Grung

Grungs (NaN undefineds) were poisonous frog-like amphibious humanoids that lived in swamp or marsh trees. Their society was organized in castes determined by each grung's color.

Description
Adult grung usually stood at proximately. Males were generally smaller than females. They resembled small humanoids with strong toad or frog-like legs that ends in webbed feet. Their torsos were less amphibian and had muscular forelimbs. Their hands had opposable thumbs and they had smaller somewhat more humanoid heads. These creature stood upright erect and moved about in quick short hops. Unlike frogs and toads, however, grung were incapable of long leaps.

The evolution of grung gave them intelligence, opposable thumbs, and ingenuity, but took away their prehensile tongues, common among other amphibian races. This adaptation left grung with wide sharp teeth-filled mouths. Their bright-colored skins were kept slick and wet as they breathed through it. Grung eyes were comparatively smaller than those of frogs or toads and were crowned with hard protective ridges. Their eye color was red with black pupils.

Biology
All grungs continuously secreted a poisonous substance that was harmless to them (however they were not immune to other poisons and venoms). This secretion was quite sticky and grung could easily wipe their weapons on their own skin to coat them in this highly toxic substance. When exposed to air, grung venom quickly deteriorated and broke down within a minute, making it extremely hard to harvest and bottle. These amphibian humanoids' saliva contained the same but weakened poison.

Grung needed to stay wet at all times as the dry skin killed them via suffocation. They needed to submerge themselves in water at least every three hours.

Grungs reproduced by laying eggs, which hatched into grey tadpoles which developed into humanoids over three months, and into adults over another six to nine months. Grungs reproduced quickly, one chieftain named Yorb had at least one hundred and eighty children, and that was just his sons. Three months past hatching, grung tadpoles metamorphosed, absorbing tails, sprouting limbs, and left their birthing pools, joining the adult tribal members. They reached full maturity in six more months.

Usage
Yuan-ti considered grung eggs to be a delicacy when candied.

Behaviour
Due to their size, grung often avoided direct confrontation and preferred ambushing their prey. The most common ambush strategy was laying camouflaged and waiting for their opponents, grung from other tribes, or quarry to venture into the range of their short bows or throwing spears. In addition to their naturally poisonous nature, grungs also poisoned their weapons. Each color of grung poison caused a different ailment in their victims. If their prey survived the initially volleys, the grungs would flee across the tree tops so as not to leave any trail.

When unable to use their weapons of choice, grung could also deal significant amount of damage with a simple bite. Their saliva was venomous just like as their skin was, but with a lesser potency.

Society
Their tadpoles developed in ground pools, already separated by caste as grung society was a rigid caste system, and each grung's place was determined by its color:
 * Green: Warriors, hunters, and general laborers.
 * Blue: Artisans, domestic and childcare workers. Grung crafts were traded with with other races, and could be found in the marketplaces of cities near their habitats.
 * Purple: Supervisors of the green and blue grungs. They make sure that the lower castes were happy.
 * Red: Scholars and magic users. Also known as grung wildlings, they were superior to purple, green and blue castes, and respected even by higher castes. Red grungs were known to fulfill the roles of tribal shamans and priests.
 * Orange: Elite warriors, with authority over all lesser grungs. The orange grungs were charged with protecting the grungs' most important or sacred sites.
 * Gold: Also elite warriors, with the highest leadership positions. Every tribe leader was a gold grung.

Some mobility was possible between the castes, in cases of valuable contributions and great deeds, by the use of ritual magic and herbal compounds.

Grung were aggressive and territorial. They often attacked any intrudes be it adventurers or members of another tribe. Border wars were quite common among clashing grung tribes. A single tribe usually claimed area within one mile around the settlement. The territory was rigorously patrolled and if encountered, never engaged in negotiations.

Grung tribes also made extensive use of slavery, and were always looking for new creatures to enslave. They held their slaves in crude pits covered in wooden bars, and kept them at bay by poisoning their food in order to inflict lethargy on them. Over extended periods of time, the effects of such poisoning could only be removed by magic.

Their society was matriarchal with the leaders, called war chiefs, being females. The war chiefs were always the strongest fighters in the tribe. One of the way of reaching to that position of power was via dueling to the death for the title. Each tribe also had a female shaman.

Habitats
Grungs tended to live in jungles or other tropical forests and swamps. They dwelt in or near trees, preferring to live in shady areas, and needed to remain in constant proximity to water. On the ground, their settlements resembled ramshackle, cobbled together groups of crude shelters occasionally hidden within giant dead trees. The shelters themselves tended to be circular and squat with round windows and small chimneys all made of moss, vines, or reeds mortared with mud. Grungs generally lived alongside members of the same caste in groups of eight to eighteen per home. A single tribe could include as many as a hundred grung with about a quarter of them being adolescents and children. Grung often denoted their territories by the hanging bodies of their enemies in clear view to any would-be trespassers.

Waters that were found within the grung territory were contaminated with their skin sections. Even though it was highly diluted, it caused severe nausea if ingested.

Language
Grungs spoke their own frog-like language called "grung," and most did not learn additional languages. Grung made use of both croaks (transcribed as "roook") and ribbits or chirps ("erp"), and made distinctions based on the length of croaks (e.g., "roook" versus "rooooook").

Diet
Grung carnivorous diet consisted of local mammals found within their territory, rats, travelers, and members of other grung tribes. Due to highly toxic skin, grung had very little natural predators. Giant snakes were one of them, immune to grung toxins, they freely hunted these humanoids.

Homelands
Grungs were common in Chult, and were known to occupy the jungle's rivers and flooded ruins. The village of Dungrunglung, south of the River Tiryki, and the ruins of Omu both hosted grung settlements.

Beyond Toril, grungs were known to exist on the planet of Oerth.

History
When the people of Omu began worshiping the Nine Trickster Gods after Ubtao abandoned them in the 13 century DR, one of these was a grung called Nangnang. Subsequently, Nangnang and the rest of the Tricksters Gods would be slain by Acererak and sealed in the Tomb of the Nine Gods during the late 14 century DR, but worship of Nangnang would continue among the grung of Chult. In the late 15 century DR, the despotic grung King Groak of Dungrunglung demanded that his subjects erect a tall shrine to the dead goddess, and that his priestess Krr'ook attempt to summon her so that the king could mate her. Knowing the scheme would fail and that she would be blamed, Krr'ook devised a plan to use a set of Nolzur's marvelous pigments to create a life-like facsimile of the goddess to fool her king.

Notable grungs

 * Imbok, the one hundred and eightieth son of Yorb.
 * Nangnang, one of the Nine Trickster Gods of Chult, was a grung.
 * Yorb, a chieftain who occupied the temple of Nangnang in the city of Omu.

Appearances

 * Adventures
 * Dragon+ #12, "The Barber of Silverymoon" • Tomb of Annihilation
 * Video Games
 * Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms •
 * Card Games
 * AD&D Trading Cards