Editing Swamp

A swamp is an area of forest or brushland whose low-lying terrain results in permanent flooding from nearby rivers, lakes or springs, resulting in dense wetlands filled with abundant plant-life, mud and slow-moving (if not stagnant) water. Swamps are traditionally perceived as dangerous and unsanitary. They tend to attract a lot of insects, which can spread disease; the sodden terrain can make traversing them on foot difficult; many swamps are prone to heavy fog because of all the water, which can make it easy to get lost; and some swamps are also inhabited by dangerous animals, such as alligators and piranhas. Needless to say, this has given swamps a long tradition of being regarded as haunted, or just otherwise full of monsters, which is the usual format you will see when you encounter a swamp in a /tg/ medium.

When they aren't infested with undead horrors, they hide tribes of hideous frog-, lizard-, or fish-men (or possibly fishlizardfrogmen) who slink from their half-sunken temples to grasp the unwary with their cold hands and drag them beneath the still black water. At the very least, they are the home of poisonous snakes and strange, incurable diseases. Often, there are ancient curses that cause travelers to become lost and wander the swamps forever. A Will-o'-the-Wisp (also called corpse candles) may lead the unwary into quickbogs to die. For extra horror, people who get lost in the swamp may themselves become one of the monsters infesting it. Swamps are also a popular home for witches, voodoo ladies, families of inbred cannibals, zombies, and other unsavoury types. Even the plants and/or [[Fungus|fungi]] are often carnivorous.

==Notable /tg/ Swamps==
Swamp cards in [[Magic: The Gathering]] produce black mana. There are also Bog Wraiths, Will o' the Wisps and numerous other horrible swamp creatures. The designers insist that Magic: The Gathering does not have an evil color, but black does represent death, greed, and amorality. For quite a lot of the game's early life, black also had all the classically evil creatures, including nearly every undead monster you can name, demons, cosmic horrors, etc., and has a strong association with plague and disease — and swamps are where black mana comes from...

Not to mention the card Evil Presence. Not happy with your neighbour's depressingly wholesome Tropical Island getting sunlight all over your yard? Slap an evil curse on it. Instant swamp!

In the end of the [[Kamigawa]] saga, however, the main hero settled nicely in a marsh, which also serve as the home of the distinctly not-evil [[Nezumi]].

Magic's single nastiest example of this trope is probably Urborg, Tomb of Yawgmoth, a swamp contaminated by the corpse of Big Bad Yawgmoth so much that it's still tainted three hundred years after he perished. It has the side effect of turning every other land into a swamp just for being in play.

On [[Ravnica]], the sewers inhabited by the Golgari Swarm, a Guild based on Black and Green Mana, are essentially urban swamps. On the one hand, the Golgari are necromancers who cultivate fungus and vermin using corpses harvested from elsewhere, and in turn use their "crops" to defend their holdings, complete with infested zombies, giant bugs and fungus-monster minions. On the other hand, there's no real place to bury the dead in Ravnica, so the Golgari are filling a vital role by disposing of bodies, and the fungi & vermin they cultivate are one of Ravnica's primary sources of food and even pharmaceuticals.

The Yu-Gi-Oh! field spell Venom Swamp is a lovely place to visit, especially when you consider the native inhabitants. And don't forget to pay a visit to the royals!

In [[Exalted]], the Yozi Metagao's entire body is a swamp, and he's fond of snacking on anything that enters him. And when we say anything, we mean anything — he eats mortals, demons, time, space, identity, himself... if you manage to survive a trip through him, you'll probably wish you hadn't, because you'll be infected with numerous diseases that will turn you into an outgrowth of Metagaos. Furthermore, three of Creation's major shadowlands are based around swamps, the largest of them (and one of the biggest in the world) being the Bayou of Endless Regret.

In [[Dungeons & Dragons]], swamps are the traditional home of [[Chromatic Dragon|black dragons]], generally regarded as the most sinister and malicious of all dragon breeds. Other inhabitants include the evil frog-like [[bullywug]]s and the more neutral (but still aggressive) [[lizardfolk]].

The [[Greyhawk]] setting has a notable inversion of "swamps are evil" trope with the Lone Heath, a large, healthy wetland that historically served as a refuge for goodly [[human]]s and [[demihuman]]s fleeing the tyranny of the Great Kingdom. Having plenty of friendly [[druid]]s and [[ranger]]s keeping the place clean likely helps.

In Pathfinder, as in D&D, swamps are reliably some of the most unpleasant places to find oneself in if you venture to [[Golarion]]. Besides the difficult terrain and utter lack of roads, towns or any sort of reliable infrastructure, they're also home to a large variety of dangerous monsters and evil creatures. Typical swamp denizens include giant leeches, mosquitos the size of dogs, hydras, giant crocodiles, xenophobic frog-like boggards, depraved and cannibalistic marsh giants and the cruel and sadistic black dragons. About the friendliest things you'll find in Golarion's swamps are the [[Lizardfolk]] and the [[Grippli]], both of whom are fiercely territorial isolationists who'll only fill you with arrows if they think you're a threat or an invader, rather than just because. Of particular note are the Mushfens, the largest swampland in the main setting and thickly populated with blood-sucking flies, swamp barracudas, marsh giants, boggards, goblins and the undead.

When the demon Treerazer invaded The Lost Woods of Kyonin, the elven nation, he successfully corrupted a large portion of the area's idyllic forests before being contained. The area he's overtaken is easy to tell from the uncorrupted forest, as his presence and demonic influence swiftly turned the primordial woodland into a stinking, corrupted swamp full of demons, giant vermin, and fungi both parasitic and carnivorous.

The largest example in the Inner Sea region is the Sodden Lands, created when the seemingly eternal hurricane called the Eye of Abendego formed around a century before the game's present and utterly obliterated two nations on Garund's (Fantasy Counterpart Culture Africa) western coast. The area was quickly transformed into a trackless, rain-lashed morass dotted with the ruins of drowned civilizations, and swiftly colonized by marsh giants, demon-worshipping boggards, ferocious bunyips and other swamp-dwelling terrors, as well as warlike Lizard Folk, human cultists of the god of murder and the barbaric descendants of people trapped there when the swamps formed.

Generally, the swamps of the [[Warhammer Fantasy]] world are almost invariably rotting, unwholesome places full of disease, hydras, trolls and similarly pleasant company. They are also home to the [[Fimir]], a race of evil, one-eyed [[lizardfolk]] that worship [[Chaos]]. In a more specific example, the otherwise benign kingdom of [[Bretonnia]] has the Dukedom of Mousillon, a swamp ruled by vampires and full of inbred criminals, mutants, Chaos-worshippers, [[necromancer]]s and undead, and for added fun also home to a certain aquatic plant that grows in long, straight floating patches over the water that mimic footpaths quite convincingly... until someone actually steps on them, the plants given way and the hapless traveler is sent plunging into the mire. It says a lot that even the [[Beastmen]] avoid this place. Another famous Old World swamp is the Blighted Marsh, in the northwest of Tilea. A fetid maze of sluggish channels and pools of unclean water dotted with stands of twisted black reeds, all of it festering with disease and shrouded in reeking fog. At its center sits Skavenblight, the crowded, flithy and half-sunken capital of the [[Skaven]], one of the vilest races in the Old World.