CREATURE NAME: Walking huts CREATURE DESCRIPTION: Some of the smaller houses in the village seem a bit newer and are on only two stilts each! Oddly thick stilts. These one or two-room huts are a little warmer and cozier than the larger ones, with featherbeds and plush comforters and other such furnishings, and they don't have any leftover items in them. The doors all seem to open at the merest touch of your hand and there's a certain sense of presence, but not a malicious one. There might be what looks like a doghouse, of all things, on the floor.
Get too comfortable in there and you may sense movement or hear splashing, but since the hut is being very careful ('tiptoeing', you might say, if it didn't have feet like this), it's very possible for it to abduct you without your knowledge and settle down elsewhere in the swamp, usually in the company of other huts.
Baby walking huts ('huttlets') resemble doghouses with legs and are a lot more active. They seem shy of most people and hide under the boardwalks when they sense them, but are bolder around people who've got abducted and like to sprint about and chase each other, retreating to the interiors of the adults to rest or hide from danger. The adults will attack anything that seems to be a threat to the young, may defend humans, and hate knobby white spiders. They crouch down and crunch killed threats under themselves and seem to be eating but it's hard to tell how, or if they're actually alive.
Walking huts won't go near the firedamp and don't park long in the groves. If one carries you off, eventually it will return to the village but it may take a while. Some of the huts come off as more malicious or mischievous, some more protective. You get the sense that they find people... cute? Maybe humans seem like huttlets. CANON INSPIRED? These are inspired by Baba Yaga's chicken-footed hut from Russian mythology, but aren't the same thing.
and several from Star Wars Legends:
CREATURE NAME: Knobby white spiders and gnarltrees. CREATURE DESCRIPTION: There are giant white spider-things scrambling around in the grove, ranging from fairly delicate and knee high to lumbering ones with the mass of a car. They're hunting animals (and huttlets) and being hunted in turn. Sometimes you find a big one that's stopped moving, plunged its "mouth" and legs into the ground, and started to grow branches and stretch upwards... then you notice that a number of trees have high, arched roots a bit like legs, and bark with a similar knobby texture.
The spiders are the young "spore" stage of gnarltrees, which feed and grow and find likely places to plant themselves. Little ones are common, larger ones increasingly rare. Car-sized spiders with branch-buds can sometimes be seen testing different spots, uprooting and relocating, but they're getting too big to walk and have to make a choice. There's a stage where their 'mouths' are rooted but they can still move their leg-roots and may kick away threats - they hate walking huts! After that they're totally sessile and as their bark darkens they become indistinguishable from regular trees. Spiders will venture nowhere near firedamp. They're flammable!
CREATURE NAME: Jubba bird CREATURE DESCRIPTION: Goofy-looking big-mouthed birds(?) around a foot tall, with leathery tails and bodies and crests like pompoms. Flocks of them will drive off large knobby white spiders, kill and eat small ones, and nest in gnarltrees. They also eat insects and small animals.
Despite looking very clownish, jubba birds act quite proud and as if they're very beautiful, seeming to present their "best sides" for observers. They're very intelligent as well as vain, but their most notable trait is their song, an eerie whistle that's oddly soothing to anything that hears it. Admire them and their song, maybe rescue an egg or hatchling if a nest gives way, and you can befriend them.
CREATURE NAME: Nunas or swamp turkeys. CREATURE DESCRIPTION: They look kind of like frogs crossed with chickens. Almost spherical green animals with two birdlike legs, no wings or arms, and wattles along their backs and near their wide, gaping beaks. They're mainly herbivores but also scratch for invertebrates, and lay huge striped eggs that hatch up to ten chicks which scamper after their mothers.
They are very curious and very stupid. Everything remotely predatory eats them and they are delicious, but they're fast and fecund so this doesn't seem to get them down. Walking huts seem to think they resemble huttlets and will transport them from place to place. You can find them anywhere, often inexplicably. On a roof? Way up a tree? Splashing through the grove? Past the firedamp on the far banks? Sometimes you see nunas there.
CREATURE NAME: Blarth CREATURE DESCRIPTION: Imagine a rotund pug as big as a mastiff, with a long tail with 'fingers' on the end, a long licking tongue that drools copiously, and hairless blue-gray skin. They appear to be constantly smiling and are friendly, but careful, pet one too much and it will follow you around for a while, drooling and laying in inconvenient places hoping for more attention. Blarths are good swimmers and also surprisingly agile on land. While they are predators, it's exclusively of small animals, most of them lured or snatched by their tails. They'll eat nuna chicks but don't have the dentition to tear apart adults.
Exclusively found in walkway territory, especially near the village, but if you befriend one it may follow you deeper into the Marsh. This isn't a bad thing as long as you're not straining to listen for anything as they make a fair amount of noise panting and slobbering. Fall into the water near a blarth, and chances are it will jump in to rescue you like a dolphin might, buoying you up and trying to swim you to safety.
CREATURE NAME: Otta CREATURE DESCRIPTION: These are just black and white alien otters with moustaches. They'll use stones to crack open shellfish on their bellies like sea otters. They scamper around and are fun to watch but are not amenable to petting, and have a mischievous tendency to creep up on lazing blarths, nip them, and scamper away. They'll also eat jubba bird eggs and nestlings. The birds hate them.
CREATURE NAME: Swamp slug CREATURE DESCRIPTION: These are truly massive white slug-centipede-snakes with great staring yellow eyes and foul-smelling mucus, up to thirty feet long and able to rear their front ends up to about nine feet. They'll gulp down and eat anything organic, rasping it to slush with their countless esophageal teeth. If it's moving, first they'll subdue it by bashing it with their heads.
Everything hates swamp slugs. Walking huts kick them fervently and they're never close to the village. Spiders swarm and devour them so they're rarely found in the grove. Fortunately, if you encounter one on the boardwalk and can move away at a power walk, you can outdistance it and it won't pursue. Otherwise... look for a pale shape under the water, and stay away. They are not specifically predators of people but will try anything that gets close. The biggest ones could manage to swallow a human whole, which wouldn't be fun for anyone involved.
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CREATURE DESCRIPTION: Some of the smaller houses in the village seem a bit newer and are on only two stilts each! Oddly thick stilts. These one or two-room huts are a little warmer and cozier than the larger ones, with featherbeds and plush comforters and other such furnishings, and they don't have any leftover items in them. The doors all seem to open at the merest touch of your hand and there's a certain sense of presence, but not a malicious one. There might be what looks like a doghouse, of all things, on the floor.
Get too comfortable in there and you may sense movement or hear splashing, but since the hut is being very careful ('tiptoeing', you might say, if it didn't have feet like this), it's very possible for it to abduct you without your knowledge and settle down elsewhere in the swamp, usually in the company of other huts.
Baby walking huts ('huttlets') resemble doghouses with legs and are a lot more active. They seem shy of most people and hide under the boardwalks when they sense them, but are bolder around people who've got abducted and like to sprint about and chase each other, retreating to the interiors of the adults to rest or hide from danger. The adults will attack anything that seems to be a threat to the young, may defend humans, and hate knobby white spiders. They crouch down and crunch killed threats under themselves and seem to be eating but it's hard to tell how, or if they're actually alive.
Walking huts won't go near the firedamp and don't park long in the groves. If one carries you off, eventually it will return to the village but it may take a while. Some of the huts come off as more malicious or mischievous, some more protective. You get the sense that they find people... cute? Maybe humans seem like huttlets.
CANON INSPIRED? These are inspired by Baba Yaga's chicken-footed hut from Russian mythology, but aren't the same thing.
and several from Star Wars Legends:
CREATURE NAME: Knobby white spiders and gnarltrees.
CREATURE DESCRIPTION: There are giant white spider-things scrambling around in the grove, ranging from fairly delicate and knee high to lumbering ones with the mass of a car. They're hunting animals (and huttlets) and being hunted in turn. Sometimes you find a big one that's stopped moving, plunged its "mouth" and legs into the ground, and started to grow branches and stretch upwards... then you notice that a number of trees have high, arched roots a bit like legs, and bark with a similar knobby texture.
The spiders are the young "spore" stage of gnarltrees, which feed and grow and find likely places to plant themselves. Little ones are common, larger ones increasingly rare. Car-sized spiders with branch-buds can sometimes be seen testing different spots, uprooting and relocating, but they're getting too big to walk and have to make a choice. There's a stage where their 'mouths' are rooted but they can still move their leg-roots and may kick away threats - they hate walking huts! After that they're totally sessile and as their bark darkens they become indistinguishable from regular trees. Spiders will venture nowhere near firedamp. They're flammable!
CREATURE NAME: Jubba bird
CREATURE DESCRIPTION: Goofy-looking big-mouthed birds(?) around a foot tall, with leathery tails and bodies and crests like pompoms. Flocks of them will drive off large knobby white spiders, kill and eat small ones, and nest in gnarltrees. They also eat insects and small animals.
Despite looking very clownish, jubba birds act quite proud and as if they're very beautiful, seeming to present their "best sides" for observers. They're very intelligent as well as vain, but their most notable trait is their song, an eerie whistle that's oddly soothing to anything that hears it. Admire them and their song, maybe rescue an egg or hatchling if a nest gives way, and you can befriend them.
CREATURE NAME: Nunas or swamp turkeys.
CREATURE DESCRIPTION: They look kind of like frogs crossed with chickens. Almost spherical green animals with two birdlike legs, no wings or arms, and wattles along their backs and near their wide, gaping beaks. They're mainly herbivores but also scratch for invertebrates, and lay huge striped eggs that hatch up to ten chicks which scamper after their mothers.
They are very curious and very stupid. Everything remotely predatory eats them and they are delicious, but they're fast and fecund so this doesn't seem to get them down. Walking huts seem to think they resemble huttlets and will transport them from place to place. You can find them anywhere, often inexplicably. On a roof? Way up a tree? Splashing through the grove? Past the firedamp on the far banks? Sometimes you see nunas there.
CREATURE NAME: Blarth
CREATURE DESCRIPTION: Imagine a rotund pug as big as a mastiff, with a long tail with 'fingers' on the end, a long licking tongue that drools copiously, and hairless blue-gray skin. They appear to be constantly smiling and are friendly, but careful, pet one too much and it will follow you around for a while, drooling and laying in inconvenient places hoping for more attention. Blarths are good swimmers and also surprisingly agile on land. While they are predators, it's exclusively of small animals, most of them lured or snatched by their tails. They'll eat nuna chicks but don't have the dentition to tear apart adults.
Exclusively found in walkway territory, especially near the village, but if you befriend one it may follow you deeper into the Marsh. This isn't a bad thing as long as you're not straining to listen for anything as they make a fair amount of noise panting and slobbering. Fall into the water near a blarth, and chances are it will jump in to rescue you like a dolphin might, buoying you up and trying to swim you to safety.
CREATURE NAME: Otta
CREATURE DESCRIPTION: These are just black and white alien otters with moustaches. They'll use stones to crack open shellfish on their bellies like sea otters. They scamper around and are fun to watch but are not amenable to petting, and have a mischievous tendency to creep up on lazing blarths, nip them, and scamper away. They'll also eat jubba bird eggs and nestlings. The birds hate them.
CREATURE NAME: Swamp slug
CREATURE DESCRIPTION: These are truly massive white slug-centipede-snakes with great staring yellow eyes and foul-smelling mucus, up to thirty feet long and able to rear their front ends up to about nine feet. They'll gulp down and eat anything organic, rasping it to slush with their countless esophageal teeth. If it's moving, first they'll subdue it by bashing it with their heads.
Everything hates swamp slugs. Walking huts kick them fervently and they're never close to the village. Spiders swarm and devour them so they're rarely found in the grove. Fortunately, if you encounter one on the boardwalk and can move away at a power walk, you can outdistance it and it won't pursue. Otherwise... look for a pale shape under the water, and stay away. They are not specifically predators of people but will try anything that gets close. The biggest ones could manage to swallow a human whole, which wouldn't be fun for anyone involved.