Dark Bog

In that empty strip of land between the Land of Changing Waters and the Great Ra'Ga is the **Dark Bog**, a murky mangrove swamp infested with mosquitos, slugs and giant leeches. The swamp is shallow and there are muddy islands all around, but it's technically navigable. Thus, one could go straight from the Gnoll Empire to the Misty Island through the dark bog, instead of having to go all around the Squid Peninsula, the hogmen islands and the strait between the raga and the blind bastard's domain.

However, this route is of course quite dangerous and deadly. One could easily catch red dickrrot (or worse) from a single mosquito bite.

## The Bog

The Dark Bog is a place that has not been inhabited by any sentient species for millenia, if ever. Even if both the Ra'Ga and the Ecrkoecknoi are semi aquatic species that inhabit humid lands, they know better than to traverse this treacherous place. This is because of a number of reasons. Mainly, this bog is home to the Ichaeron, a horrible monster that lurks the swamps and quagmires, using millions of leeches and ticks as its army. Not only that, but the bog is swarmed by mosquito clouds which carry a plethora of diseases, namely red dickrrot, green fever, wormbone, pus-eye and stomach bane. Not even the sturdy Ra'Ga are able to withstand the diseases that plague this land, and many have perished in the rare occasions where the choice to traverse the bog was made.

Lastly, the higher than normal salinity levels of these mangrove swamps have been known to cause unwanted secondary effects like fatigue, aggresive behavior and malnourishment. This would make the permament settlement of this land an almost impossible task, as one would need to travel to the lands of the Ra'Ga or the Land of the Chaning Waters in order to search for a water source.

Nowadays, the Dark Bog is only traversed by the occasional traveller from the Gnoll Empire that wishes to reach the Sea of Fog without sailing the long way past the Squid Peninsula, an extremely risky task. As Ichaeron and its army of leeches stay within their dominion, the Ra'Ga and the Ecrkoecknoi don't bother in patrolling their borders with the Dark Bog.

### Ichaeron

Ichaeron (also known as the "Lord of Leeches") is a creature that's as old as time itself, described in both the legends of the Ra'Ga and the Ecrkoecknoi. While the Frogmen believe Ichaeron to be a fallen god, cursed by the Great Mother Toad to dwell in the Dark Bog for all eternity, the Ra'Ga legend states that the Lord of the Leeches was a human princess that was devoured and sucked dry by leeches while traversing this bog on her wedding day.

Whatever the truth behind Ichaeron's origins might be, all we know about this primordial creature is that it resembles a leech with a vague human characteristics, possessing atrophic hands and feet and moving around by crawling slowly. Its slimy, muc-covered skin is filled to the brim with many leeches and ticks. Ichaeron uses them to infect other creatures with its blood, which is so irresistible that it allows it to mind control any of them that drinks it. This way, most of the other creatures that roam the dwell the Bog are under the Leech Lord in one way or another.