The Corruption of Tumbledown

[The Lesser Evil]

I was rereading Gaz III recently, and Tumbledown struck me as a really evocative place. It's a den of vice and corruption without the associated rough and tumble loud personality.

The feel i get is a combination of Innsmouth (how they stared at "S") and the town from the Fog or We Are Still Here (rule by a secret council of businesspeople), all wrapped up as a decaying backwoods town turned "thriving" sin city. Whereas Mordent represents the stoic remnants of a once brighter and more romantic past, Tumbledown represents a response to the grief of loss through distraction and decadence. As I see it, Tumbledown calls out to the sinful and the hopeless, both sorts of people outcasts from the rest of Mordentish society. Perhaps something along this in feel in-character

VIEW CONTENT:

This place use to be a bright, happy place. But then something happened. The town's elite did something horrible, and they left it in the swamp. Now that something in the swamp beckons more people to come to Tumbledown, because hardly nobody has children there anymore. Once you've settled in, you get a sunken in look about you, and your eyes start to bug out a little bit. It spooks the newcomers, but they either pass on through or get used to it. Someone always comes along, and as long as that something gets someone from time to time, everything's fine.

That there are four NPCs with conspicuous PC levels in the "Important characters" makes me think these four are the "business people", and they were former adventurers.

So the question is, what's in the swamp, what's the town for, and what's the secret council up to?

[Rock of the Fraternity]

Well, the description makes me think of 'The Shadow over Innsmouth', by H.P. Lovecraft.

Substitute boggards, skum or other froglike beasties for Deep Ones, and....?