Blue slaad

Blue slaadi, also known as talon slaads, were members of the slaad race and rivals to the interrelated red slaadi. The batrachian bullies were generally superior to them in every way, but only barely so, and were still considered to be of low status.

"Xanxost likes friends or foes he can touch, or bash if need be."

- Xanxost the blue slaad

Description
Blue slaadi were bipeds that weighed approximately, resembling roughly humanoid toads with light, electric blue skin marked by grey streaks. Despite being bigger, broader and stronger than their red slaadi counterparts they were also more limber and had longer snouts. As opposed to the larger hands of the red slaadi, blue slaadi had two long, scimitar-like hooks of bone protruding from the back of both of their hands. Otherwise, they were typically identical in bodily structure, complexion and dress to the red slaadi.

Personality
Blue slaads were only marginally more intelligent than red slaads and shared their other behaviors, namely their poor tempers. Strength was the only trait they valued and they constantly sought to prove their own.

Abilities
Blue slaadi were stronger than their already physically powerful red counterparts, fighting with their claws and hooks and rending flesh with their fangs, although they had the added advantage of being able to, if only rarely, inflict a rotting disease like that of a mummy's through their bite. They were also reported to posses some spell-like abilities, namely hold person, passwall and telekinesis. Their slaad summoning powers allowed them to call upon other blue slaads, although it was said that they were also able to summon green slaads and on exceedingly rare occasions, red slaads.

Combat
The fighting style of the blue slaadi allowed them to attack with both their actual claws and their bone protrusions. They specialized in fighting on mass and were usually found in groups, being able to coordinate effectively by the low standards of the red slaadi. At the same time, they weren't exactly tactically superior, typically just wading into combat with tooth and claw throwing enemies overhead and furiously slashing at anything close enough. As a result of their surly nature, need to prove their physical superiority they had a tendency to attack most other creatures on sight.

Society
Blue slaadi were the errand runners used to accomplish various missions and the soldiers gathered to wage war on behalf of more powerful slaadi, both against other civilizations and rival slaad societies. When blue slaads were together they could be in groups as small as a pair or as large as a dozen, but despite their maximum pack size being smaller than the red slaads, they were still more likely to be found in gatherings of their own free will since red slaads preferred to be alone. Only in the gravest situations would blue slaads assist red slaads.

Ecology
Despite passionately hating each other, blue slaads and red slaads were irrevocably tied together by their reproductive cycles, instinctually driven to produce offspring that, unfortunately for them, were slaad of the rival color. Blue slaads spawned red slaads and vice versa, but after conception the spawn was raised by the opposing variety.

Biology
By striking humanoid victims with their bony hooks, although some said they used their bite, blue slaadi could afflict them with a disease known as chaos phage or slaad fever, similar in effect to lycanthropy. It lasted somewhere between a few days and three months and if left untreated, the disease would slowly drain not only the victim's vitality and mobility but their personality. At the end of the process, they would quickly be transformed into a full-grown red slaad, or green slaad if the victim had been a capable arcane spellcaster or possibly just an otherwise skilled or powerful being, with no memories or abilities from their former lives. Blue slaads, conversely, were born as a result of red slaadi injecting humanoids with egg-pellets that hatched into slaad tadpoles before eating their way out of their host, feeding on carrion and other bits of meat until growing to maturity some time later.



Only a wish spell could return a transformed victim to normal after the process was complete and the disease simply killed non-humanoids, but before then the process could be stopped using spells that cured disease or greatly restored vitality, and the infection could be found using a detect evil spell. Because of this, slaadi often kidnapped victims, bringing them to or creating prison camps to keep them in until they had fully transformed.

Spawning Stone
During the blue slaadi breeding season, they almost inaudibly scratched the area around the Spawning Stone.

Subraces
Digesters were a variant of ordinary blue slaadi that had their own philosophy for spreading chaos throughout the multiverse. Believing that reality was truly chaotic under the surface, they sought to devour as much as it as they could in order to unveil its hidden nature. They grabbed as many prey as they could, their skin being covered in sticky secretions, before spraying them with predigestive acid and devouring them and using their tongues to trip up anyone that tried to escape.

Notable Blue Slaadi

 * Gamp Laa'ren, a blue slaad born from a deformed egg who, despite the break in his right leg, tenaciously survived in the lower planes and took over a crew of over 300 blue and red slaadi. He and his group served as mercenaries and guides for those making their way through Limbo, Pandemonium and the Abyss, although his prices were as wildly variable as his mood.


 * Xanxost, an interplanar researcher and writer whose bizarre writing style was marked by his tendency to go off on random tangents, become distracted by thought of food and seeming inability to count.

Appearances

 * Adventures
 * Dungeon #84, "The Harrowing" • Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage
 * Organized Play & Licensed Adventurers
 * Dark Pyramid of Sorcerer's Isle