Akhlaur Swamp

This 4,000-square-mile swamp to the west of Lake Halruaa is a warren of dangerous creatures and long-forgotten magic. Named after an ambitious necromancer who set up his hidden and magically defended fortress-home at its center, the Akhlaur wasn’t always the size it is today. When the necromancer first went into seclusion, the swamp that flanked the River Ghalagar covered only half the territory it does now. Until recently, the lowlands around the swamp continued to flood at a slow but steady pace, expanding the swamp’s boundaries by perhaps 100 feet a year, though the river drained off more than enough water to maintain equilibrium.
==Flooding of the Akhlaur==
Most Halruaans knew that the swamp was flooding because of a portal to the Elemental Plane of Water, but few know the whole truth. Akhlaur was an ambitious wizard who focused his attention on researching interplanar connections. When one of his experiments with a connection to the Elemental Plane of Water went awry, the magic he had set in motion went out of control. Magically charged water began to pour through a neverclosed portal from that plane, flooding Akhlaur’slaboratoriesand overflowingintotheswamp. The portal pumped more water into the swamp than the river could drain effectively.
===Crisis averted by Kiva the Magehound===
Had it kept expanding, Akhlaur Swamp would eventually have reached the coast, swallowing Halagard in the process. Recently, however, a wild elf magehound named Kiva moved the portal to the Nath by means of a magic device similar to a portable hole, stopping the expansion of the swamp. Later, a sorceress named Tzigone closed it during a battle between the Halruaan wizards and some Mulhorandi invaders. Just before it sealed, Kiva managed to bring Akhlaur back through from the other side. Today, the swamp remains at the size it was when the portal was moved, but many concerns remain—the most important of which, at least to those who know the swamp well, is the presence of the larakens. These bizarre creatures from a distant plane began to appear at about the same time that the flooding began. Few know for sure whether they originated from the Elemental Plane of Water or were simply pulled through from another plane at about the time the portal was opened. Whatever their origin, the larakens present a deadly danger to wizards everywhere because of their magic-draining abilities.
==Beasts of Akhlaur Swamp==
The larakens are not the only dangerous creatures dwellingin Akhlaur Swamp. Snakes, crocodiles, and schools of piranhashide in the shallow areas, and numerous undead—some theresults of Akhlaur’s strange experiments and others spawnedfrom doomed expeditions—lurk everywhere in the interior ofthe swamp. Despite these threats, wizards and adventurers oftenenter the swamp in search of Akhlaur’s fabled magic treasures.