BOGGARDS

Living in soggy, disease-ridden marshes, boggards are often isolated from other humanoids—
a condition that breeds suspicion of foreign visitors, ideas, and technology. This
marginalization has distilled their brutality to the point where the strongest members
subjugate and often consume their weaker kin. At the top of the food chain stand the
boggards' priest-kings (a term that applies to both male and female rulers)—tyrannical
prophets who rule over their uneducated subjects.

A boggard's life begins in a spawning pool as one of roughly a dozen gelatinous eggs laid in a
frothy clutch. After a month-long gestation, the tadpoles gnaw their way out of their eggs and
spend the following 9 months feeding on anything they can find—including weak and unlucky
siblings. During this time, the tadpoles grow stubby arms and legs that quickly elongate and
strengthen enough for them to crawl out of the pools. This feat isn't enough to secure them a
place in boggard society, since caretakers cull the weakest and any showing signs of
deformities.

The exceptions to this rule are the priest-king's offspring, who are fed meals of poisonous
dragonflies. This diet kills most, and those few who survive develop differently from other
boggards. Some have greater mental capacity and spell-like abilities, marking them as
potential future priest-kings. But many survivors mature into the stunted, barely intelligent
horrors known as bogwiggles.

Young boggards live in cadres that comprise a dozen or more adolescents led by a handful of
more experienced warriors. The youths receive a modicum of care and protection during the
first year out of water, during which they learn the practical skills necessary for life and
service to their ruler. Virtually all boggards receive the same type of training, which
emphasizes athletic prowess, hunting skills, and a broad set of rudimentary crafts.

When boggards reach roughly 3 years of age, they are considered adults and are sent away
from the community for a month-long ritual hunt. Those who return with the corpse of a
sapient humanoid earn approval, a place in the society, and a grand celebratory meal. Those
who fail are exiled or consumed.

Priest-kings are typically larger than their kin, sometimes growing so bloated and ponderous
he seems to belong to a different species entirely. Their effective monopoly on divine magic
further reinforces the gap between rulers and their subjects. When the reigning priest-king
dies (often from violence), the heirs compete to claim the throne. The victor almost always
kills off her siblings to reinforce her claim.

Boggards are extremely fertile, and their culture encourages them to reproduce as often as
resources permit. Despite the large number of young, systemic cannibalism keeps the
boggard population in check. Boggards embrace this practice as a way of weeding out the
weak and empowering the strong, though the fact that even the youngest offspring engage in
it suggests cannibalism is instinctive—an expression of the species' ravenous appetite.
Nonetheless, as survivors of numerous broods born in competitive environments, boggards
are highly adaptive, capable of weathering ecological disasters and evolving to exploit new
environments—much to the frustration of other intelligent creatures that compete with them.
What many think of as the "typical" boggard is well adapted to life in marshes, yet boggards
also thrive in rainforests, where they often develop more colorful skin patterns. Like the
amphibians they resemble, some boggards have developed the ability to estivate, allowing
them to survive extended droughts and food shortages. As a result, it's rare but not
impossible to find boggards exploiting periods of rain in deserts, during which time they are
especially aggressive.

Boggard settlements are usually arranged in a manner that reinforces the hierarchy. The
priest-king's dwelling stands near the center on a low, ziggurat-like mound of compacted
mud, and those mounds claimed by direct subordinates radiate outward. The higher the
mound and the closer it is to the monarch's home, the greater the resident boggard's status.
The creatures further display their importance by studding their homes with bones, shells,
reeds, and various exotic materials. Stealing a neighbor's ornaments often leads to violence—
but if the thief is victorious, then clearly she was right to take what she wanted.

Hunting and gathering make up the bulk of the boggards' way of life, and their crafts are
typically limited to simple constructions of stone and organic matter. Some priest-kings
intentionally rotate who is working on a project to keep any one boggard from becoming
exceptional. What boggards can't make or gather, they steal from other humanoids. Metal
items are rare in boggard society—most metals simply can't withstand long-term exposure to
a damp environment. Magic weapons and armor are therefore prized for their resistance to
corrosion.

Two beliefs are central to boggards' religious and spiritual experience. First, the weak should
be recycled to empower the strong, from cannibalizing the infirm to claiming the weapons of a
fallen comrade to stealing a neighbor's home. Second, might makes right, especially for the
priest-king, whose divine power is typically bestowed by an evil god or demon lord. Common
boggards' reliance on their leader for spiritual guidance breeds a debilitating superstition in
many. Those who can't abide by the beliefs of boggard society are cast out, and boggards
who hear tales of these hermits respond with a mix of disdain and uneasiness.

Metamorphosis fascinates boggards, from the development of their young to the

transformation of priest-kings. Those who parley with boggards can sometimes awe the
creatures with transformative magic.

Full statistics for boggards can be found in their Bestiary entry.