying
matter beneath them, but will form up and become mobile after a round
or two.
51-53 Naga
- the “oldest masters”, they are selfish, secretive, and
suspicious. They can be civilized folk, cold-blooded killers, slave
takers, or enigmatic guardians, depending on the day. The Naga have
their own small city-temples, but they are not fond of each other's
company.
54-55 Dark
Banyan – a strangled treant, completely dominated by the parasitic
magical fig vine that took epiphytic root in its body. A wooden
tentacled mass capable of cruel nature magics, and the control of
other ill-willed vegetable creatures (Ollgrad, Boskbeasts in
particular).
56-57 Iele
Group (1d6)
1. Hunters
2. Trading Group
3. Ranger
4.
Explorers
5. Random Priest
6. Random Mage
58 Vampiric
Moss – inanimate hanging moss that drains the lifeforce of a nearby
creature after establishing a link, consumes a set amount of hp, and
loses link when victim leaves its 30' area of effect.
59-60 Giant
Water Beetle – an eight foot predatory water (diving) beetle,
ambushes prey at the water's surface, or attacks underwater. May
create a “pen” of trapped air to preserve live creatures
underwater.
61-62 MutantTroll Pack - slightly undersized trolls that mutate as they
regenerate. Amphibious, regenerate slightly faster than those of
other terrain. During regeneration of massive damage they can fuse
together into larger abominations or break into smaller, independent,
ruined parts.
63-64 Ollgrad
- small, bloodthirsty (literally) root people.
65-66 Giant
Leech – three to ten foot long leeches, potentially deadly, more
difficult to remove, and much more likely to transmit a blood born
disease than normal leeches.
67-68 Suitable
Nature Spirit
1. Phlebeth - like a Kappa, keeps its mouth full
of water to remain strong on land. Can adopt the shape of a person,
but is always wet and silent.
2. Sclarrianth – an attendant
spirit of Skraosh the goddess of evolution, an amorphous entity with
a will and strength to bestow a mutation, create a new species,
bestow one of the lycanthropic raptures, or create a chaos blessed
area. The Sclarrianth can be argued with and guided in its gift
giving to a certain extent, but must give and expire in the
process.
3. Mucugulob – this spirit attaches itself to a
creature transforming it to a locus of disease and decay, slowly
kills host who eventually becomes a powerful cursed undead, infects
others with rotting and wasting illnesses. Appears to host
initially as an almost pokemon-like stylized semi-real animal.
4.
Waiwie "Tilted Scale" (Chaos Spirit) - from a distance a
glowing dragonfly, closer just branching luminous nerves. A spirit
that takes/erases elements of law and society from an individual and
replaces them with natural elements (Example: the Waiwei steals your
money and replaces it with meat or seeds, or maybe erases the
Fasinaa language from your mind and replaces it with the tongue of
flowers or birds).
69 Mud
Dragon – fat-bodied amphibious dragons, wingless and scaleless,
with weak tiny eyes and round, toothless jaws, a dragon that looks
like a catfish and a salamander. Mud dragons are slow and stubborn,
they spend much of their time asleep buried beneath mulch and silt
and clay and brackish water, slowly eating, chewing, and digesting
vast mouthfuls of earth, and rendering it into thick gooey mud. The
thick mud is the dragon's “breath weapon”, victims of failed
saves are mostly/completely buried in mud, others in area slimed,
additional 'stinking cloud' effect.
70-71 Boskbeast
(Shambling Mound) - animate heap of rotting vegetative matter, always
hungry for intelligent beings.
72-73 Marsh
Gas (1d4)
1.
Flammable/Explosive – area of party movement contains an invisible
gas that will explode on contact with open flame.
2.
Inebriating – area of party movement contains an invisible
drug-like gas of various effects.
3.
Deadly – area of party movement contains a deadly gas that has at
least one noticeable sign.
4.
Nauseating – area of party movement contains a gas with a
nauseating stench, as per 'stinking cloud'.
74-75 Skunk
Ape – bigfoot, sasquatch, yowie, yeti, a large hairy humanoid of
tremendous strength, adept at traversing the marshes undetected.
Some accounts portray this “swamp man” as a malicious,
territorial beast, others as a gentle hermit.
76-77 Muckdweller
– take the 2nd ed. MM entry as truth, but they look like
mudskipper fish, done.
78-79 Poisonous
Frog (1d6)
1. Bloodmask Frog - red face, black or yellow body,
neurotoxic and quickly fatal.
2. Moon Frog - light blue and
white, causes intense hallucinations for 3d6 hours.
3. Opal Frog
- darkly iridescent skin, vomiting and diarrhea for 1d6 days.
4.
Vrian's Peeper - light green body with orange head, very small,
paralysis for 1d20 hours.
5. Firefrog - yellow, orange, red and
purple, severe itching rash for 1d4 weeks.
6. Mist Frog - purple
to dark blue, anesthetic numbs random body part.
80-81 Giant/Huge/Colossal
Centipede - suitable venomous centipede encounter.
82-83 Sonihadrosaur
(pair/herd) - mid-sized (for hadrosaurs) duck-billed dinosaurs with
an elaborate fluted crest on their heads. Adults inflate their
resonating crests to release a Sonic Honk in a 100' cone every few
rounds. Fiercely protective of non-sonic young and nesting sites.
Can be subdued by "banding” the crest, binding it with a
leather belt or metal band.
84-85 Cleaverclaw
Crab – a giant marsh crab, big as a one-family hut, males have one
tremendous limb-severing claw. Another animal attracted to the
glints of metal, glass and other fine materials that it tears to
shreds in front of its lair, hoping to attract the attention of
bauble-draped females, who have two smaller claws, just as sharp.
86 Swamp
(Green) Hag – not a woman, not 'iele', misshapen and deranged,
less evil and more dangerously other, a hag is more npc than monster,
but more spirit than mortal. There may be a hag for every swamp, a
swamp for every hag. Each one is completely different from the next,
still they claim sorority with every other.
87-88 Cloak
Stalker – a huge bird, resembling in general form a great crane,
twice the size of , its plumage many difficult to discern dark
colors, its wings are covered in overlong feathers that it holds
loosely around its body like a cloak, its bright and tiny eyes purple
and orange. The stalker may follow its prey through the marshes for
weeks, waiting for a perfect time to strike, it is highly intelligent
and possessed of old magics of illusion, obfuscation, and trickery.
89-90 Goo
Basilisk (Jellilisk) – larger than a normal basilisk, The gaze of
the dreaded basilisk of the swamplands turns its victim to living
ooze. Try turning your friend back from that! The Jellilisk is one
of the favored familiars of the greater Jellementalists, and their
eyes a key ingredient in the manufacture of ioun slimes.
91-92 Swamp
Crocodile – a long-limbed prehistoric crocodilian that excels in
the broken, varied terrain of the marshes, equally at home darting
through murky water as running and leaping across the mud and roots.
93-94 Cave
/ Lair / Structure
1. Partially submerged cave, cleared and
habitable.
2. Fully submerged cave, inhabited.
3. Swamp
structure (fungus, raised hut, tree), uninhabited.
4. Lair of
nesting creature.
95 Giant
Dragonfly – M or L size giant prehistoric dragonflies, glittering,
rapid, and quiet, large species attempt to fly away with a victim,
others attempt to amputate body parts and escape.
96 Giant
Dragonfly Nymph – predatory aquatic larva of the giant dragonfly.
97 Shriekers
- the classic alarm sounding, random encounter attracting, oversized
fungus. There are over a dozen species, each with a distinct
morphology, so they may look like: giant puff balls, tall thin
mushrooms, brightly colored tree growths, etc.
98 Piranha
School – comically voracious school of piranha fish, able to give
extended chase, chew through inedible objects, and skeletonize a
person in under a minute.
99 Peat
Mummy – mummified exile or criminal buried in the swamp ages ago,
an undead creature with shiny, dark, leather-like skin, and a
rigor-racked wasted frame, strong and fast but awkward, it wants
blood and breath and whichever organs you keep your soul in.
00 Special
*
