Swamped Talk

That's a lot of questions. I'll take a few right now, and get to the rest later. Putting it in a spoiler tag to avoid taking up too much space in one post.

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Spoiler
Do wizards actually exist or are they all like Long?

Wizards are capable of using real magic, but a few decades ago, they seemed to just disappear. No one's sure of the reason.
However, magic definitely still exists. It's just that outside of wizardry, most magic tends to take effect on its own. This has been happening for a long time, but it's a lot harder to deal with a magical problem when you don't have wizards around.

What does darkwood actually do?

I haven't given a lot of thought to it, since it's something made up in a suggestion. So, I'll handle it the way I do in the adventure: making something up on the spot.

As seen in the adventure, darkwood burns very easily. Beyond that, there are rumors swirling around it in the criminal underworld that it's magical, and can enhance someone's inherent abilities. The strong get stronger, the fast get faster, the smart get smarter. This is just rumor, though, and most of the people spreading the rumors have no idea how exactly you're supposed to trigger the enhancing effect.

Whatever the truth is, the Marshguards (or at least their leadership) don't want anything to do with darkwood, despite their criminal ties. Fire is dangerous enough in the swamp without adding possibly-magical wood that can burn even when soaked into the mix.

Are Long and Rider on equal footing in terms of pure physical strength?

About the same, probably. They're both soldiers who make physical training a priority. Of course, just being strong doesn't mean much without the skill to back it up - that's where Rider excels.

Has it been particularly difficult with a text only adventure?

I've been writing daily for years now. So, I'm used to writing.

The biggest challenge with Swamped is that it's serious in tone and I update it every day. Most of my previous adventures that I updated this regularly for an extended period of time were extremely silly, so I could just have anything at all happen.

That wasn't an option here. For Swamped, I have to keep most things plausible within the world - or if they're implausible, it has to be in a way that advances the story. (The desert gateways are an example - they're strange, so I present them as something that the characters find strange.)

Is it hard keeping up with so many characters (there's like, a hundred)?

Not so much. Most scenes only involve two to three characters actually talking, and when a character reappears, it's often due to suggestions.

I write scene-to-scene, and what I generally do is try to make the characters within a scene distinct from each other. That tends to make them stand out from the cast as a whole. The rest is just trying to keep them in-character.

What is Marshall's sexuality?

Marshall is pan.

In the Swamped world as a whole, sexuality isn't really a contested subject; it's not considered unusual in any way that Marshall has two fathers, for instance.

I'm not a particularly romantic person myself, so I probably haven't given this the level of consideration it really deserves. But that's the answer I have right now.

I'll get to the rest of the questions later. Thanks for your interest!