Hi everyone, and welcome back to the Finder’s Archives.
In this column, we take some of the lands from Magic: The Gathering and turn them into something you can use for your fantasy games.
The stats given in each entry assumes that you’re using Pathfinder or 5e for your games, but they can easily be converted over into any fantasy system. This time we try to traverse the Crawling Barrens, only to find more creepy crawlies than we could ever want.
Crawling Barrens
The Crawling Barrens is a mostly flat area of land, with the occasional large hill breaking up the monotony. There is no vegetation on the surface, as it is covered in dark slushy mud that has crusted over from exposure to sun and wind. The mud is so thick that it is practically clay. Those who have dug into it report that only 3 feet down, the ground is alive with centipedes, worms, and a myriad of arthropods some of which have died out millions of years ago in other areas of the world, or simply have never existed (or, as some scholars question: is it because they haven’t existed YET?).
These creatures seemingly feed upon each other in an endless cycle of cannibalism, and this layer of living sludge is enough to keep most sentient beings far away from the Crawling Barrens, especially with the lack of exploitable resources. But the real danger lurks beneath.
Lay of the Land
The Crawling Barrens is a vast area of land, easily the size of most countries, and it is clearly not natural, though how it came to be, or what it is eludes scholars. The most recent theory is that it is somehow linked to the Para-Elemental Plane of Ooze, but that plane is just that, ooze, rather than living creatures. An alternate, and potentially more likely, theory links the area to an uncharted layer of the Abyss. This is potentially adjacent somehow, to the 128th layer of the Abyss called Slugbed, but one with a more active lord than Lupercio the Demon Lord of Sloth.
What’s worse is that beneath the layer of arthropods is something worse. A green and yellow primordial ooze rests about 100 feet below the surface, and from this ooze come creatures that burst through the surface layers and go on a rampage. These creatures are never intelligent, and for the most part, they tend to be insects, like ankhegs, or arthropods like purple worms. Thankfully, truly powerful creatures are rare, but not unheard of, and there seems to be no indicator of when a creature erupts.
When they do, they go on a rampage, often traveling hundreds of miles in a seemingly random direction, destroying everything in their path, until they are killed. Simultaneous eruptions are incredibly rare, but when they happen, the creatures that erupt fight each other to the death, with the survivor taking up the usual pattern of heading in a random direction. As a result, the nations around the crawling barrens have established a roughly 100-mile-wide perimeter that they have manned with watchtowers so that soldiers or adventurers can seek out and destroy any threats before they make it to civilization.
Dangers
The creatures found here are the main danger, but as they can erupt at any moment, very few people make their way here, unless they have magical flying and a way to safely spend the night(s). A little-known danger is the problem of falling into the ooze. Surviving the layer of arthropods and worms is difficult, as they will try to consume anything that gets into them, and suffocation by worms is a disgusting enough thought for most sentients to stay away. Some have done it and entered the ooze. No one has returned, though each time, exactly 24 hours after a creature enters the ooze (a mere touch is enough for them to be sucked in), one of the powerful eruptions has happened (of no less than Challenge Rating 10 (5e/PF1) or Creature Level 10 (PF2).
See you back next time. 😊
Kim Frandsen
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- Finder’s Archive – Crypt of the Eternals - June 2, 2023
