The frogs are thick and plentiful here. Everywhere you go, you're almost always about to squash one of the slimy things underfoot if you're not careful about what you tread on. And at night, the tiresome din of multitude of the amphibians croaking, fills the air and render sleep all but impossible. Worst of all, the disgusting things are prone to invading one's hut, huddling in dark corners.

In this dank land, the Bombo hold sway. And the frogs thrive, as do their more mysterious cousins...

Famed for the dazzling beauty of their shimmering scales, the Yogran are fish that every nobleman or powerful merchant wants to stock his pond with.

Throughly despising the intrigue and scandals of the royal court,Prince Michael has never mourned the loss of his crown and inheritance to a treacherous advisor of his father's. No,inflicting vengeance on the usurper and reclaiming his throne is too petty for him. He has a more important quest to fulfill..

''Parasitical worms that breed at an alarming rate , these vicious little creatures are indeed a great plague to other aquatic species that share their habitat. It is regrettable that some of them were able to escape their enclosures and infect our local fish stocks. But rest assured good people, that our illustrious and gifted leaders have an excellent reason for encouraging the domestication of these foul things. Trust in a wisdom that exceeds ours by far ''.

-Village Spokse man for the Quarsooth initiated aqua-culture project.

Poor little Kankos..

Spat upon by his tyrannical superiors, this pathetic little office menial slaved away like a mule for the miserable pittance thrown to him..

Until he met the one that lurked in the shadows..

A well crafted but otherwise ordinary steak knife. It makes the cutting of meat sooooooo easy.

Like the heated embrace of a lover, this singular thing caresses and binds itself around the chest of the wearer, linkings its fate with his to the end of his days...

Suffused with a love for probing every inch of the darkest and most unexplored depths of the ocean,this adventurous octopus like being possesses a dashing courage most odd for one of his race.

Not very surprising perhaps,when you consider the fact that this young explorer is insane.

'I stand before you now to tell you that the gods have spoken to me! Obey not the strictures of the Church! They seek only to deprive us of the very same pleasures that they enjoy themselves'.

''I am so very sorry to interupt your grand schemes for seizing control of the nether-realm, but I am afraid that my master, the Lord of the Desolate Shore, has raised some serious objections..''

The Surash are without doubt,the most distrusted and least liked race in existence.

Can a demon ever learn what it means to feel pity, grief, fear, despair, joy and the rest of those tangled emotions and feelings that plague humans? Can beings who obtain their deepest satisfaction from the suffering they inflict on others,ever embrace those very things they so passionately despise and hate about the mortal races? Mozrak,wisest of the half-demons and beloved of the Mother Godess, believed it not impossible. The Staff is both his curse and gift to his pureblood cousins.

As the officer strides into the thick and oppresive pitch-black gloom of the jungle, he silently signals to his men to fan out in a classic Quarsooth battle-formation with a nervous hand-gesture. He is very tense, almost afraid. The soothing, omnipresent presence in his mind tells him that he has no reason to worry, assuring him that victory will belong to those noble warriors that carry the standard of the invincible race of Zor-Tanis.

But there is something else cutting through the easy promises offered by that pleasant, gently commanding entity in his mind, as if determined to seize all his attention and use it to torment his imagination until it begins to scream for mercy. This something he cannot define and put words to, but it makes his skin crawl nevertheless. Despite the heat of the jungle, his blazing gold body-armor had suddenly become a chill prison that raises uncomfortable goosebumps along his chest.

Woried muttering from the rear tell him that his men like him, are unsettled. Turning aound in irritation, he begins to hiss at them to remain silent, afraid of alerting the very band of murdering monstrosities they have finally tracked into this eerie wilderness. It would be a rather embarassing matter for their commander if the very quarry they had been relentlessly pursuing for the past week or so, were to suddenly turn around and massacre all of them.

Too late he feels a something slithering around his neck. Fearful that it might be a pyhton, he reackes for his massive ''fire-bow'', determined to incinerate the scaled menace before it can crush his larynx. But before his fingers even have a chance to close around the handle of the weapon hanging from his belt, another coil slithers out of the darkness and out of the darkness and pinions his arm, holding it in a painful crushing crip. As agony swamps him, he can vaguely hear a grim sound of cracking bones through the pain-filled haze that now holds him. His arm is being crushed. And then so quickly that his stunned mind has no time to register this new fact, there is no time left for more thought. The coil looped around his throat begins to squeeze, suffocating him. As the officer's head begins to swim in the final moments of his life, he finally gains an excellent look at the thing that is stealing his life.

It is not a snake, but a vine. As if in response to this discovery, a now terrifyingly familiar roar of bestial fury rings through the gloom of the jungle..

This sea monster seeks to devour more than just mere flesh..

Serving extensively in the armies of human kings determined to eradicate the last tribal enclaves of ferocious non-humans that still stubbornly refuse to release their hold on the large tracts of wilderness which yet remain, this mercenary company has only one requirement of any potential recruit willing to sign up with them:He must not not be able to claim kinship of even the slightest kind with their employers..

Beware the old woman clutching at the folds of her clothing..

There are some men who treat their wives the way they would chattel,that is,with utter control and domination,regarding their spouses not as independent beings entitled to their free will,but as mere objects of theirs,subject to the will of their lords. Such is the nature of those doomed to become the Possessive Ones,upon their death.

Founded on the promise of prophecy, this fiefdom owes it success to its previously worthless amethyst deposits. And its very survival as well.

''A thousand of the vile things we set alight, crying aloud the prayers of the Holy Redeemer as the demonic abombinations screamed in a chorus of almost human agony, utterly helpless against the flames that consumed their monstrous and deformed bodies. Never again will another human grace the banquet of these accursed fiends. But it pleases me even more to say that the gold which is so abundant in this heathen land, is now the sole propety of a nation blessed by the One God. No more will these repellent false deities lay claim to that which we have wrested from their worshippers''. -Corand Rogad, Conquerer of Tahutol

To experience liberation in the arms of Goran, one must first await the coming of the Uroghi..