Pond

Small still water, often warm and green, thick with weed, lilies and the hum of insects. On summer evenings it is loud with frogs, and it smells of mud, mint and something rotting gently at the bottom. Newts, carp, dragonflies and water snails live in it, and herons and grass snakes come to hunt them. Many ponds are dug by people: to water cattle, to raise fish for fast days, to drive a mill or to put out fires. They are shallow enough to wade, yet children drown in them every year, and old ponds are said to hide what was thrown in at night. The village ponds of the French countryside, mares where cattle drank, are ponds of this kind.

Hear it

• By day: Duck Pond (In the album RPG Ambiences Vol. 5)
• Frogs: Enclosed Forest Frogs (On Patreon, Guardian tier)

Adventure hooks

1. A village dug a pond for its cattle a generation ago, and this summer it has dried out for the first time. In the cracked mud at the bottom lies a pair of iron manacles, still locked.
2. Someone is stealing one carp a night from the abbey’s fishponds before Lent. The thief is an otter, and the abbot will accept no explanation that does not include the devil.
3. A miller’s daughter says a voice in the millpond promised her a husband if she threw in her mother’s ring. She threw it; the husband turned up this morning, dripping, and very polite.
4. The frogs of the village pond have started croaking in a strict rhythm, and the children have made a dance of it. The schoolmaster is sure it is a message, and wants it read before the harvest feast.

What grows here

• Broadleaf Cattail (herb). A wetland plant of 1.5 to 3 m with broad strap leaves and a brown sausage-shaped seed head, always in or beside shallow water. It grows across Eurasia and North America and more locally in Africa and South America, from sea level to 2,300 m. Nearly every part is edible, and its leaves thatch roofs and seat chairs. Food of: Horse. Gives: Cattail Rhizome, Cattail Leaf, Cattail Pollen.
• Common Reed (grass). A tall wetland grass of 1.5 to 4 m, found worldwide, that forms vast reed beds in shallow fresh or brackish water, like the 1,700 km² of the Danube Delta. Its purple plumes turn grey and silky in autumn and the stems stand through the winter. It is the classic thatch of Europe. Food of: Goat. Food of: Cattle. Gives: Reed Stem, Reed Rhizome.

Animals

• Hippopotamus (man-killer, in herds, by night)
• Green Anaconda (can wound or kill, alone, at dawn and dusk)
• Moose (can wound or kill, alone, at dawn and dusk)
• Eurasian Beaver (dangerous if cornered, in families, by night)
• Medicinal Leech (dangerous if cornered, alone, day and night)
• Eurasian Otter (harmless, alone, by night)

Kept here

• Water Buffalo (can wound or kill, in herds, day and night)

Creatures

• Giant Frog (a threat to the unwary, Challenge 1/4)

This work includes material from the System Reference Document 5.2.1 ("SRD 5.2.1") by Wizards of the Coast LLC, available at https://www.dndbeyond.com/srd. The SRD 5.2.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.

To gather

Cattail Leaf, Cattail Pollen, Cattail Rhizome, Reed Rhizome, Reed Stem, Eurasian Beaver Pelt, Eurasian Otter Pelt, Medicinal Leech, Moose Hide, Buffalo Hide, Buffalo Milk, Eurasian Beaver Castoreum, Green Anaconda Fat, Hippopotamus Hide, Hippopotamus Ivory, Beetle Wing, River Pearl Grit, Full Moon Reflection, Sturgeon Roe

To fish

Bog Lungfish, Bullfrog, Freshwater Crayfish, Mirror Carp, Mud Catfish, Swamp Leech Cluster, Singing Minnow, Tench, Quicksilver Carp, White Lotus Bloom, Black Lotus Bloom

Nearby biomes

River, Stream, Lake, Spring

Open it in Biomes — MGS Toolbox