What does scare you in the swamps?

[Manofevil]

Here's an interesting swamp encounter for you all. Once in a Punisher comic. The Punisher, another soldier, and The Punisher's computer genius sidekick, Microchip, are making their way through a swamp having escaped from a criminal fortress. They spy a wild boar making it's own way through the swamp. The two soldiers are keen to kill and eat the beast but Microchip suggests a better plan. They follow the boar through the swamp. It leads them past the quicksand and deep waters to safer areas. I don't know if that would be useful in this case but I thought it worth mentioning

[Undead Cabbage]

On the note of Leeches (good call Jasper, as always)

has the frat finished its Wildlife List for Souragne yet?

*Peers over his MM and DoD*

[DamienJ]

I know the "unknown" has been mentioned a few times as being scary, but I have a specific unknown which terrifies me. Not only in swamp/marshlands, but just dark water in general. Tentacles. Tentacles grabbing me and holding me incapacitated until I drown. It almost makes me afraid to swim in lakes and "swimmin' holes..." Anyways, that's always a classic, which I don't think can be overdone.

[Ultramyth]

In her novels Blackwood Farm and to a lesser extent Blood Cantacle, Anne Rice describes a creepy Louisianan swamp called Sugar Devil Swamp.

I think the thing that creeped me about it ís how it's the perfect place to lose things, dump dead bodies and the like, but also the unknown.

In this case, the unknown being what's at the bottom. I always have been disturbed by murky brown water because you can't see what's really in there. That alone psychologically is enough to panic me. That and open seawater (especially in or under it, where you can't see the bottom, nor more than 10 or twenty metres in any direction).

[alhoon]

I have both your fears too... Strange psycho thing I suppose.

[DamienJ]

Ooh...dumped bodies. And what if they came back? That's a good thought, one I didn't even consider. Sounds like a great set-up for a murder/mystery. Maybe being forced to sit and listen while one of these bodies tells you its story? Can you imagine how nerve-racking that would be, to have to watch this thing speak with you? Or maybe not...at any rate, the thought frightens me!

So, what is at the bottom of a swamp?

Also, I'm sure both of you can relate when I say that diving into lakes was always a bit creepy. Especially when you started feeling algea/pond scum reaching out towards you. You couldn't see anything, the water being too dark, but you could certainly feel it...*shiver*[/b]

[Fido]

So, what is at the bottom of a swamp?

Does a swamp even have a bottom?! *dundun*

Idea: Bottomless swamp. A swamp that not only appears to be bottomless, but also -is- bottomless. *makes mental note*

[alhoon]

Does a swamp even have a bottom?! *dundun*

Idea: Bottomless swamp. A swamp that not only appears to be bottomless, but also -is- bottomless.

And a supernatural kind of mud that prevents you from dying from lack of air or even water pressure. You are drawn deeper and deeper in the dark, unable to shout, unable to see for days and then weeks until you finally die out of hunger... since you can eat the foul water to prevent death from thirst.

[DamienJ]

Ah, but what if you didn't die...what if you managed to live off worms and crawling things beneath the surface, growing more and more mad, until one day, feeling through your feverish mind your body subtly changed, you wriggle your way to the surface, there to prey upon any unfortunate passers-by...

[MatthiasStormcrow]

This talk of dumped bodies reminds me that I got a good creep out of my players using the zombies guarding Chickenbone's hut. To get out there, the players had to row a little rowboat out, and it wasn't until they were about halfway out that they noticed there were pale, bloated bodies standing perfectly still in the muck - all standing vertical, all watching them, but at varying depths, so some had heads just barely emerging from the water, others could just barely be made out below the surface; the most visible few were in up to their shoulders. But no movement - not so much as a telltale ripple. For all the fact that the PCs had half a mind to kill Chickenbone originally, and despite the fact that he himself wasn't the least bit threatening in appearance or manner, and despite the fact that not one of those perfeclty ordinary zombies ever even twitched, by the time they actually got to his hut they were just about ready to turn tail and run like hell for home.

[mcvoid]

I always had the vision of the trash compactor in Star Wars with the "something just brushed past my leg" thing whenever i'm wading through murky water. Alligators, too.

[mcvoid]

While I was deployed to Iraq (Baghdad '03) There was a beautiful lake by the airport. One day someone found a body floating in it, which prompted us to drain it. The draining revealed several dozen more bodies along with a weapons cache at the very bottom.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

Ah, but what if you didn't die...what if you managed to live off worms and crawling things beneath the surface, growing more and more mad, until one day, feeling through your feverish mind your body subtly changed, you wriggle your way to the surface, there to prey upon any unfortunate passers-by...

Ooooh, that just begs for a template write-up!