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miserable spit of land in the least inhabited area of the kingdom, the Effluent literally wallowed in its own, and everyone else’s, filth.
    Since all the garbage of the kingdom ended up here, the place had probably the oddest magical aura in existence. Broken but still magically active remains of every conceivable spell book, potion, amulet, ward, phylactery, charm, symbol, rune, and talisman were scattered randomly about, interspersed with many thousands of tonnes of shattered technical equipment. A fair amount of radioactivity was present, as well. All in all, it was the ideal breeding ground for strangeness, and the sentient creatures which found themselves evolving there against their wills were anything but happy about it. ‘Somebody will pay!’ was their rallying cry.
    In the third year of the reign of Haxxos IV, citizens of Dreadmost, the nearest settlement to the Effluent, began to report odd happenings. Given their proximity to the Effluent, these folks were not unaccustomed to weird goings-on. They were hard to impress this way, in fact. However, the events that were occurring were definitely twisted enough to cause some stir, even amongst the more hardened senior denizens. Some of these old-timers could even remember what it was like before the Effluent forever changed the landscape, not to mention the air and water quality.
    It started innocently enough, as these things often do, with some missing pets. No real shock there; the native conventional wildlife in the area was perfectly capable of absconding with the occasional small fur-bearing quadruped or unwary juvenile ornithosuchian. No, what really made the locals sit up and take notice was the way their missing pets kept turning up later with different body parts than the ones their owners remembered them having previously.
    No matter how enchanted you are with your loveable little miniature duck-billed dragonette, when it disappears for a couple of days and then shows up scratching at your door equipped with jellyfish stingers and a musk gland, the honeymoon is probably over. Tragacanthan pet owners are fickle that way.
    The phenomenon got so widespread that a new temporary industry sprung up overnight in Dreadmost: itinerant veterinary surgery. Wandering surgeons, most of whom had no surgical training apart from carving at the dinner table, would go door to door looking for distraught pet owners and convince them to shell out a few billmes to have the odd wing, fin, or bioluminescent sexual organ removed. Sometimes, by an extraordinary stroke of good fortune, the pets even survived these procedures.
    Despite a boatload of hypotheses, the majority firmly in the ‘crackpot’ category, no one had yet figured out what force was behind the mysterious somatic enhancements. Some thought they were merely accelerated mutations, brought about by the decidedly unhealthy environment of the Effluent. Others opined that the extraneous body parts were attached by some feral magic or a crazed mage running rampant in the area. None of the armchair theorists seemed inclined to do any field research in support of their various propositions, however.
    One resident not intimidated by the situation, or indeed much of anything else, was an ancient gnarlignome named Qrud. Gnarlignomes are known for being stubborn, irascible, and just downright ugly, even to other gnarlignomes. One additional trait of the species is an obsession with privacy; little factual information was available concerning how—or even why—they breed. Most people were entirely satisfied with this situation.
    Qrud’s favorite pet, a near-blind burrowing hound he’d imaginably named “Digdog,” came home one winter’s day with rabbit’s ears grafted onto its rear end, and this pissed Qrud off something fierce. He pulled himself up to his full regal one meter height and marched out into the frozen wasteland brandishing an old bent walking stick his grandfather had told him was a magic staff. He stomped