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Card Games
"If you manage to get to the heart of the bog, you’ll find things there that make zombies seem downright lovable."
—Byaras, backwoods guide, Feral Abomination
, Magic: The Gathering
, Magic: The Gathering Film — Live-Action
"Other kings said it was daft to build a castle in a swamp, but I did it all the same, just to show them. It sank into the swamp. So I built another one. That one sank into the swamp. So I built a third one. That burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp."
— The Swamp King, Monty Python and the Holy Grail
"This swamp is a monument to death. Snakes, alligators, quicksand... all bent on one thing: destruction."
—Lieutenant Dick Craig, Bride of the Monster
"Now here on the Mississippi bayou, hundreds of fishermen and old pirates have lost their lives... and if we're lucky, we might just see their souls floatin' over the waters where they up and died."
—Shawn, Hatchet
Literature
The airboat wheels around a copse of trees into a watery clearing, and I half expect to see a brontosaurus wading in the shadows. Instead, I see a row of huge bobbing purple flowers, each with a bleached human face in the center, mouths gaping and eyes palely blind. The sight of them shocks me into silence; our guide fixes his stare on the horizon, refusing to even acknowledge anything out of the ordinary. Eyes perch along the tops of reeds; great kites of flesh stretch between tree limbs; one catches a mild breeze from our passage and skates serenely through the air, coming at last to a gentle landing on the water, where it folds in on itself and sinks into the murk.
— The Atlas of Hell, by Nathan Ballingrud
As near as we can tell, all creatures we have seen so far are nonsapient. The planet's ecosystem must have spent its energy on quantity and diversity, filling every possible natural niche, rather than developing intelligence.
Sometimes, though, as I stand alone in the noisy but weirdly silent swamp, I wonder if the world itself resents our presence. Perhaps Dagobah is gathering its malevolent forces to resist our work at unraveling its secrets.
I shouldn't be thinking like this.
Sometimes, though, as I stand alone in the noisy but weirdly silent swamp, I wonder if the world itself resents our presence. Perhaps Dagobah is gathering its malevolent forces to resist our work at unraveling its secrets.
I shouldn't be thinking like this.
— Halka Four-Den, The Illustrated Star Wars Universe
Sam: There are dead things! Dead faces in the water!
Gollum: All dead. All rotten. Elves and Men and Orcses. A great battle, long ago. The Dead Marshes... yes, yes, that is their name. This way. Don't follow the lights. Careful now... or hobbits go down to join the dead ones, and light little candles of their own.
Gollum: All dead. All rotten. Elves and Men and Orcses. A great battle, long ago. The Dead Marshes... yes, yes, that is their name. This way. Don't follow the lights. Careful now... or hobbits go down to join the dead ones, and light little candles of their own.
It was a cold swamp, but not with the clean chill of the Cold Forests on which it bordered. The unwholesome warmth of an ocean of decay rotted the crisp cold to a corpse-like chill, like the buried incalescence of some deep and teaming crypt. From this rose a thick and ever present mist, a cloak of smothering vapor that clung to the morass, swallowed its chaotic vegetation, masked its unfathomed quicksand bogs. Kranor-Rill was a poisoned labyrinth whose oozing breath obscured the deadly hazards of its maze.
MARSHES are an area in the southern-central part of the continent where everything suddenly goes wrong and different. The Management has usually thoughtfully provided you with a BOAT shortly before you enter the Marshes; if not, you should acquire one soonest. The land here becomes mostly WATER, winding sluggishly in multiple channels between banks and islands too soggy to bear your weight. Generally, unpleasant drooping Trees clutch at you as you punt past and brakes of gigantic rushes look ineffably menacing (OMT); all this adds to your confusion about which is north and also harbours millions of mosquitoes (in stinging clouds (OMT)) which will eat you alive. You will at this stage be lost, food-less, and without WATER. You will not dare to drink from the muddy channels — and with good reason. Strange squirming things swim there, and sometimes there are predators. On some Tours, the overhanging Trees are replaced by small thorny bushes, but the only difference is that the mosquitoes come out at night when you attempt to CAMP on a muddy ISLAND, and by day a cruel wind sweeps over everything. In both cases you will be overwhelmed by dread (OMT) and a sense of danger (OMT). After a few days of it all, you will almost be glad when the MARSH DWELLERS take you prisoner. They will at least drag you to the only firm ground in the area.
Tabletop Games
From the shores of the northern Tilean sea to the foot of the Black Mountains, a great morass of dismal marshland lies like a festering plague. This area is known as the Blighted Marshes: an ancient and terrible realm where death comes quickly to the unwary. A permanent, reeking mist cloaks the deep black pools and slimy reed beds from view. Sluggish, muddy channels wind through the mire, mazelike and unfathomable, darkened on either bank by stretches of stretches of twisted stalks which resemble nothing so much as corn blackened in a fire. In places, pools form, slicked with a dark iridescence where no living things grow. To enter the Blighted Marshes is to walk to your doom, inviting death in the bottomless murk or the jaws of the twisted beasts said to live there. Few brave its terrors, for there are no tales of gold or hidden knowledge lying forgotten in its chill clutches to draw adventurers, just black marsh, reeking mist and a lonely death.
— Warhammer: Skaven Army Book (6th edition)
"Munitorium Swamp Warfare instructors may tell you the swamp is your friend. More realistic instructors may claim it's just neutral. Let me tell you; the swamp is not neutral and it most certainly is not your friend. It's your enemy, and you'll soon learn to hate it."
— Rifleman Tyla, Pardus 34th Regiment, Warhammer 40,000
Video Games
Mangus: I don't like all those nooses...
Zaulia: They're for those who would rather take their own lives than be destroyed by the creatures of the mire.
Eddie: See? A service for travelers!
Zaulia: They're for those who would rather take their own lives than be destroyed by the creatures of the mire.
Eddie: See? A service for travelers!
Kabbu: East of here...is...the Wild Swamplands. Hideous monsters, wild tribes, thick water at every turn... It's...very dangerous.
Maki: Kabbu, I had no idea it was this dreadful... I'll take your words to heart, Kabbu. It's clear this is not a journey we can underestimate.
Maki: Kabbu, I had no idea it was this dreadful... I'll take your words to heart, Kabbu. It's clear this is not a journey we can underestimate.
"There lies only a short step between venerating the swamp and worshipping cursed deities."
— Victor Saltzpyre on the Rotblood Tribe, Vermintide II
Real Life
"In terms of how the player feels when they encounter this area that is a different story. But when making the game I rediscovered my love for making poison swamps. I know how people feel about them, but you know, suddenly I realize I'm in the middle of making one and I just can't help myself. It just happens.
— Hidetaka Miyazaki, expressing his love of such evil swamps in an interview
