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The stone is a blue-gray in color, somewhat like a horseshoe in shape. It hovers in the everchanging soup, slaad nests and caches forming and dissolving around it.
Slaadi come to the Stone to fertilize one anothers' egg sacs or viral glands. If they don't, they are infertile until their season arrives again, unable to use any attacks related to their reproductive system. Only at the Spawning Stone is it possible to become fertile; it is the heart of the race. Perhaps it is the race. Only one color of slaad at a time will spawn; then they are driven away by the next color, and the cycle continues.
Because Limbo is the plane of chaos, the cycle doesn't always precede in any one order. The red and blue seasons come most often; the green and gray seasons are rarer. The mating season of the death slaadi is much rarer, while the white and black seasons occur only once every five hundred cycles or so on average. Naturally, nothing is predictable.
Red: During Red season, the Spawning Stone glows with a painful scarlet hue. The air, water, earth, and phlogiston fills with strange, discordant songs; half of this is surprisingly musical croaking, while half sounds like brass instruments twisted into impossible shapes. It is horrifying and strangely moving.
The actual act of fertilization is simply a matter of two red slaadi joining claws, which is where their egg sacs are located.
Afterwards, they lay eggs in one another in an orgy of destructive passion.
Blue: The Stone glows a sharp, electric blue. Everything is silent except for the persistent sound of claws scraping against the stone. This is strangely rhythmic, although it follows no pattern.
The act of fertilization for blue slaadi involves interlocking jaws, since the gland that secretes their transformative disease is found in their fangs.
Afterwards, they infect one another in a gleeful frenzy.
Green: The soup explodes with arcane power, heralding the arrival of the greens. Flamboyant ontests of magical might are the most common ceremony performed during this season.
Green slaadi do not transform others as part of their reproductive cycle. It is thought they simply lay eggs in clusters around the Stone, but what their eggs hatch into is not known. Because of their innate magic, it is likely they give rise to other green slaadi.
Gray: The soup darkens and fills with whispers. Secrets are the currency of the gray slaadi. Non-slaadi who dare approach during this season report strange personal transformations.
After gray slaadi mate, they spawn green slaadi. The exact mechanics of this are unclear.
Death: The soup fills with poisonous vapors and acidic fogs. The air, stone, water, blood and bone are filled with eldritch chanting.
Death slaadi, when they bother to reproduce, spawn green slaadi.
White: The light from the Spawning Stone is a blinding white that illuminates the plane for the weeks worth of travel all around. The soup nearest the stone gains the minor positive-dominant trait.
The whites often engage in ceremonial combat with one another, and just as frequently make up poems or discuss the alien equations of Chaos. Often, they do all of these things at once. Like all greater slaadi, they spawn green slaadi.
Black: (Black) During this final season the stone becomes veiled with darkness unpenetratable by magic or the vision of lesser slaadi. What goes on within is utterly unknown to all but the blacks and the Lords of Chaos they serve.
Some have theorized that black slaadi actually spawn red or blue or even mud slaadi. There's no evidence for this, but there would be some nice irony in the notion.
Red: Billions of red slaadi rush the Stone, singing at the top of their lungs as they celebrate the joy and exuberance they feel. The cloud of pure darkness dissolves while the black slaadi flee for their lives, teleporting away in advance of the unstoppable red slaadi hordes (assuming, of course, the black season was the previous one).
Brown: Mud slaadi are not permitted near the Spawning Stone. It's not that there is a law against it, it's just that they have no opportunity because the red slaadi are always too eager to wait their turn. Mud slaadi spawn some distance away in the filth and spunk left by the other slaad races, which still resonates with something of the Stone's power. The mud slaadi sing as they mate - their singing sounds like the shrieking of beasts mixed with an embarassing flatulance; it lacks the beauty of the songs of the reds.
Like blue slaadi, mud slaadi mate by interlocking fangs. Almost always their attacks result in more mud slaadi. Very rarely, their contagions will create a green slaad. The green will often live among the browns for years before it realizes what it is.
Mud slaadi are not shy about infecting one another, or infecting more powerful slaadi if they can get away with it. Without the protection of the Spawning Stone and its guardians, their victims are often destroyed before the incubation period is complete.
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Seasons of the Spawning Stone (Read 8 times)