Along the Wild Coast, the troglodytes have always existed in scattered nests beneath the limestone cliffs, drowned caves and fissures that open only at low tide. Until recently they were a nuisance rather than a true danger: territorial, foul-smelling and vicious when cornered, but reluctant to range far from the darkness of their warrens.
That has changed.
In recent months, coastal hunters have reported entire colonies moving inland after dusk. Their attacks are no longer random. Troglodyte bands now strike camps, fishing villages and isolated roads with unusual aggression, killing livestock, dragging away bodies and marking trees and stones with streaks of rancid black slime. Even more troubling, separate nests that once fought one another have begun hunting together.
Those few who have escaped describe the creatures as feverishly agitated. They hiss and shriek continuously during battle, throwing themselves at armed opponents with little regard for wounds. Some bear fresh ritual scars across the chest and skull, while others carry crude charms made from shells, teeth and fragments of dark stone recovered from somewhere beneath the coast.
The people of the Wild Coast have begun calling the outbreak the Troglodyte Surgency.
No one yet knows what has stirred them. Some believe something deeper in the coastal caverns has driven them upward. Others claim a new troglodyte chieftain or shaman has united the tribes. The oldest fishermen tell a darker story: that the troglodytes are not fleeing anything at all.
They are preparing the coast for something that is coming after them.