Possible article - Slaad Hierachies

The Slaad

A race seemingly amphibian, the slaad are seen by many as the exemplars of chaos, animals driven by whim and fancy. To others, they are simply another monster spawned from Limbo. There are those who say the slaad are too focused by their hunger to represent randomness, to hierarchial to represent freedom. They seem evil, and these detractors point to the death slaad who profane themselves yet are among the highest of slaad castes. "The slaad are bullies, using high concepts to justify their petty desires, there is little that is random about them at all."

Others validate the slaads' exemplar status, noting that the very paradox of their nature is symbolic of Chaos's ability to contain contradictory possibilities within itself. There are slaad scholars, slaad mages and musicians. There are slaad bartenders, laborers, and couriers. Then there are masses of rabid beasts, seeking nothing but food. There are colors to organize the slaad and slaad independent of the hierarchy of colors. The slaad are unpredictably predictable. Chaos flourishes in the gradient, in the "both-and" and "sometimes" where rules cannot find purchase. And slaad spread themselves across the spectrums of classification, even to the extreme of Chaos becoming Law.

The slaad rarely engage in these debates, few of their kind seeing the need to explain or justify their existence. The slaad simply are, and in their slaadness they create chaos around them.

The Possible Hierarchy

"We cut, crushed, and spelled our way through hordes of the froglike things. Blue, red, green, grey. Their meat began to stink in the sun, and crushed egg pellets made the mountain path even more treacherous with jaundiced yolk. There were two fallen among us and the rest of us were wounded badly. Still, we would not turn away now. The living could heal, and dead could be raised again. But it would be millennia before we could return here. The treasures of The Shifting Peak were almost ours, right here within this cave! I laughed, wiping the sweat from my brow.

Then I felt it, my muscles tensing. My companions had lowered their weapons, or had let their spells recede from the mind's forefront. But then they all looked up, at the cave. Slowly, without hurry, something came out of the shadows. My first thought was that it was a walking black stain, but no, a stain would have been more *bearable*. This thing was an absence, a tear, Void with eyes.

And the rest is merely cliched slaughter, of no importance to those who've never met my former mates."
--Judon Coalskin, one of two survivors from the Shifting Peak (notation required)

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The slaad hierarchy is an unclear road, moving from mud-slaad to black-slaad. This limited order is assumed to have been imposed by the first two slaad lords, Ssendam and Ygorl. (That no one has ever known Ssendam to produce a coherent thought has not stemmed the telling of this legend.) The legend is that the slaad were born from Limbo, their mother a stone that resisted dissolution. What the first slaad were like is unknown, though their amphibious heritage is worth noting. The Slaad swim through Limbo, their bodies a metaphor for adaptation to varied environments. The frog flesh is a symbol, and on the Great Wheel symbols have enough puissance to alter reality. But who set the symbol into place? Does this mean the creator of the stone--now known to slaad and foreigner alike as the Spawning Stone--was a sentient being? Is there a slaad god living in Limbo or dead on the Astral?

Sometime following this apparent spontaneous generation, a different kind of slaad emerged. Golden, liquid, its frog form melting into a mass of viscous slime. Ssendam, the Slaad Lady of Insanity. How long did she float in the Changing Land before Ygorl has become irrelevant, for it was her sibling who set everything into motion. While Ssendam was chaos in its diversity of mental illness, the living pile of blackened bones that is Ygorl was a direction, the descent of everything into randomness. Entropy. When he came into his own, the history of the slaad truly began. Though the Spawning Stone could never be circumscribed from Possibility, it could be restricted in its access. Ygorl, with or without his sister's help, set limits on the stone to prevent the emergence of more Slaad Lords. Then, desiring an army to spread destruction, he created the ranks of slaad to serve his design. If he was not who he was, he might have ransacked the Outlands and toppled the Spire. Instead, his forces broke down, the slaad scattered into Limbo, and the Reaper was left with only a small cadre of followers. Since even slaad skulls have rictus grins, it's impossible to say whether this particular example of entropy pleased him.

As it stands now, the hierarchy is thought to move from mud to red, red to blue, blue to green, green to grey, and then there appears to be branches. Options. Possibilities. The mud slaad are the least of all slaadi, and it is unclear whether they can even advance through the types. Some of course must find a way, but whether the higher slaadi wish them to is another matter. Red Slaad are more capable fighters, and spread chaos by spreading themselves. Not only do they summon more their kind to a fight, but they also implant their egg pellets in order to reproduce. Most tacticians suspect red slaad were designed to be fodder, as blue slaadi make better warriors of Chaos. The blue slaad is always armed with rakes of bone growing from its hands. Gifted with a spark of intellect, Green Slaadi could have been company leaders and magical backing in Ygorl's army. The best of their type would become Grey Slaadi, the true casters and generals of the army that was, perhaps, never meant to be.

Upon entering the rank of Grey, a slaad can choose to become a death slaad. Whether this is an evil ritual outside of slaadi evolution or part of their natural order is debated constantly, as are the other paths of slaadi advancement. Does the grey slaad need to become a death slaad in order to become a white slaad? Can it instead become one of the other, stranger types of slaad that have been noted through the ages? Are those variations in defiance of Ygorl's designs? It is expected that other Slaad Lords appeared after Ygorl's bindings on the Spawning Stone, but their origins and their place in the hierarchy prior to apotheosis remain unestablished. What is important is the grey receive a reward of chaos for their efforts, that of Choice.

The hierarchy of the Spawining Stone is designed to make the slaad move through castes, though these rankings are respected only because a stronger slaad can destroy a weaker one. Legitimacy of Force, a political philosophy ever popular among primes and inner planars. However, in Chaos no one Force is absolute. Despite being rare, the various alternative forms the species has assumed are noted in countless tomes, many strange varieties recorded by different civilizations. There are even hints that "true" slaad are hidden away from the eyes of the Slaad Lords, untouched by the bindings of the Spawning Stone. What these creatures will become is unknown even to their slaadi caretakers.

Of course, all these theories of bindings and interdiction are based on the idea that Ygorl wishes to limit slaad evolution. While the claim makes sense for the ranks below grey, it doesn't account for the final stages of slaadi evolution. The path to greater slaadom leads to an evolving communion with Chaos, systematically shifting the slaad outside of the Wheel's rule set. Beyond death slaad, or perhaps an alternative to that choice, are the white and black slaad. Appearing as a superimposition on their surroundings, the massive white slaad can bring armies of their lesser siblings under their command. Though they resemble luminous but unfinished drawings, they are still flesh and blood. Akin to a few recorded slaadi variations, they are capable of spewing chaos matter by possessing an organ that acts as a doorway to Limbo or possibly another plane of flux.

When white slaadi retreat, cocooned so deep in Limbo's slop they may as well be Elsewhere, they begin to change again. From their vantage point, evolution to the pinnacle type is an inversion: The doorway inside them becomes the organ, becomes the insides, becomes the flesh, becomes the whole. Black slaadi. Creatures that are a violation of axioms, living loopholes in the multiverse. "Void with eyes."

And beyond the black slaad, there are the Slaad Lords themselves, achieving what makes Chaos worth defending to celestials and fiends alike--Uniqueness.

The Slaad Lords

"The greater slaad, specifically the Slaad Lords, I believe to be born of Limbo's moments of consciousness. Chaos churns, and in its purest form even awareness is possible. Usually, this awareness, or possibly even sentience, is localized into a form and a new creature emerges from the chaos "soup". However, as all possibilities are possible, should we not expect that there are times when huge swaths, perhaps even the plane as a whole, comes to know itself? I am not suggesting that Chaos is a being, but rather it attains being for brief moments between ages. Imagine its reaction to itself, to the multiverse, to Law. In that moment, I hypothesize that as an organism of infinite possibility and evolution, Chaos appoints a champion, a defense within the body similar to the hidden potential that allows mortals to fight off infections of various sorts. Then, pulled apart by its own nature, Chaos becomes mere Chaos once more. Yet a Slaad Lord is born, tearing at Order across the multiverse simply by existing."

Rumors on the Slaad Lords:

Ygorl--Working with Doomguard to determine what Shiva is waiting for before he attempts to destroy the multiverse. Ygorl of course does not plan to be destroyed, but rather become the most powerful being in the multiverse by drawing on the rapid influx of entropy. If successful, Ygorl would only have to destroy Shiva before being able to recreate everything in his own image.

Ssendam--Gatehouse barmies are dreaming about her, Tolly Salmon was said to have muttered something about the "golden shape" before she departed the gatehouse.

Chourst--The slaad lord apparently plans to look into the well of the Norns, to see what his future may be. Those who venerate the triple goddess represented in the crones, as well as those who believe in destiny, are rather worrisome over the prospect. Chourst himself believes that the well won't be able to show his future, as he is the personification of Randomness. In fact, the Slaad Lord hopes the well's power will be destroyed in the attempt, and the sect known as the Fate-Breakers are more than willing to help.

Renbuu--Recently been seen in the Court of Color on Radiance, and having commented that the multiverse has the wrong color scheme. Additionally, there are a lot more orange dragons around, as the Slaad Lord felt they were underrepresented across the varied planes of the Wheel. Whether Renbuu can naturally shift the chromatic dragons between species at will. as he can with the slaadi ranks, is unclear. However, Tiamat is believed to be rather upset with even the suggestion and has dispatched one of her consorts to assassinate the Lord of Color...Unless, of course, Renbuu started that rumor for his own enjoyment.