This is a slaad. It is green.

"Biology"

Occasionally a cluster of petioners (especially near the Spawning Stone) will

spontaneously create a slaad. This is Limbo, after all, where all unlikely

things must happen. Also, there's a realm called Great Monkey Mountain which

emits slaadi of various colors from its anus. Great Monkey Mountain is a

giant (city-sized) furry monkey wearing a fez and playing an accordion.

Ocasionally Great Monkey will wander over to nearby planes, but its chaotic

aura inevitably causes the region it is in to slip into Limbo again. It's

rumored that the githzerai are trying to affix Great Monkey with a steel

helmet and a pair of rockets in order to use it as a superweapon against the

Githyanki. Although there's a small chance that this could result in the

destruction of their own civilization, the 'zerais are willing to give it a

try. Monkey is currently moderately pissed off.

Slaadi are famously known for laying eggs in people. These "eggs" are in fact the slaad's constituent petitioners, who go about transforming their new homes into the shapes they're accustomed to. They gather more of the plane's ambient souls until the new slaad is as complex as a spontaneous one.

Alright, here's my vision of the slaadi and my justification. First, the children of the chaos planes seem to have in common a tendency to adapt to a specific environment or role. _Faces of Evil_ explains that tanar'ri have a *slow* ability to shape their true forms in accordance with their will. Because the Abyss is harsh, those that change with their current layer's terrain in mind tend to survive the best. Thus, there are winged tanar'ri, amphibious tanar'ri, aquatic tanari (the wastrilith), parasitic tanar'ri (the succubus, and other parasites like Verin), running tanar'ri, walking tanar'ri, oozing tanar'ri, etc.

Arborea is much the same. Some eladrin are adapted to water, some to Pelion's sand, some to the air, some to land, and so on.

Now the slaadi. Avi's suggestion of making them masters of morphing, protean reflections of their home plane, might work (their reaction time must be incredible!). Indeed, the "purer" slaad types are supposed to have shapeshifting abilities.

I'm not sure they're necessary, however.

What does Jimbo the Slaad require? It needs some way of travelling through gaseous regions. They could be a winged race, then, or have gliding equipment like a flying squirrel. I draw them with long, broad flippers that look almost like dragon wings. Their toes continue past the webbing, curling in baroque patterns. There can't be slaadi adapted *just* to flying, since Llimbuo's aerial regions aren't stable. If they're like the other chaos-born, then they can't evolve fast enough to always compensate for changes in the soup. Even if they're much faster than the tanar'ri, who after all don't need to be fast changers (though one who was would have a great advantage over its peers), there will always be times that the soup changes too fast for it, as well as times when regions are stable for millenia or longer. It seems like it would be easier to always be ready for anything, like a jeep (except that jeeps don't adjust well to falling over cliffs, while slaadi are clearly able to survive any normal soupshift).

Jimbo needs some way of transversing a solid surface. It could have hooves, like a bauriar. It could have feet, like a human. It could have paws, like a cat, or whatever you call those things on the end of turtle legs. Jimbo could also, I guess, have wheels.

Jimbo needs a way to swim. It could have long flippers like a porpoise, or frog feet. It could also have propellers and pontoons.

Sometimes Jimbo will become caught within a solid region; thus, Jimbo needs to burrow. Big claws like a badger or perhaps a drill mounted on its nose will do the trick.

I think Jimbo has to be able to jump. Despite the popular movie with Woody Harrelslaad, "Red Slaadi Can't Jump," fast take-off and a catlike ability to orient is going to be important. Hee hee, I kill me.

Jimbo needs to see. It could have eyespots like an insect, heat-sensing pits like a rattlesnake, dwarf, or gnome (arguable), cat-eyes, human-eyes, snake or fish-eyes, or whatever. Sometimes when I draw slaadi I just give them eyestalks with eyes on the end instead of a head and torso. Jimbo should have several forms of sensory backup to use while its pupils adjust to Limboa's radically varying light and texture. A "blindsight" proficiency is going to be essential.

We don't have to worry about skin texture. It can be bony, scaly, slimy, furry, whatever (has any published material ever specified?); just assume that it isn't affected by anything the plane throws at it.

Slaadi can talk, so they need some sort of apparatus for that. Blue slaadi need claws to reproduce with. Slaadi eat things, so they need some sort of mouth or oriface; possibly the same they use to talk through. I think that's it.

Now we move to general template. Why a frog? The planeborn are first and foremost symbols, and the frog is the second-best symbol of chaos that there is. Frogs are extremely mutable: slight chemical changes in their homes create six-legged frogs, headless frogs, frogs with telepathic powers, etc. Frogs are born of the water, and water is a symbol of chaos. Frogs change dramatically during their lives. Frogs are floppy and funny, and jump around almost as erratically as flies and fleas and rabbits. The number-one symbol is the monkey, and number-three is the chihuahua. Wombats are number four, based arbitrarily on their name alone. The ancient Egyptians symbolized the powers of primordial chaos with the frog, snake, and/or baboon.

A winged monkey might make a good slaad, but we already have those in the Spirits of the Air, some of which serve atmospheric Limbic gods like Susanoo (I saw a Japanese children's cartoon with Susanoo in it. It was watered-down and purile, but the animation was good and it was fun to watch). Great Monkey Mountain is a giant monkey with a fez that constantly gives birth to slaadi as it floats randomly around the plane, dissolving the realms of neighboring planes and the work of anarchs. A chihuahua with a propeller (or jet engines) would make a good slaad too.

If anyone wants to represent Chaos as a chihuahua with a propeller, please do. That would be really great.

If Jimbo was based on a wombat, I would add tentacles that sproinged like a spring, manipulated like an elephant's trunk, and went down stairs like a slinky.

There could be more than one slaadform. The slaadi aren't organized enough to drive a certain body type out of the plane, and I don't think their lords or gods are either.

My mental image of slaadi was profoundly influenced by the work of a Florida artist who specializes in collages. I can't remember her name: maybe it was Vicky Skinner? She's a friend of my old 2-D teacher. Oh, well. Anyway, she made a completely random landscape across which hopped a number of frog shapes. They were frog shapes, but inside they were all fractal swirls, with no details or features. "Those are slaadi!" I thought. Pockets of frog-shaped chaos.

I painted a bunch of slaadi recently. They're of different colors and sizes (gray, green, blue, etc) but I used a number of media, including india ink, ballpoint pen, and colored pencil, to make it look like there were a lot of lesser colors inside. I also made a lot of random patterns, including semieuclidian shapes, numbers, letters, and stick figures. If I were to do it now, I would collage on bits of cut-up magazines. They have, as I said, huge flippers, as well as wildly spiralling toes, whiskers, and feelers sprouting from various parts of their bodies, especially the knees and elbows, and head.

* * * @ ^^^

Off plane, things are very different. Slaadi who spend a long time not in their native limbo tend to adapt to fit their new environments. Xanxost, while in the plane of Steam, grew much flatter and thinner, till its flippers were like vast parachutes that aided it in navigating the mist. Qatmos, while chasing butterflies in the Outlands, eventually became a sort of Sigil-shaped entity covered with dozens of snapping mouths along its outside rim.

The froglike form is common on oLibm because they rarely are able to remain in any one environment long enough for them to change into a more specialized shape. Those who do are whenever practical herded towards the Spawning Stone, where they evolve back into something more practical.

The fact that a slaadi is effectively many petitioners at once has a drastic effect on their personality. It's not that they have multiple personalities, though this happens in unusual circumstances. It's more that they have multiple wills in effect all at once, all acting at cross purposes. It's a miracle that all a slaad's limbs move in the same direction, but remember that those who don't remain near the Spawning Stone as the so-called True

Slaadi.

Assume that:

1. Slaadi are chaotic; far more than xaositects can ever hope to be in this

life (even Karan). As such, they're extremely hard to deal with.

2. Nevertheless, they can be dealt with, in the same way you can deal with

floods and confused mobs.

3. Look at the Planescape boxed set, which had our polyphibious

snugglebunnies bringing armloads of chaos into Sxao, coming at night while

the paragraph disintegrated. Look, too, at Faces of Evil. Look at the

Superman's Bizarros, and pretend that each slaad is eight of them sewn to a

pack of screaming monkeys (the bigger kinds are many more). Look at the

slaadi spies in the old Castle Greyhawk module (but don't buy it just for the

slaadi), or the Lost Shrine of Bundashatur. Slaadi are chaos; slaadi are

life and death eternally all at once. Slaadi are creation and destruction

and every element. They're Puck, Loki, and Dionysos. They're sex with

animals. They're spelling errors and pidgin English. They're rock'n'roll

and the blues. They're speaking in tongues, snake handling and fiery

preachin'. They're the devil that makes you dance and drink on Sundays.

Slaadi are the holy ghost that drives men wild with passion and fury and love

and excitement and fear and makes pilgrims follow a bedraggled peasant

thousands of miles to fight a hopeless crusade. That's chaos, and yeah, it

will eat you. It will transform you. It might be just what we need.

Then again, it might not.

Slaad NPCs

Slaad Master Zgotar, Dread of Limbo (of the Game)

"Craaawwwoakk!

"I am B'sot Ramm, Viceroy of the mighty Slaad Master Zgotar, Dread of Limbo. I am here to introduce you to the lord.

"Lord Zgotar is the slaadi prince of games. Everything is a game for him, and he never loses. Mostly, he games with chaos, playing games of chance that pits chaos against chaos against chaos against cha-ay-ay-AY-os.

"The multiverse is made of it, which means that the multiverse is made of Limbo, our home. As such, everything spirals and zips into our plane sooner or later, and great Zgotar rolls to see what goes and what stays.

"He is a kind lord. I'm sure he'll be glad to meet you."

Zgotar, Dread of LImbo, is indeed obsessed with games. Upon entering the amorphous collection of media that Zgotar claims as its realm, visitors can expect to meet with all sorts of interesting puzzles shaped by Zgotar or its minions.

PUZZLES INCLUDE:

• A race with wobbly-headed molemen.
• A shifting three-dimensional maze of chaostuff. The tunnels all curve and meet in random directions.
• An arena, filled with warriors from all over the multiverse, including things thought wholly inappropriate for Planescape like plastic army men and animatronic animals with banjos.
• An enormous roulette wheel, where the little disk things are living visitors and the rewards for winning and penalties for losing are very unexpected and inappropriate.
• Many gates to random worlds, and giant cue sticks eager to push you in.
• A bending, rippling chessboard the size of a vast field. Sometimes it doubles over itself or makes itself into a mobius strip. There are no rules, but checking opponents involves pushing them over the edge.
  • Zgotar will keep its visitors in any one game at completely random intervals. In appearance, Zgotar is a death slaad with mighty carp whiskers and covered in dark spots. Its forehead symbol contains the traditional signs of the ace, the jack, the donut, the deuce, the spade, the heart, the diamond, the dragon, and the fruit tangled in an intricate mesh pattern. Zgotar is always happy to see everyone, though it puts on a stern visage.

B'sot Ramm is a gray slaad obsessed and delighted with Zgotar. It is unlikely to ever become a death slaad itself, as it spends far too much time in Zgotar's company to ever learn any more about itself. B'sot Ramm is very literate and clear-speaking for a slaad; unnaturally so, in fact, enough to keep observers wondering what its game really is. It's game is simply that it gets all of the chaos it needs from its master.

A few packs of red and blue, green slaadi can occasionally be seen participating in or observing the affairs of Zgotar's realm. Many of these are B'sot Ramm's and Zgotar's children. Did you know that two advanced slaadi could have children? Neither did I.

_{(Zgotar (and Ygordrim below) is borrowed form and expanded from the character of the same name in module WG7, Castle Greyhawk. c. 1988 TSR inc. tsr is a subsidiary of Wizards of the Coast, inc.)}

Ygordrim (on vacation) Ygordrim is a death slaad. It is on vacation, touring the Prime. Oh, the sights it will see! Oh, the fun it will have! Ygordrim sometimes polymorphs itself into a native. Ygordrim sometimes appears as a big frog with horse's hooves. Ygordrim does not care. Ygordrim just laughs like a big yipping hippohyenabird.

Qatmos

Hello, mortals!

Qatmos is a red slaad. Qatmos speaks just like Xanxost; mostly out of jealousy. Still, Qatmos is its own slaad, something that can be seen from Qatmos' extreme vanity and love of cigarettes and bulimia. Qatmos is in Limbo, or perhaps the Outlands, or perhaps the Elemental Planes, looking for Xanxost. Xanxost is a blue slaad. Qatmos' name is pronounced like Xaos, only with a t and an m in it. Qatmos looks like a big red frog, or sometimes a Sigil-shaped wheel with many eyes. Qatmos' forehead symbol is many human lips and eyes.

A-OK Number One Slaad BlueOgThree Littleaye Nine

(A great discordance as six to twelve voices speak simultaneously, expressing four to fourteen different emotions)

"A-0k FORTY-TWO the Great Haphtarah Speaks."

"tHe GoDS abandon the fonT."

"tHE off-whiEt angels guard the gAte."

""Me am happy to be Here."

"All cHaos shall bleed." <----BlueOg answers questions not yet asked.

BlueOg is a gray slaad of great wisdom, known as a sage and prophet throughout the tri-Sigil area. BlueOg's forehead symbol is very dense, covered in flowing cursive script written over sharp, runic script written over many dozens of other scripts. BlueOg speaks in couplets of seemingly unrelated sentences which turn out to be the aforementioned wisdom and prophesies spoken out of order. 'Course, BlueOg's prophesies always have something to do with the vital majesty of chaos. Naturally. Sometimes BlueOg changes its name.

Slaadi packs

Slaadi "packs," clubs, gangs, miasma, confusions, nebulae, storms, hordes, stomps, rabble or whatever they happened to be nicknamed at the nanomoment aren't true organizations. Often, they're just examples of slaadi bragging, where a slaad will claim some extravagant association in order to impress its listeners. Sometimes they're deliberately bribed, threatened, or herded by a bigger slaad. Other times they're a group that happen to be traveling in more or less the same direction as water molecules will coincidently form a

cloud. Slaadi don't cooperate. They don't coordinate their efforts. They can't. Any attempt at organized effort inevitably melts into confusion. Even in crowds, they act alone; that's why some chroniclers have alleged that slaadi attack in single file. In fact, it's rare to find multiple slaadi interested in the same activity at once, but when they are, they're not going to wait for each other to finish. Clusters of slaadi attackers often end

up brawling with each other as much as with their supposed mutual foe.

Sample Mobs

A bunch of slaadi I just made up:

The Mercury Slaads and Their Dragon Friend

Current Roster: Nino, Stripe, Glimmer, Portnoy, Slaadzilla, Noitolver, Shagados, Badasses, Getawayoo, Superslaad, Slaademgood, Bicmuppetchairmop, Hashgropper, Another Slaad, TrueChaosFuzz, Odinvilive, Samboni, and a mercury dragon.

Descriptive Part: The Mercury Slaads were once a group of slaadi moving together in a completely arbitrary way when they encountered a mercury dragon. A mercury dragon, on L!!Mbo? Yes. The dragon was infatuted with the band and their free-spirited ways, and started to hang out with them. An ancient dragon, he managed to not be eaten by the slaadi, who were mostly red at the time anyway. Eventually, they mostly gave up trying to eat the dragon and accepted him as an honory member of their band, which the dragon christened with a name. Over time, more slaadi joined them, many left, a few more joined, all of them left, a lot more joined, and so on. They kept the name. The dragon, a CG creature, tries to steer its friends in a non-harmful direction (somewhat successfully). Together, they travel randomly around Limbo, visiting its grand sites and cities, eating things, and generally having a marvelous time. Rumors of silvery-colored slaadi with draconic features popping up here and there are greatly exaggerated, but they aren't all the mercury dragon in shapeshifted form either. Slaadzilla is a green slaad with a fondness for smashing buildings, fighting monsters, and guitars. Slaadzilla sings like a beautiful eladrin, and occasionally tries to get the other Mercuries to join in (the dragon generally will). The dragon's name is Guthmaugzundae

Slaadsoft:

Slaadsoft is a shadowy organization, often mentioned in hushed tones in githzerai cities. I have no other information.

The Interesting Vomit

Roster: Grotesque, Bankil, Shasherashadon, Highway, Oozing Nature, Slaad And a Half, Eggman, The Slaad With No Arms, the Green Slaad, Ffinmu Eahd, Pir, Soup Slaadi Slaad, Classic Pediatry, Mixacronym, the Great Slaadini, Reginald P. Ostrango, Obscurro, Quickfin, Gary the Unicorn, Great Githzerai, the Lady of No Pain, Broken Gravity, "Missy" Mysteriotron, Not A Slaad, Punch and Hardy, Three Slaadi, and Wet Omen.

Distinguishing Characteristics: The Interesting Vomit is a fairly typical group of slaadi. They all consider themselves the group's despotic leader. They all pursue completely different goals, which they will no doubt accomplish as soon as they finish travelling in the same direction.

The Harmonium

Roster: Rigomort, Factol Sarin, Faith Sarin, much more.

Distinguishing characteristics: The Harmonium, nicknamed the Hardheads, are a slaad pack based in Sigil, Arcadia, and the prime world of Ortho dedicated to uniting the multiverse under the harmony of a common belief system. There is only one slaad in the Harmonium: Rigomort. Rigomort is a green slaad who is definately not a member, though he does claim to be. He does no such thing. Rigomort tends to make actual Hardheads uncomfortable, because he is a slaad and he claims to be a Hardhead himself. Maybe. Rigomort's hat is a member of the Fated. Find out more about Rigomort by clicking this thingt: |=====

Organizations from the Book of Chaos by Lester S mith and Wolfgang Baur, revised:

The Lone Claw

Current roster: Sorrowful Executioner, Qatmos, hordes of other individual red slaadi

Distinguishing charactrixstics: The Lone Claw come at you like a wet towel slap on the back of the head in the middle of a trackless desert, during a surprise showing of Phantom of the Opera. If you are attacked by the Lone Claw (who are not alone; they are the biggest red slaad horde in the gamma limbo quadrant) you will have a lot of red slaadi trying to attack you or whoever at once and then they will be gone. Then they will all do something unexpected. Then something else will happen. Then a lot of red slaadi will try to attack you at once. You won't believe what will happen next. Then a lot of red slaadi will try and attack you or maybe someone else at once.

They are the Lone Claw when they are near the Spawning Stone. Everywhere else they are the Lone Claw or maybe just red slaadi.

The Sorrowful Executioner is a single gray slaad looking for a bumpy rollercoaster relationship with a single or divorced slaad of any color. The Sorrowful Executioner is happy all of the time, but it does cry in fourteen different flavors. Guess what? The Sorrowful Executioner does not execute things. Its red slaadi do that for it. Sometimes.

The Quick Tongue

Current roster: Thuruppl the Kicker, battle-scarred blue slaadi.

Distinguishing characteristics: Thruppl is king of all the slaadi. No, wait. Thruppl is just some death slaad. No, wait. Thruppl is king of all the slaadi. Thruppl likes to fight things, and the Quick Tongue is the fightingest group of really big groups of blue slaadi in all of Limbo. The Quick Tongue do not have any tactics, but boy are they battle-scarred. Normally, they defend the Spawning Stone. That is their job. Slaadi become Quick Tongues because they are battle-scarred and like to fight like Thruppl, who is definately not king of all the slaadi. Sometimes they like to fight so much that they are nowhere near the Spawning Stone. Sometimes they are in the Abyss, or the Plane of Fire, or the Gray Waste. Their job is to defend the Spawning Stone, but maybe it is possible to threaten the Stone by fighting baatezu in Gehenna , by ascending the steps of the Infinite Staircase, or by ordering a beer in Sigil. To be on the safe side, the Quick Tongue slaadi fight potential threats everywhere they go.

Organizations from Castle Greyhawk, revised:

GRU: Great Reds United

Current roster: Froot, Makaronee, Poh Tayto, Ruhshin, Qatmos (why not?)

Distinguishing Characteristics:

The GRU , when together,call each other "comrades." Their greatest nemeses, when they remember, are the NSA, who they accuse of imperialism (pure slander, usually). As part of the GRU, they spend time "gathering information," which involves doing the same things slaadi always do, which is everything. They have a vast storehouse of knowledge on Limbo which is largely useless to other races but contains some good tidbits if you have a lot of patience, including a few "cyclopedias" (random scraps of written on objects) written by Qatmos. The GRU wear impressing-looking clothing like fedoras, tuxeos and trenchcoats.

NSA: Nice Slaad Agency

Current Roster: Shef, Toonah, Seezar, Lohkal

Distinguishing Characteristics: The NSA is made up of green slaadi who know how to relax, which is mostly what they do, lounging about on thick cushons and doing unusual things to books (including writing and reading them, but not in order). They wear fedoras and trenchcoats, and dark sunglasses. They are very upset at the GRU, who stole their idea about being secret agents, and attempt to thwart them at every opportunity, because they are upset.

ripped off from poor recollections Niel Gaiman's Sandman and John Ney Reiber's Books of Magic books:

The Spinning Brigade of Chaos

roster: Laughing Jemmy

Destinguishments: Laughing Jemmy is a lone death slaad, though admirers of other frequencies and races occasionally join "her." Laughing Jemmy (sometimes called Spinning Jemmy of the Laughing Brigade, or Spittering Jemmy of the Nattering Brigade, or Dancing Jemmy of the Howling Brigade, or Bickering Jemmy of the Hassling Host) usually appears in the form of a small human child carrying an ordinary-looking balloon, though she has also been seen as two women floating under hundreds of balloons leading legions of angels and demons (tanar'ri and aasimon recruited into the Brigade). In the balloon is miles and miles of transmogrifying Limbo. Laughing Jemmy shows herself Eris-like at the functions of gods and powers in order to disrupt them. She is always polite and charming, except when she gets mad. Then she transforms into her true form, a big death slaad with pendulous breasts, or maybe a different form. She is difficult to get rid of, but will leave when her (usually trivial) goal has been accomplished (example: she wants a hug). She hates minions of Law and Mechanus with an overwhelming passion, though in public she will only tease them in her little-girl way. Laughing Jemmy is a very, very, ancient slaad, and is well on her way to becoming a lord.

Slaadi dominance:

Occasionally a powerful slaad will make up its mind to do something it needs help with. It will probably be aware that it can't force any slaad to do anything once it's out of claw and teeth range, but it is possible to manipulate lesser soupfrogs if the slaadlord has enough persistance. One way is to swim around hitting every slaad in range with a stick or goad on the same side of their bodies until a cumulative mass starts going in the same

direction. Another way is to bribe a slaad with something the slaadmiester is reasonably sure it will still want when its task is completed. A third way is punishing a slaad until its whims instinctively begin to resemble those of its master, though this is only good until the slaadboss changes its own mind. As the Book of Chaos assures us, a slaad won't hold a grudge because a strong slaad bullies a weaker one; that's the way of Limbo.

Chaosshaping is all about strong wills manipulating their environments; the chaos comes in because wills are inherently arbitrary, they often conflict, they always change, and they can never control the Soup completely. The slaadi themselves don't much care for the anarch's trade, and the soup they shape is normally so chaotic as to be indistinguishable from Lobim's natural state. A body'd never know that an individual slaad has a lord, either,

since their commands are so random and they have complete individual discretion at every stage.

At any rate, one slaad trying to manipulate the other is very rare.

Ritilin

It doesn't work, and that sign there that says not to feed the slaadi -- that's there for a reason.

If you would like to know more about Libmo, the plane of Chaos, press this link:

On Limb-0

The Githzerai can be found at this link: &%^$.

For the rest of the multiverse, press this really big one with a completely inappropriate title:

#Limb*0