Built atop a marsh, a maze of algae-skirted docks, reed-woven pontoons, floating farm plots, and tent-canoes with a population of about 300, though Glower's Fen is in a perpetual state of disintegration and re-integration as people peel off their homes for better fishing grounds, or to trade surreptitiously with the stiltshrikes.
People here wear capes, mallard-feather caps, and little else. They keep a breed of swimming pigs as livestock and companions, and enjoy smoking numbingly-spicy cheroots. Glower's Fen's claim to fame is its industry of swamp-tromping, hunting down "will-o'-the-wisps" - giant fireflies - to drain their abdomens for glowing fluid from which a precious pigment is made. The hall where this pigment is processed is the largest, sturdiest building in the village. The pigment is worth 50 silver pieces a pint, and there are typically 2d6 pints in the building at any time.
Glower's Fen also has a continuous string of degenerate gold-moilers and truffle hunters passing through chasing rumours of a find deeper in the marsh, who are not generally liked. Typical adventuring gear is available at a slight mark-up, unless it includes metal in which case there is a significant mark-up. Rations will be some sort of smoked or fermented fish or frog, or pork jerky.
Persons of Interest:
Gunar Glower: Descendant of the village's founder, wealthiest man in it and de facto headman. Hosts meetings around the crab-legged brass brazier in his home. He's got bulging eyes and a greasy comb-over. Like all his family he walks with a limp and a cane capped with a carved firefly - his right leg is nearly-boneless, the foot webbed. The Glowers claim this is because an ancestor of theirs married a mermaid. Others say it's the inbreeding.
Gunar is a lecher with an inferiority complex. He wants to hire muscle to clear out the marsh and suppress local opposition, so that Glower's Fen can be built up into a bustling center of commerce.
Pigmother Kuzegi: Best swineherd in the village, and deadly shot with a sling. Fat, strong, and loud. She's bred a pig that can sniff out treasure, and asks 100 silver pieces for it - if the pig's in a hex with a dungeon or hidden treasure, it can find it in 1d4 hours, no check necessary. Genko Glower, a son of Gunar, is attempting to woo her for her pig-wealth, and desires a rare flower from the depths of the marsh for this. Kuzegi is indulging him because she likes him better than his father and would prefer Genko in charge.
Kuzegi has a grudge against the Ahhuuz for eating many of her charges, and will pay dearly for the location of its lair.
Milicia Temperantia Occasia: A nun from the Abbey of Razefallow, officially sent to Glower's Fen to negotiate for glowing ink with which books that can be read in the dark can be penned, and unofficially because she's a drunken mess who the abbess wanted to get rid of. Switches rapidly between jolly and scolding. If sobered up Milicia could be an invaluable source on regional history and geography. The locals are immensely entertained by her slurred preaching.
Local Threats:
Emina the Mycologue: A bulbspattled wizard of some infamy. She can talk to fungi. Her familiar is a moldy loaf of bread she stole from the table of a king. It knows many secrets. Emina leads a gang of truffle-jumpers - bandits who specialize in stalking and robbing truffle hunters, and tries to avoid targeting locals. The lower ranks of her gang are war-orphans dosed up on psychedelic mushrooms and armed with spears of fire-hardened wood.
Stiltshrikes: Nomadic fishermen who go about on stilts and wield long bidents. They've got a long-standing feud with the people of Glower's Fen and other settlements nearby, often leaving those they catch in the marsh impaled on tree branches, tearing up eel weirs, and so on and so on. When engaged in raiding and suchlike they wear wooden war-masks that amplify their voices to inhuman shrieks.
Ahhuuz: A beast which the people of Glower's Fen claim the stiltshrikes worship, though this is not true. It is named for the sound of its midnight call: "ahoozoozoozoo", and is believed to be the last of its kind. It has black and rubbery flesh, has a build like a greyhound though the stature of a destrier, gross-out monster toy jaws and teeth like arthritic fingers. It is silent while on the attack, snatching people and dragging them into the murk to drown. If locals suspect the Ahhuuz is about they will kill a pig and dump it into the water some ways off to appease it.
Gloamworms: Said to be either the wrathful husks of overharvested will-o'-the-wisps, or some necessary cosmic opposite to the light of those giant fireflies. In any case, they are predators shrouded by unnatural darkness, and wholly disregard the flesh of their prey, taking only the bones and viscera.
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