Slumgullion Bog

One Whiff, it'll last a lifetime
Slumgullion Bog is one of the most wretched and foul smelling places one can ever imagine. The stink of rotting eggs burbles up out of the deepest part of the bog, casting up bubbles so thick with stink damp you can see it and even worse ... you can taste it. It is a foul and rancid taste, like eating the rotting intestines of a six day day mule. Then there is the stink of the rot, rotting trees, rotting plants, dead rotting animals, amazing that the place is knee deep in death and rot, and still has living things boiling up out of it.

The Goblin's Stink-Hole
Slumgullion is fair teeming with goblins, it always has been and likely always will be. Seems fair enough, no one else wants that six times cursed mouldering hunk of land. The Slumgullion Goblins arent bad as most goblins go, of course they stink to higgh heaven and they eat things that would even make a possum vomit, but to each their own. Unlike the rest of the greenskins, the Slumgullioners dont have much interest in mounting raids and making off with loot. Most of the time they keep to themselves, fighting among each other over the few dry hillocks in the bog, or this piece of warren or that piece of warren.

They make a small living selling things from the swamp to locals, mostly plants and herbs to the apothecary and this substance and that to the mages. Their biggest item is their Goblinsnot Shine. This liquor is made from fermented swamp rice and whatever else falls into the mash and is double distilled by the goblins. They still use swamp water, but the heat kills the creepy-crawlies in the juice so it is safe to drink even if it smells like a bottle of goblin sweat. It packs a heavy punch, burns like dragonfire, and does wonders for curing sobriety, mulish wives, general ugliness, and lack of performance ability.

Funny thing, the goblins and their stink-hole fair well no matter how cold the winter is. Seems that even old Iceknuckle Istvan can't snap his frosty fingers into Slumgullion. Suppose the cold is afraid of the stink? I know its enough to keep most sane and about half of the unsane away. Still, it's enough to keep the goblins down in the bog, and sure they dont get around enough, if you know what I mean, the swamp goblins are ... dumb, even for goblins.

Goblin-Fire
In most other places, these flickering balls of silent fire and light are calls ghosts, will-o-the-wisps, and foxfire. Seemingly trickster spirits, these balls of light will lead travelers to safety, or deposit them in the most inhospitable places in the swamp as their mercurial mood sees fit. The most dangerous part about the goblin-fires is that on occasion, their very presence can set the bog alight with flashes of flame and sheets of short-lasting fire. Most of the time these displays are more entertaining than dangerous, but sometimes a goblin-fire will set a large hollow in the bog alight, knocking down a few trees and sending the goblins into a right conniption fit.

Behind the Scenes
Slumgullion Bog is a unique geological and hydrological formation. The freshwater bog happens to sit atop a slowly simmering geothermal vent that pumps both heat and sulfuric gases into the bottom of the bog. This heats the bog, and most of the plant and animal life in Slumgullion has some level of innate resistance or outright immunity to acids. The cause of the smell is twofold. Swamps produce methane gas, also known as swamp gas, in large amounts. This in conjunction with the sulfer compounds hemmoraging out of the water creates an aweful stink that few will forget. Goblin-Fire is pretty much the standard will-o-the-wisp in the local vernacular, and their pyrotechnic displays are the ephemeral creatures setting off pockets of flammable swamp gas with their luminescent bodies.

The Slumgullion Goblins have no specific aversion to the smell of the bog, though they notice it as much as anyone else. Their population is relatively small and on the whole, they suffer from slowly increasing inbreeding as most Slumgullion goblins are loath to leave their reptile and vermin infested, self heating swamp. To describe them in a single word, they are degenerate.