2025 Jun 6: Bogs of the Starfallen Beast

 The Bogs of the Starfallen Beast, are a strange place. Long ago the carcass of a massive creature fell from the stars, landing in a riverbed, forcing the water to take unpredictable courses around and under it. So huge was the body that the river could not just go around it, instead having to form lakes, bogs, and bayous in the vicinity until it finally finds its way back into the riverbed. This created an environment those that know their way around the myriad waterways can cross easily, while foreigners are left lost and are thwarted every step of the way. 

The decaying remains of the titanic creature that fell also warped the land in strange and mysterious ways. Plants and animals are always just a bit strange, and even people from the area exhibit a sort of ethereal quality rarely seen in folks from elsewhere. Sometimes it also seems as if the land itself was protecting its inhabitants, shielding them with strange mists, winds carrying their voices close when they are far, and the very air muffling them when they are close. It is no wonder the locals worship the decaying corpse, keeping the strange parasites it breeds in temples, and holding strange ceremonies in its honor.

In their sacred texts they refer to the carcass as Tok-Hrudd, and believe it to be beyond life and death, existing in a state that is both, yet neither. They describe its long voyage through the stars, its battle with strange and alien gods, and finally its demise and consequent fall to the surface. They then go into detail about how its blood sustains the land, and so must the land's inhabitants sustain it with theirs. For this reason, the people of the surrounding area breed giant mosquitoes, leeches, and even a strange remora-like animal with which they can collect and sacrifice their blood painlessly and at scale.