Witch's Swamp
| Witch's Swamp | |
|---|---|
| Type | Location |
The Witch's Swamp is the sunken, green-lit bog the Wizard sends the farmer into to steal his ex-wife's Magic Ink, and getting there is one of the longest errands in the game. A cutscene at the Railroad starts it, Krobus points the way to the Dark Talisman buried in the Mutant Bug Lair, and the talisman breaks the seal on the cave in the northeast corner of the Railroad. Inside that cave a rune on the floor teleports the farmer out of the valley entirely. A goblin called the Henchman guards the path to the Witch's Hut until he is handed a jar of Void Mayonnaise, and the hut beyond him holds both the ink and the three Dark Shrines, which are the only way to undo a marriage, a child or a quiet night on the farm.
Area
The swamp is one flat, boggy screen under a sickly green sky, thick with dead trees and standing water. The Witch's Hut sits at the northern end on chicken legs, and the Henchman stands in the gap in front of it.
The game files treat the whole place as an underground location, however green it looks, and that has one real consequence: nothing is ever lying on the ground here. No forage appears, no artifact spots open up, so the only thing to take home comes out of the water or out of the hut.
Once the Henchman has been paid off he disappears for good, and the path stays open. Travel back and forth also gets easier, because a rune in the Wizard's basement links the two ends of the quest and can be stepped on at any hour.
Residents
The Henchman is a goblin in the Witch's employ, and he turns the farmer away in the bluntest terms until he is bribed. The Lost Book about goblins is the hint that tells players what he wants, and a single Void Mayonnaise is enough to buy a permanent pass.
The Witch herself is never in. She is the Wizard's ex-wife, her hut is left to the shrines and the spiders, and the only sign of her in the valley is the shape that flies over the farm at night and leaves something cursed behind.
Fishing
Fishing is the one honest harvest the swamp offers, and the water is unusual in two ways. The Void Salmon lives here and nowhere else, which makes the swamp the place to go for the fish the Wizard's recipes and the darker cooking call for. Catfish also bite here in every season, including Summer, when the rivers in the valley stop producing them, so a skipped Catfish earlier in the year can still be caught. Green Algae and White Algae fill out the rest.
While the Goblin Problem is open and the farmer has no jar in hand, Void Mayonnaise itself can be pulled out of the water. The chance is slim now, so a player relying on it should bring a comfortable chair, and buying the jar from Krobus or collecting it from a Void Chicken is usually the faster route to the Henchman.
Notes
The quest chain only begins after the Community Center bundles are finished or the Joja Community Development Form is complete, so the swamp is firmly a late-game destination. Walking into the Railroad after that triggers the Wizard's request.
The Dark Talisman sits in a chest at the far end of the Mutant Bug Lair, which means fighting through mutant grubs and flies to reach it. Krobus drops the force field on the entrance once he has been asked about the talisman, and he is unhappy about sending anyone in there.
Returning the Magic Ink to the Wizard is what pays for the whole trip. It unlocks the buildings he sells, which is the obelisk network, the Junimo Hut and the Gold Clock, so the swamp is quietly the gateway to the most convenient farm in the game.
The three Dark Shrines in the hut are opened by the same bribe that opens the path. The Shrine of Memory erases an ex-spouse's memory for a heavy fee, the Shrine of Selfishness turns children into doves in exchange for something prismatic, and the Shrine of Night Terrors takes a cooked offering and switches monster spawns on the farm on or off. All three are permanent in their effects, which is the swamp's character in a sentence.
All Locations
Every entry in this group, with its key details.
