Swamps and snakes

From: Mikko Rintasaari <rintasaa_at_mail.student.oulu.fi>
Date: Thu, 14 Jun 2001 00:22:38 +0300

:Oliver Bernuetz:
:
:<<My only problem with this is that cottonmouths don't live anywhere in
:the RW where it gets really cold and snowy in the winter and doesn't Dragon
:Pass get "bitterly cold" in the winter? (Subjectively that is).>>
:
:Not in the lowlands of Maniria, which are near-tropical and are where I
:intended them to come from. Obviously you wouldn't get cottonmouths up in
:the hills, I agree. As for the Upland Marsh, it doesn't freeze over in
:winter to the best of my knowledge, so it can't get all that cold there.

You would be surprised. Finlands native name, Suomi, is derived from the word suo, meaning swamp.

We have plenty of those here, and even when the swamps don't actually freeze in the winter, they can be effectively much more cold and miserable than the surrounding area that's covered with a meter of snow and -30 C cold.

It's much easier to survive the winter burrowed under a big rock and all that snow, hibernating until it's warm again, than trying to live through the cold in the swamp where it's both cold and wet.

Unless the swamps generate a lot of warmth, any snake has to be able to hibernate to survive the dragonpass winter.

There are reasons why we don't get the big flashy snakes in Scandinavia.

        -Adept

I think I think... Therefore I think I am.

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