Publisher's blurb:
Wooden treetop bridges pass over this swamp. Puddles of fetid water lay stagnant over thick mud far below, while bugs swarm around bushes and dying trees. A small stream fills the stinking pools, flowing in from a steep cliff before slowing to a halt in the marshes below.
The stench of rotting decay rises from the oozing mud and strange, flowering undergrowth. Roots from trees reach out of the mud like clawing hands, grasping for sunlight they haven’t seen in years…
Adventure Seed
While traveling along the boardwalk in a swamp, you hear hoarse cries from a woman and some men, begging for help. Catching sight of them you see four people tied against a large tree with rope as thick as your fist. Their lower halves are submerged in the water, their clothes torn and caked in mud. Smaller ropes tying their wrists dappled in blood.
When they see you they beg you to help them. They woke up here after passing through a village and eating dinner at the tavern, their possessions gone. They have no idea where they are or why, but urge you to hurry as they’ve been awake for hours.
By the time you make it off the bridge and down to where they are, a snake as thick as a man and longer than the group combined emerges from the swampy undergrowth. Its tongue flickers out of its mouth as if it can already taste its next meal.
WHAT’S HAPPENING? Once every year a nearby village drugs passers through, before tying them up unconscious as a sacrifice to the gigantic snake. They’ve been doing this ever since they realized how, if the snake overeats, it sleeps for the rest of the year.
Originally the villager’s own small population was the animal’s prey. Their children would disappear from the village, or travelers through the swamp would never return. Since they started their annual sacrifices, though terrible, far less people die.