Poison resistance is a must or blobs and leeches will kill you off, having good food would help like grilled neck tail/cooked meat and queens jam or carrot soup, don't kill every enemy you come across sometimes running away is the best option if you're out matched.

The swamp is where the difficulty kicks in and going in unprepared bites you on the arse, also you can mine muddy scrap piles with the antler pickaxe so take a couple of them with you, skip the bronze pickaxe if you haven't already crafted it