A World a Week, or so: Frog Bog (first glimpse)

 

So, before titles...

If only campaigns formed like yarns coming together to make a Christmas sweater. Instead they usually come from something on the outside world, that Real one, getting my attention to suddenly granting a cool image in my head. This one started coming to me while driving past a temporary bog along a highly industrial area in late April. Because of some very warm temperatures, the frogs were out in enough numbers to overcome the noise of the area as well as my work van. The trees and the water from snow melt and rain in the near 90 degree weather had a fresh smell that for a couple days overcame the oily smell of the neighborhood. And then the words "frogs" and "bog" popped into my head and now Frog Bog is on my mind.

At least since the late 80s, I suppose, I have been always doing Monsters! Monsters! writing. This has gone from animal-headed humanoids as beat up monsters, to the inclusion, these more recent days, of talking animals. Of course, coming from a Tunnels & Trolls and Runequest perspective of the Old School Gamer (an OG of the OSG, hee hee), having some ready notes for the Player-Character that someone just had to play has lead to some long notebooks filled with Monsterkin (Monster-Kin) cultures and liked environments.

When it comes to amphibious species, I've been making scribbles in my "Surf and Turf" file for years now anyway. But most of the Kin involved have been either the undersea sorts or the avian and crustaceans along the cliffs and beaches along seas and shores of really big lakes. Believe it or not, I never had my head around frog-heads beyond one shot monsters here and there. So inspired by their beautiful voices singing away the winter residue, I came up with "Boggers."

A month later, once again at work, I came across two hatchling birds that survived their nest tumbling into a parking lot. This prompted me to use my floppy hat as an improvised replacement. They then had to survive on a mixture of coffee creamer and crushed crackers through a pipette every fifteen to twenty minutes as I continued my job, until I could buy some puppy chow and dissolve it into water to make a proper gruel for them. They fell asleep at sundown. A couple of hours after sunrise and many feedings the next day I was able to get them to avian sanctuary. So now the human-like "The Grackles" worked their way into this world.
So I had a bog and needed very, very big trees. Plus a climate suited for the survival of frogs and little birds that pulled at my heart-strings and instinctive life saving skills. Hot and steamy-- I sweated forever with those grackles, but keeping them alive was worth every second-- this new place where Frog Bog was to be. Down south near the Gulf is where I can think of.

So this last weekend during my soccer games, I got tired of typing and did this map. Don't let the trees fool you. They're bigger than redwoods and the map scale is roughly eighteen by thirty miles. There also being a sea gives me some room for some saltwater baddies like Clawdads and Kuda. Heck throw in some polluting humans and hungry Hissers (crocodile-heads) to keep things balanced in a savage sort of way. So my delicate Monsterkin have a little space to begin their sagas. Just need to finish up my Wizards campaign first...

More time to get a few more notes for Frog Bog.