Slaad

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Dungeons & Dragons creature
Slaad
Alignment Chaotic neutral (except death slaadi which are chaotic evil)
Type Outsider
Source books
First appearance
Image Wizards.com image

In the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game, slaad (pluralized as slaadi, or more recently as slaads) are a fictional race of Outsiders that resemble giant humanoid toads of various colors.

Contents

[edit] Development and licensing

The slaadi were created by Charles Stross for the Fiend Factory column in White Dwarf magazine. It was later compiled (along with many other monsters submitted to the magazine) into the TSR UK book, Fiend Folio Tome of Creatures Malevolent and Benign (1981). Stross said of their creation,

Well, the fact that I was running a fever when I came up with the Slaadi is probably not going to surprise anyone — think of ‘em as my independent exploration of Lovecraftiana. (I didn’t discover H. P. Lovecraft until a couple of years later.)... Think “Lovecraft mythos”, as invented by someone who hasn’t read Lovecraft (or heard of him). The Slaadi were going to be basically representatives of, and devotees of, total chaos — with an added warped sense of humour. [1]

For much of their existence, the slaadi were the subject of jokes by D&D players due to their distinctly frog-like appearance, which was overemphasized in early artistic depictions of the monsters. With the advent of the Planescape campaign setting, TSR made an effort to create a more appropriately fearsome image of the slaadi, with their toad qualities toned down in favor of showing their more frightening aspects as beings of pure chaos. This Planescape envisioning of the slaadi carried forth into the 3rd Edition of the D&D game and has persisted ever since. [2]

Because they were created by a D&D player (and their copyrights transferred to TSR and, subsequently, Wizards of the Coast), slaadi are one of only a handful of D&D monsters considered "Product Identity" by Wizards of the Coast and, as such, are not released under its Open Gaming License.[3]

[edit] Cultural impact

The word "slaad" has been used to describe frog-like monsters in the Yamara comic, and the webcomic Shadowgirls, which uses the word "slaad" [2] to describe a race of monsters. [3] In Rich Burlew's Order of the Stick webcomic, when a character grew frustrated by the traditional Good-versus-Evil Shoulder angel debate, he attempted to consult Law versus Chaos, with a Slaad representing the latter. [4]

Slaadi have appeared in 3rd-party game sourcebooks such as the Tome of Horrors from Necromancer Games. It was parodied in the HackMaster Hacklopedia of Beasts, published by Kenzer & Company. The plot of the Downer series of graphic novels by Kyle Stanley Hunter, published by Diamond Comic Distributors[4][5], revolves around a slaad-created artifact.

[edit] Depiction

In the D&D game Slaadi are native to the Outer Plane of Limbo. As such they are of the outsider type, being composed of the essence of their home plane. Encountered on most other planes they also receive the extraplanar subtype. Slaadi are almost always chaotic neutral except for the death slaadi, which are usually chaotic evil and the gormeel slaadi, which are usually lawful neutral.

In the various D&D products in which they are presented, Slaadi are described as frog or toad-like humanoids. Within that rough characterization they have a wide range of forms depending on subtype, and often corresponding to their rank in society. Size also varies between the different subtypes, from human sized to several feet taller than human sized.

[edit] Society

In various editions of D&D the Slaadi have been depicted as having a complex social system bound up in the relationship and reproductive cycles of the various subtypes. Some subtypes dominate others, though as slaadi are creatures of chaos, such domination occurs not through a regimented hierarchy, but by brute force. In earlier D&D editions a symbol of power was embedded in each slaad's forehead, and non-magical tattoos on the forehead represented achievements and status.[6] The latter physical characteristics do not appear in 3rd and later editions of D&D. In earlier editions of D&D the slaad were divided only into red, blue, green, gray and death subtypes. 3rd Edition D&D added the mud, and epic level white and black subtypes. In all editions the slaad have been dominated by the Slaad Lords, Ssendam and Ygorl.

Red and blue slaadi reproduce by infecting living hosts. The former do so by implanting eggs beneath their victim's skin which grow into a baby blue slaad that eats the host from within. The latter infect the host with a lycanthropy-like disease that slowly transforms them into a red slaad. Despite being the means of producing the other slaad type, reds and blues despise one another. If either a red slaad or blue slaad infects an arcane spellcaster, the host will spawn a green slaad, superior to its parent in that it may cast spells. A green slaad, upon reaching its hundredth year of life, will retreat into isolation for the duration of about a year. Upon its return it has transformed into a smaller, but more powerful grey slaad, which focus more on spell-casting than most other slaadi. Some grey slaadi undergo an unnamed, mysterious ritual, which transforms them into death slaadi. Death slaadi possess amazing magical and physical might, but eschew focusing on the former, as the greys do, being bent more on perpetuating slaughter and death. As such, death slaad tend more towards an evil alignment than do most other slaadi. If the death slaad survives a century, it turns into the white slaad [7]. And if the white slaad survives a century, it turns into a black slaad in the manner of its preceding transformations. The black slaad is the most powerful slaad, excluding the slaad lords [8]. The reproductive cycle of Mud slaadi is not detailed[9].

The Spawning Stone is the primordial home of the slaadi, located in "a realm of their greatest dominion", and drifting about Limbo. The passage of the stone generates currents in the raw chaos-stuff of the plane, and slaadi are able to follow these currents "upstream" to the Stone's location. In the mating season, each race of slaad converges on the Spawning Stone, wresting the Stone away from the previous group, so that they may fertilize each others' internal egg sacs, and carry away the seed-like fertilized eggs for later implantation into host bodies. Sometimes, however, young slaadi are produced right there at the stone because the slaadi implant each other in their mating frenzy. Thus, dead adult slaadi routinely float about the stone until destroyed by the chaos of Limbo. True slaadi are described as beings of ultimate chaos who have no set form. Only the the Slaad Lords Ssendam and Ygorl are representative of this type. Somehow they affected the 'Spawning Stone' to prevent the emergence of slaadi more powerful than them, which keeps the slaadi within the aforementioned groups. Although anomalies do slip through in the chaos, they have less variety, and less chance of being more powerful than the Slaad Lords[10]. One such anomaly is the Gormeel Slaad, which is a subtype introduced in an article in Dragon (magazine)[11] as a large, mutant variety "born from the Spawning Stone", and escaping the notice of Ygorl and Ssendam. They are lawful in alignment, serving as allies and sometimes mounts of the githzerai against other slaadi.

[edit] Slaad Lords

Slaad Lords are the defacto rulers of the Slaadi race. Though true to their chaotic nature they often do not appear anything like other Slaadi. Known slaad lords include Ygorl, Lord of Entropy; Ssendam, Lord of Madness;[12] Chourst, Lord of Randomness; Rennbuu, Lord of Colors; and Wartle.

[edit] Ygorl

Ygorl is the Slaad Lord of Entropy.[13][14] He is the second oldest slaad lord, after Ssendam, and is considered the de-facto ruler of Outer Plane of Limbo. He is said to have created the Spawning Stone that is the focus of the slaad race, forcing them to take froglike forms rather than their original, purely chaotic shapes.

Ygorl appears as a blackened, bat-winged, skeletal hulk, wielding a large scythe. He rides a great wyrm brass dragon named Shkiv. As one of the exemplars of the Chaotic Neutral alignment, Ygorl is not truly evil, but still very dangerous, unpredictable, and self-serving. He believes in bringing death, decay, and disorganization to the multiverse, and thinks this is best done by the slaadi, the truest agents of Chaos.

Ygorl considers the slaadi to be his living pawns. They do not serve him in any organized fashion, but most will obey his orders rather than allow him to devour them. Besides Shkiv, Ygorl is allied with Sorel, his lieutenant, who he is grooming to become the Lord of Anarchy.

Ygorl ignores Ssendam and fears Rennbuu. He enjoys the company of Chourst, at least at times.

The "entropic reapers" from Libris Mortis are said to arise in Limbo to "enforce the twisted edicts of chaotic beings that decree the death of lawful creatures." They are not explicitly connected to Ygorl, but they are connected to the force of entropy and the plane of Limbo.

Ygorl's fortress in Limbo constantly changes appearance; it can be a rough cavern, a shattered marbled temple, or (as the 1st edition Manual of the Planes describes it) a series of interlaced carved spheres that whirl through Limbo's layers.

Ygorl was created by Charles Stross for the Fiend Folio (1981). Ygorl had small parts in the anthologies Tales of the Outer Planes (1988) and Tales From the Infinite Staircase (1998).

[edit] Famous Slaadi

[edit] Xanxost

Xanxost is a Blue Slaad with a penchant for exploring the planes, explaining their secrets to everyone interested, and eating whatever he can catch, particularly Mephits. He appears as a character in the Planescape Acessories "Faces of Evil: The Fiends" and "The Inner Planes". Both of these books are written as if they were created by someone within the Planescape setting, and within that writing style, both books have an 'editor' who collected the investigations and opinions of various planar creatures on the topic at hand. Xanxost is one such character. "Though his mannerisms are often odd, his information is always reliable"[15].

In Faces of Evil he is in one of the 'authors' of the section on Tanar'ri, and in The Inner Planes he 'wrote' the section on the Quasielemental Plane of Steam. Xanxost seems less chaotic than other Slaad, in that he can write a mostly coherent piece of text, though his nature still shows through in his writing style, with many wanderings off-topic (mostly to the subject of food), repetitions of earlier remarks, and a seeming inability to count.

[edit] Slaadi in other media

  • In The Order of the Stick #68, a tiny slaad appears above bard Elan's shoulder, representing the 'chaotic' side of his conscience, along with the customary angel and devil and a modron that spouts binary code representing 'lawful.' Chaotic evil ranger Belkar is said to have a similar slaad in 'The Order of the Stick #435.
  • Slaadi were illustrated in the Counter Collection II from Fiery Dragon Production.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Charles Stross Interview, SevenDead.com. Retrieved January 28, 2008.
  2. ^ Rausch, Allen. [1] -The History of Dungeons & Dragons, Part V, GameSpy.com, August 19, 2004. Retrieved January 28, 2008.
  3. ^ Frequently Asked Questions. D20srd.org. Retrieved on 2007-02-23.
  4. ^ Hunter, Kyle (September 1, 2007). Downer - Volume 1: Wandering Monster. Diamond Comic Distributors, Incorporated. ISBN 1601250223. 
  5. ^ Hunter, Kyle (February 1, 2008). Downer - Volume 2: Fool's Errand. Diamond Comic Distributors, Incorporated. ISBN 1601251068. 
  6. ^ Varney, Allen (1994). Planescape Monstrous Compendium Appendix. Lake Geneva, WI: TSR, Inc., 88-91. ISBN 1560768622. 
  7. ^ Collins, Andy; Bruce Cordell (2002). Epic Level Handbook. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 218. ISBN 0786926589. 
  8. ^ Collins, Andy; Bruce Cordell (2002). Epic Level Handbook. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 219. ISBN 0786926589. 
  9. ^ Cagle, Eric; Jesse Decker, James Jacobs, Erik Mona, Matthew Sernett, Chris Thomasson, James Wyatt (2003). Fiend Folio. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 157. ISBN 0786927801. 
  10. ^ Grubb, Jeff; David Noonan, Bruce Cordell (2001). Manual of the Planes. Renton, WA: Wizards of the Coast, 96. ISBN 0786918500. 
  11. ^ Thomasson, Chris (April 2003). "Killing Cousins: Githzerai Hit Squads". Dragon (306): 52-58. Bellvue, WA: Paizo Publishing, LLC. 
  12. ^ Greene, Scott (2002). Tome of Horrors. Necromancer Games, 328. ISBN 1-58846-112-2. 
  13. ^ YGORL- Slaad Lord of Entropy
  14. ^ Ygorl
  15. ^ The Inner Planes (ISBN 0-7869-0736-3) p. 104
  16. ^ Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone Gets Hollywood Talent, IGN.com, May 24, 2004. Retrieved January 28, 2008.
  17. ^ Ryan Davis, "Review of Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone," GameSpot (Dec 13, 2004).


[edit] Further reading

  • Burlew, Rich. Order of the Stick: Dungeon Crawlin' Fools. (Giant in the Playground Games, 2005).
  • Greene, Scott. Tome of Horrors. (Necromancer Games, 2002).
  • Hunter, Kyle. Downer: Fool's Errand. (Diamond Comic Distributors, 2008).
  • Pozas, Claudio, and Ryan Nock, James Bell, Michael Johnstone. Counter Collection II. (Fiery Dragon Production, 2002).


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