Swamp ambience for D&D
Frogs every six seconds, mud every ten, and something large every eighty. The recipe for a place with no far away in it.
A swamp is a wet bed at 60% with everything else held close: frogs every six seconds, mud every ten, insects every fifteen, all nearby. Only two layers are pushed out, and one of them is something large moving, about every eighty seconds. A swamp is oppressive because almost nothing in it is far away.
What it sounds like
Forest and swamp draw on much of the same library and feel nothing alike, and the difference is distance. A forest has depth — birds up high, movement away through the trees. A swamp has almost none. Three of its six layers sit nearby and fire inside fifteen seconds of each other, so there is a constant close wet churn and nowhere to look past it.
Frogs lead it, every six seconds. Frogs that stop are a horror cue; frogs that never stop are a climate, and this is a climate.
Then the two far layers. Crows, which are atmosphere, and “something large moves” about every eighty seconds, which is not. It is displacement — something shifting in water nobody can see the bottom of. The party will supply the monster.
The recipe, dial by dial
This is the environment as it ships. Every layer is the same kind of thing — one sound from the library and a set of dials — so there is nothing special about which slot a sound sits in. The names are only names.
| Layer | Sound | How often | Wander | Volume | Distance | Reverb | Echo |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Swamp | Swamp | loop | — | 60% | close | off | off |
| Frogs | Frogs | every ~6.0 s | 70% | 50% | nearby | medium | 1 bounce |
| Mud | Mud bubbles | every ~10 s | 70% | 50% | nearby | medium | 1 bounce |
| Insects | Insect buzz | every ~15 s | 70% | 50% | nearby | medium | 1 bounce |
| Something big | Something large moves | every ~80 s | 70% | 50% | far | medium | 1 bounce |
| Crows | Crows | every ~50 s | 70% | 50% | far | medium | 1 bounce |
Master volume 80%. Every number above is read out of the environment that ships in the app, and printed in the words the app prints beside each slider.
- Swamp — The bed at 60%. Wet, close and airless.
Swamp - Frogs — Every six seconds, nearby. The fastest layer, and the one that makes it a climate rather than a scare.
Frogs - Mud — Every ten seconds. Small, close, constant. Deeply unpleasant and almost never consciously noticed.
Mud bubbles - Insects — Every fifteen seconds, nearby. The third near layer; between the three of them something is always happening within arm's reach.
Insect buzz - Something big — Every eighty seconds, far. The only layer with anything at stake in it.
Something large moves - Crows — Every fifty seconds, far. Atmosphere, and the one sound here that comes from above.
Crows
What each dial does is covered once, properly, in Environments & layers.
Boards to load with it
The environment is the place; boards are the things that happen in it. These three ship built in and suit this one:
Load them, then press + New scene and the environment and the boards come back together next week in one tap. Scenes covers that.
Make it yours
A jungle
Jungle ships built in and is this recipe with depth put back: the same wet heat, but with calls far off and up high. Louder, busier, far less claustrophobic.
Rainy woods
Rainy Woods is the temperate version — rain instead of frogs, and a much more comfortable place to spend an hour.
Overgrown ruins
Overgrown Ruins is built in and is the best of both: swamp sounds with stone to bounce off, so reverb finally becomes available to you.
None of this is destructive: the built-in environments cannot be overwritten. Change what you like, and press Save a copy as… when it sounds right.
The recordings
Every sound this environment uses, and who recorded it. Most of the library is public domain; the Creative Commons Attribution recordings are credited here because that is what the licence asks for. The full list is on Sounds & licensing.
- Swamp — Screaming frogs (+background arrangement) by dersinnsspace (CC0)
- Frogs — Frog.ogg by egomassive (CC0)
- Frogs — frog.mp3 by BinaryMonkFlint (CC0)
- Frogs — frog_quak.mp3 by katzlbt (CC0)
- Frogs — Frogs croaking.wav by Kamix0 (CC0)
- Mud bubbles — Mud Splat by Breviceps (CC0)
- Mud bubbles — mud of jungle footsteps by paul.wav by aust_paul (CC0)
- Mud bubbles — Footsteps_Mud_02.wav by BenDrain (CC0)
- Mud bubbles — Pulling Something Out of the Mud - Foley.wav by tothrec2 (CC0)
- Insect buzz — Buzzing Insect Short.mp3 by FunWithSound (CC0)
- Insect buzz — Wasp Buzzing 02 by loganzsound (CC0)
- Something large moves — Big Water Splash by qubodup (CC0)
- Something large moves — Large Splash by roboroo (CC0)
- Something large moves — Tiny Splash by dslrguide (CC0)
- Something large moves — Rock Splash by Fission9 (CC0)
- Crows — Crow Caw by Jofae (CC0)
- Crows — Crows_02.wav by Q.K. (CC0)
- Crows — crow.wav by nigelcoop (CC0)
- Crows — Caw.ogg by egomassive (CC0)
- Crows — Hooded Crow: Cawing by Mish7913 (CC0)
Related
Open Deep Swamp in Thaumaturgy — it is free, there is nothing to install, and nothing to sign up for.
Updated 24 October 2026