Bog Elves

Several tribes of elves live in the bogs to the ... East? What does our map look like at this point? (2c)

The tribes are primative and wild, but Dragonwick is forced to contract guides with them in order for their caravans to pass through the ever changing ways through the Bog. (2c)

Elves are typically paid in Dragon fat/gland weapons which they use against their more populous rivals, the bullywugs. (2c)

The Bulllywugs mature rapidly(1), spending mere months as tadpoles, rapidly metamorphosing through adolescence and into adulthood. Bullywug society exemplifies a culture driven by 'survival of the fittest,'(1) with most dying in the attempt to prove themselves worthy of status in their society. Though they are capable of living to venerable ages, only a very few do(1).

OMG . . . HOW DID I NOT SEE STUFF ABOUT BULLYWUGS? I HAVE A FULL SET OF BULLYWUG MINIS I WILL WRITE THEM A BACKSTORY! BULLYWUGS LOVE BACKSTORIES!

Brock Marsh (1)

The land east of Dragonwick wasn't always swampland. It was once a great silverwood forest of the Wood Elves (1). In their war with the Gnomes of Dragonwick, the gnomish engineers built a series of canals and flooded the forests (1). The brackish water killed off the great silverwood trees, and the Wood Elf city slowly died and rotted down into the marshy ground. Most of the wood elves abandoned their city, but those who could not bear to leave their ancestral homelands stayed in the old husks, and in time became the bog elves (1).

Brock Marsh Bullywugs are grounded in noise, croak and chant, continuously inventing hundreds of often-wildly-conflicting historical sagas (1) collectively known as the Riiitçanga(1). All of them are considered to be true (1).

[Gridu Steelsing -Gnome Head of Pantheon]


**This account is carved into the base of the once-great Silverwood Hearthtree**


Reloccan is dead. Those stunted gear-rats opened the great sea and poisoned his root. I couldn’t turn my eyes away, and the light of Reloccan’s great spirit spilling out through the glade seared into the my mind – the last thing these eyes ever saw.

In the instant Gridu’s hammer struck Reloccan’s skull, both were shattered. The embers of his godhood rained down upon us all. What wasn’t soaked through by the flood was overtaken in flame, as this sacred wood gave up the ghost.

Most were blinded by what they witnessed on that battlefield, not meant for mortal eyes to see. Gnome and Wood Elf alike stumbled in that mire to flee, as the woods wailed the dirge of their fallen god.

A week on and most who survived that cataclysm have abandoned this forsaken place. They go to seek a new home. A new god. But for those of us who are too stubborn, or scared, to depart, this bog will be our home, and our god will haunt our enemies in whispered echoes.

~Arqueturan Sildrayas, 214 C.E.K.

Reloccan's Vestiges(1c)*

To see and to feel your god die is a horrible thing. As the wood elves' home withered and rotted, its people took whatever measures they could to find solace and closure. Some more severe than others.

"Reloccan's Vestiges" is not a formal group, but rather an umbrella term used to describe individuals given over to various neuroses stemming from the loss and absence of Reloccan(1c). All involve some form of obsession with death(1c), but they are otherwise widely varied in motivation and even social status. For example, among others: Wild-eyed former priests who sacrifice their followers in attempts to resurrect even a small part of Reloccan(1c); druids turned to blight and decay, convinced that no living thing should survive the death of their god(1c); honored and celebrated warriors who work tirelessly for the annihilation of the Bullywug, whose "noxious, malignant fecundity" they see as an infection growing in the wake of Reloccan's fall(1c). Some are monsters and some are folk heroes, but the bog elves, in general, feel they cannot question the Vestiges' existence(1c). Everyone grieves in their own way.



*Reloccan's Relics. Reloccan's Remains. Reloccan's Remnants. Reloccan's Residue. Reloccan's Remainder. I wanted to use all of these so, so badly.

Yes yes yes!

Growing from the corpses of the silvertrees that were warped and deadened by the passing of Reloccan, the elves that stayed clutivated a new forest of primordial trees characterized by their distinct structures of their buttressing aerial roots, their enormous height and girth, and the presence of giant pneumatophores that stick above the surface of the water in radial patches. Because of the twice daily flooding of the bog by tiday waters from the coastal ocean, the trees are able to filter saltwater and excrete the excess salt from glands in their leaves. The tree stores fresh water in thick succulent leaves. A waxy coating on the leaves seals in water and minimizes evaporation. (8)

The Bog Elves get an uneasy feeling from the new giant mangroves. (1)

The bog elves cultivate the trees though . . .

Bullywugs sometimes make their homes from hanging nests (1). They hang from the pneumatophores (1) and are multiplying as the number of bog elves dwindle (2).

Oh you're right, I clearly missed that bit when I read your post. Sorry about that. My head went to the new trees being associated with the now-multiplying bullywugs.

So, with my misconception about the trees, I created an adventure (that I ran as a one-shot for margaret and her brother) where the bullywugs kidnap one of the frogstrangler brothers. The party ultimately finds him strapped to one of the mangrove trees, vines burrowed into his veins, with a trio of bullywug shamans and lesser-wugs performing a ritual. As the combat begins, bullywugs begin climbing the tree and then pitching themselves down onto the spearlike pneumatophoric roots as blood sacrifices (sanguiphoric roots?). The tree quickly drinks in the blood of the sacrifices as the combat goes on, and begins pumping it into the unsuspecting sacrifice, the ritual slowly metamorphosing him into a red slaad...

Margaret and ethan ended up pulling the guy down and chopping his arm off to halt the transformation. Good times were had by all.

I didn't realize that was the end point. Feeling pretty good about field amputation.

Bog Elf Chief Ranshu the Ghillie. Age: Unknown. Gender: Unknown. Only appears in a full ghillie suit. His/her tribe occupies bog to closest to Dragonwick, often acting as guides.

The Bone Pile (1) is a secret "elephant graveyard" where the bog elves brought the bones of their kin for their final rest. (1) While the swamp is quick to reclaim organic matter, the Bone Pile remains. (1) A thick moss of algae has grown over the bones (1). Some bog elves will visit the Bone Pile to "speak" with their ancestors, some more literally than others (1).

The last of the great silverwoods, the Hearthtree, sits atop a hill called the Crown of Sylvos (1). Though damaged, broken, and with heavily rotted heartwood, the tree still survives (1). An unnatural fecundity pervades the Crown (1).

There actually is an ancient lake that is below the surface of the land (1). The elves protected the land and the ancestral waters even after the land sealed it into a bog (1). The ancient waters have old magic that help increase the virility of the land (1). The water is regenerative and gives a sense of inner tranquility if drank (1). Only the most ancient of the surviving elves know how to draw up water from the bog without harming the land (1).

The Bog Elves are afraid the the poisoning of the land will seep down into this ancient underground lake.

The lake is so deep that no one has ever seen the bottom.

Shanti the Vengeful. It is unwise to be in the same part of the forest as this female barbarian. She is silent and deadly as the methane gases that the Avanti Swamps produce. She actively hunts and destroys the minions of Engrilo.

Bog Elves follow Hindu naming traditions.

The Bone Pile is not an active graveyard; it consists solely of the bones of those who died with Reloccan. Bog elves who pass away nowadays are either given sky burials high in the branches of the mangroves, or simply sunk into the swamp.

The nature of the Bog Elves' magic has been changing since the death of Reloccan. Once led by clerics of life and vigor, they were renowned healers. Now a new generation of clerics has been pursuing undeath.

Just looking up some stuff about bogs . . . that stuff is brutal. The decay is slow and the elves can feel it. Their lake is slowly decomposing the remains of their life tree. They can't grow what they used to.

Also, the bog has to be a separate entity, either within the Swamp or next to it. I like the idea of it once being its own land until a great continental shattering happened (perhaps the entry of Don Joswee) (Can Don Josee be the Death god from earth unlocked by Cid's planar meddling?). This led to a once vibrant forest being subjected to tidal estuaries in a dramatic fashion. The tree died, their culture died, and soon their home died and became a swamp. Some exiled themselves to the Underdark Forest, some made a boat from the remains of their world tree and said that it would find fertile ground. These would later be the blood elves of Isla Mogila.

Hah, yeah, I guess bogs aren't given to supporting giant mangrove forests =P The bog could be a section of the swamp most directly over the old underground lake, with the remains of Reloccan's tree at the center.

I dunno about that last bit though; it seems a bit contradictory to the original idea of the poisoning of the forest by Dragonwick/Gridu's slaying of Reloccan.

Ashwathi Kiran

Female, Neutral-Neutral
Head cleric of the Murdē Kī

Ashwathi is younger than any prior cleric of the elves. When the previous patriarch and his head priests all took their own lives in grief And despair at the passing of Reloccan, she stepped into the vacuum to aid her kinfolk to find a way forward.

Man, that's dark, Jesse.