There is a place beyond the low fens where the ground squelches like wet meat, and the reeds hiss secrets in the dark. Travelers who stray too far into the bog speak of shapes that jiggle and slosh between the cattails, figures that seem to walk on legs wrapped in scales, with bellies swollen like spoiled wineskins.
These are the Curdlings, and to see them is to know that the earth beneath you is no longer your ally.
Their forms are grotesque, as though armor was poured over flesh not meant to stand upright. Their helmets bubble into curled horns and bulbous crests, as if boiled from the inside. Their gait is wide and lurching, legs banded in chitinous ridges that ripple with each wobbling step. But it is their stomachs that haunt the mind most, distended, sagging with a wet slosh, as though filled with rancid broth or curdled milk.
The Curdlings do not speak in words. Their language is the gurgling of bloated bellies and the hiss of fermenting breath. They are not hunters in the traditional sense. They are fermenters.
Those who fall into their grasp are not devoured, they are drowned. Pressed into the muck, held under until lungs flood with mire, and then dragged into the belly-pools of the fen. What emerges later is not the same. Days later, a new Curdeling may stumble from the water’s edge, its swollen gut sloshing with something new, something it will carry until it bursts and births another.
Yet there is a weapon, ancient and bitter as the bog itself.
Wormwood.
The Curdlings abhor it. Not for its poison, but for its taste. Wormwood is the herb of clarity and sharpness, while the Curdlings thrive on rot and confusion. Their kingdom is one of damp stupor, where thoughts soften like bread left in water. Wormwood cuts through this haze. The bitter scent is said to clear the mind and stiffen the limbs, both defenses against the sluggish despair that seeps from the Curdlings.
Old marshfolk chew wormwood sprigs before venturing into the fens, keeping the bitterness fresh on their tongues. It is said that if a Curdeling reaches for you, spitting wormwood juice into its face may make it reel, clutching its grotesque stomach as if it has been gutted.
If you ever wake to find your boots half-submerged in black water, and you hear the wet slap of something waddling through the reeds, remember this:
Bitter teeth live. Sweet tongues drown.
Keep wormwood close. Keep it fresh.
Or prepare to join the slosh of Marshgut.
