Slaad

Slaadi (singular: slaad, ) were bipedal, frog-like creatures native to Limbo and to the Supreme Throne.

Description
Slaadi, in their base form, resembled large, bipedal frogs with long, sharp claws and huge heads. Embedded in most of their skulls was a gemstone the size and shape of a human child's fist, a jewel that shared their color and that could be seen beneath their forehead skin. Looking closely, one could see that symbols were carved into the shard, markings unique to the slaad which could be used to determine its past kills, conquests, duels and other deeds. If one could decipher the meaning of the tattoo, it could be used to determine the relative strength of the slaad, with other slaads being able to immediately identify the slaad by their mark.

Despite generally sharing the same basic, if baffling, appearance, slaadi were nonetheless creatures of chaos and so no two were exactly identical. They always had at least mild differences in height, build and eye position even within their own subtype, some breeds being human-sized and gangly while others were huge and muscular, and many possessed even more distinguishing traits. While some classified slaads by color, slaads of the same breed could vary not only in their exact shade and pattern but also be of the opposite color entirely.

Other potential differences included additional body parts and organs, features of greater or lesser size, various body types, and wholly unique features like horns, scales, tails and hair. More outlandish traits, such as blade-like claws, wings whether functional or not, and even a medusa's snake-like hair, were also fully possible. It was also possible that, given that some of the more powerful slaadi had polymorphing abilities which allowed them to transform into humanoids, that one might not even recognize a slaad upon meeting them.

Society
They spoke their own language and, occasionally, some additional evil languages. Telepathy, however, allowed them to understand and converse with all things. There were many types of slaadi depending on their place of origin and rank within their society.

The most common types of slaadi were blue slaadi, green slaadi, red slaadi, gray slaadi (the executioners), and death slaadi (the lesser masters). Much rarer and more powerful white slaad and black slaad were also recorded. Most Slaadi were almost always chaotic neutral, with the exception of death slaadi, which were usually chaotic evil, and the gormeel slaadi, which were lawful neutral.

Slaadi had been depicted as having a complex social system bound up in the relationship and reproductive cycles of the various types. Some types would naturally dominate others, though as slaadi were creatures of chaos, such domination occured not through a regimented hierarchy, but by brute force. In earlier times a symbol of power was embedded in each slaad's forehead, and non-magical tattoos on the forehead represented achievements and status. These markings did not appear commonly as they once had, and most of the time the hierarchy was based solely on whoever was the stronger. For a long time it was believed that the aforementioned types of slaad had been the only ones in existence, but in recent years the mud slaadi, as well as the superior white and black slaadi were also discovered. It had also been determined that the slaadi race was ruled by two Slaad Lords known as Ssendam and Ygorl.

Ecology
All slaadi, being outsiders composed of the essence of Limbo itself.

Reproduction
Red and blue slaadi reproduced by infecting living hosts. The red did so by implanting eggs beneath their victim's skin which grew into a blue slaad tadpole that ate the host from within. The blue infected the host with a lycanthropy-like disease called chaos phage that slowly transformed them into a red slaad. Whether the transformation was mental was unknown. Despite being the means of producing the other slaad type, reds and blues despised one another.

If either a red slaad or blue slaad infected a spellcaster, the host would spawn a green slaad, superior to its parent in that it might cast spells. A green slaad, upon reaching its hundredth year of life, would retreat into isolation for the duration of about a year. Upon its return, it would have transformed into a smaller, but more powerful grey slaad, which focused more on spellcasting than most of the other slaadi.

Some grey slaadi might undergo an unnamed, mysterious ritual, which transformed them into death slaadi. Death slaadi possessed amazing magical and physical might, but eschewed focusing on the former, as the greys did, being bent more on perpetuating slaughter and death. As such, death slaad tended to lean towards an evil alignment than did most other slaadi.

If the death slaad survived a century, it turned into the white slaad. And if the white slaad survived a century, it turned into a black slaad in the manner of its preceding transformations. The black slaad was the most powerful slaad, excluding the slaad lords themselves.

The Spawning Stone was the primordial home of the slaadi, located in "a realm of their greatest dominion" which drifted about Limbo. The passage of the stone generated currents in the raw chaos-stuff of the plane, and slaadi were able to follow these currents "upstream" to the Stone's location. In the mating season, each race of slaad converged on the Spawning Stone, wresting the Stone away from the previous group, so that they might fertilize each others' internal egg sacs, and carry away the seed-like fertilized eggs for later implantation into host bodies. Sometimes, however, young slaadi were produced right there at the stone because the slaadi implanted each other in their mating frenzy. Thus, dead adult slaadi routinely floated about the stone until destroyed by the chaos of Limbo.

True slaadi were described as beings of ultimate chaos who had no set form. Only the Slaad Lords Ssendam and Ygorl were representative of this type. Somehow they affected the Spawning Stone to prevent the emergence of slaadi more powerful than themselves, which kept the slaadi within the aforementioned groups. Although anomalies did slip through in the chaos, they had less variety and a lower chance of being more powerful than the Slaad Lords. One such anomaly was the gormeel, which was a large, mutant variety "born from the Spawning Stone", provided that they were lucky enough to escape the notice of Ygorl and Ssendam. They were lawful in alignment, serving as allies and sometimes mounts of the githzerai against other slaadi.

History
According to some scholars, the slaadi were descendant from the batrachi, one of the creator races, though a being that claimed itself to be a batrachi denied this claim.

Other sages claimed that the slaadi originated as an unintended side effect of the creation of the Spawning Stone by Primus, overlord of the modrons. Primus's intention had been to use the Stone to generate order in Limbo, in order to prevent the chaos from that plane from spreading. The presence of the Stone allowed colonies of githzerai and modrons to be established on the plane, but as it absorbed the surrounding chaotic energy, it also spawned the first slaadi, who immediately set out to exterminate every modron colony on the plane.

Slaad Lords
Slaad Lords were the de-facto rulers of the slaad race. Though true to their chaotic nature they often did not appear anything like other Slaadi.

Appearances

 * Adventures
 * Dungeon #43: "Into The Silver Realm" • Dungeon #101: "Prison of the Firebringer" • Curse of Strahd • Tomb of Annihilation • Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage
 * Comics:


 * Forgotten Realms: "Converging Lines"
 * Board Games:
 * Betrayal at Baldur's Gate
 * Video Games:
 * Neverwinter Nights • Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone
 * Adventurers League
 * Dark Pyramid of Sorcerer's Isle • Escape from Phlan