The swamp is a fairly easy place.
Just 2 important things if you don't have good armor.

Poison Resistance and keeping up your rested buff
Health/Stamina Pots can also be quite useful.

As for food, just regular cooked meats will do.
Carrot Soup, Queens Jam and cooked Fish if you can't manage with low health.

These kind of stories take me back to OG Dark Souls when people walked into the catacombs after reaching Firelink Shrine for the first time, unprepared. Good times. Thanks OP :D

Originally posted by GunsForBucks:

Stay by the edges and kills some draugers... make a tree fort on the edge but on a good side if you are getting killed and shoot down on them.
Drauger drops sausages a great food you will use for a while.
Carrot soup you should have already. Make a cultivator so you can plant seeds.
Turnip seeds are another thing you want to scout the edges of swamps for. They are fairly rare but all you need to find is one plant for seeds and you can grow them.
Those three can carry you through the swamps and past the mountains.

Once you get iron you can do pretty well serpent hunting as well for serpent stew.. that is "end game" food at present.

Sausages, carrot soup and whatever at least can make searching the swamps a bit easier.

Make a cauldron out of tin to cook stuff. Berries can get you queens jam you can use till you get turnip stew. Oh I guess if you have poison resist you have a cauldron.

thx for the advice but do enemies follow you into caves or are there any enemies in the sunken crypts?

Carrot Soup, Queens Jam, Venison is your food while their you will get sausage to replace venison with.....

It's not alone about the food, it's a lot about your items too. Personally never had trouble going anywhere other than Plains because back when we still used to play; the Deathsquitos were a real danger. They got nerfed and are no longer such pain in the arse :D

Assuming that you're not running any mods, the best foods you will reasonably have available before getting near a swamp are Carrot Soup, Queen's Jam, and either Cooked Meat or Fish.

Before you venture into the swamp, make sure to equip yourself in maxed-out troll armor or bronze armor, bronze mace, and bronze buckler. Bring a hoe to help make easier paths and your swamp key (if scouting for Sunken Crypts). If going on an extended trip, bring along a cart and/or the means to make a portal so that you can pop home for rest, repair, and resupply.

It's always raining in the swamp, which means you will recover hp and stamina slower due to being wet. Don't tire yourself out too much to defend yourself; bring potions and tasty mead for panic moments.

Be on the lookout for Turnip Seeds, which will allow you to start farming Turnips for Turnip Stew, a strong and inexpensive food. Pick up all the thistle you see (needed for several valuable recipes), Blood Bags from leeches (also used in valuable recipes), and collect Entrails from draugr to make sausage.

Unless you're scouring the seas for serpent, you should be decked out in iron gear and eating Sausage, Turnip Stew, and Carrot Soup in preparation for your fight with Bonemass. (Carrot Soup can be subbed out for some form of cooked meat if you want higher hp vs stam.)

All of this is true for about the next 48 hours when Hearth & Home goes live. After that, we shall see.

Foods for New to Swamps:Queens Jam and Carrot Soup, and Meat and Honey

And Potions!!: Must have Poison Potion, At first just have it going non-stop, later, as needed. healing next, and stamina doesnt hurt

Weapons: BOW and Bronze Club and Buckler. Get those skills up. You can practice on a rock at night or if its storming to pass the time.

As suggested: Snipe some Draugrs and get entrails to make sausge. They are a main stay for the rest of the game.

As far as armor. Yes, bronze will help. But I've played for a while and if Im not in the plains I roll in troll armor always becuase of zero mobility penalty and speed and jumping in water is helpful. Really with a good shield and blocking skill, and parry technique you can go naked lol.

Bring a Hoe, to open a path so you're not getting bogged down in water and bitten by leeches. The bow is great for sniping leeches, the blood bags youll need for potion and end stage food.

if you see a turnip Seed for the love of God grab it, return immediately to base and plant it. As this is the second major mid game food. Turnip Soup and Sausage is what youll eat for a while.

When youre ready for Crypt, I;d say first you must have the headlamp and weight belt from the Trader otherwise the cypts are a pain in the a$$. And bring 2 bronze pickaxes because one will go dull very fast till you can make iron pickaxe.

Carrot Soup, Neck tail and Cooked meat are the best you can really have when you FIRST get into Swamps. When in the Swamp look for Turnip seeds and guts from draugr. You want to get Sausages and Turnip Stew as those are the two big new food types.

Get out of Troll Armor ASAP, get inside a Crypt and start getting scrap iron.

Stay by the edges and kills some draugers... make a tree fort on the edge but on a good side if you are getting killed and shoot down on them.
Drauger drops sausages a great food you will use for a while.
Carrot soup you should have already. Make a cultivator so you can plant seeds.
Turnip seeds are another thing you want to scout the edges of swamps for. They are fairly rare but all you need to find is one plant for seeds and you can grow them.
Those three can carry you through the swamps and past the mountains.

Once you get iron you can do pretty well serpent hunting as well for serpent stew.. that is "end game" food at present.

Sausages, carrot soup and whatever at least can make searching the swamps a bit easier.

Make a cauldron out of tin to cook stuff. Berries can get you queens jam you can use till you get turnip stew. Oh I guess if you have poison resist you have a cauldron.

"Drauger drops sausages"

Since when? They do drop parts to make food but I have never seen one drop a sausage as loot.

Originally posted by PakaNoHida:

"Drauger drops sausages"

Since when? They do drop parts to make food but I have never seen one drop a sausage as loot.

Yeah they drop the ingredient for sausages. by that point people should have the other stuff already. Entrails. Thanks.

Originally posted by GunsForBucks:

Stay by the edges and kills some draugers... make a tree fort on the edge but on a good side if you are getting killed and shoot down on them.
Drauger drops sausages a great food you will use for a while.
Carrot soup you should have already. Make a cultivator so you can plant seeds.
Turnip seeds are another thing you want to scout the edges of swamps for. They are fairly rare but all you need to find is one plant for seeds and you can grow them.
Those three can carry you through the swamps and past the mountains.

Once you get iron you can do pretty well serpent hunting as well for serpent stew.. that is "end game" food at present.

Sausages, carrot soup and whatever at least can make searching the swamps a bit easier.

Make a cauldron out of tin to cook stuff. Berries can get you queens jam you can use till you get turnip stew. Oh I guess if you have poison resist you have a cauldron.

thx for the advice but do enemies follow you into caves or are there any enemies in the sunken crypts?

Originally posted by Wut7:

Originally posted by GunsForBucks:

Stay by the edges and kills some draugers... make a tree fort on the edge but on a good side if you are getting killed and shoot down on them.
Drauger drops sausages a great food you will use for a while.
Carrot soup you should have already. Make a cultivator so you can plant seeds.
Turnip seeds are another thing you want to scout the edges of swamps for. They are fairly rare but all you need to find is one plant for seeds and you can grow them.
Those three can carry you through the swamps and past the mountains.

Once you get iron you can do pretty well serpent hunting as well for serpent stew.. that is "end game" food at present.

Sausages, carrot soup and whatever at least can make searching the swamps a bit easier.

Make a cauldron out of tin to cook stuff. Berries can get you queens jam you can use till you get turnip stew. Oh I guess if you have poison resist you have a cauldron.

thx for the advice but do enemies follow you into caves or are there any enemies in the sunken crypts?

No, not that ive seen. Yes.

Blobs and Drauger in the crypts. Put a fire in the entrance so you dry off and can come back for the buff.