FROGLINGS
(also called Froggers, Froglochs and Swampers) 75 points
ST +3 (30 pts), DX +1 (10 pts), IQ-1 (-10 pts), HT+2 (20 pts)
Amphibious (+10 pts), Gills (+10),Nictitating Membrane (+10),Super Swimming +1 (+10)
Dependency full - water immersion at least once a week (-10 pts), Sense of Duty to Friends and Companions (-10 pts), Sense of Duty to Home and Young (-5 pts)
Froglings have swimming skill at double their movement rate (From Amphibious and Super Swimming advantages).
Height is 6" shorter than a human of the same strength; weight is 30 lbs. lighter than a human of the same height is.
They average 5'6" tall and weigh in around 110 lbs. arranged on a frog-like humanoid frame with long webbed fingers and toes. Their arms and legs are thin and around 25% longer than "normal" for a humanoid of comparable size. Their limbs have a slight bend due to their unusual musculature in those areas.
They have slightly bulbous eyes that resemble (even to size) nothing so much as boiled egg halves centered by a golden vertical slit pupil. They have ear holes instead of external ears, very flat noses (no cartilage ridge as per humans, more like a chimpanzee's nose) and Froglings are completely hairless. Both the eyes and the nose have nictating membrane that covers the appropriate areas while under water. They have a cool, normally dry skin (they are not "slimy"), they smell faintly of "blackish water" and have voices that tend towards the brass and lower sonic ranges (but not below normal human hearing). They are capable of diving to depths of 20' per point of HT.
Froglings are an uncommon race of warm-blooded amphibians. They usually inhabit hot, wet or swampy areas and are normally not (usually) very warlike or aggressive, but they are fierce and fearless defenders of their homes and their young (which are born live, usually in triple births).
Favored weapons are weighted casting nets, tridents and large, double-edged knives with S-shaped curved blades. They can stay out of the water for a week without any real problems, but after a week without water their skin becomes dried out and starts to split open in bleeding gashes (they lose 1 hit point every 6 hours). If the Frogling's HT reaches 0 while in this state, it will become comatose and within another day or so, it will have died from acute dehydration. Please note, however, that at any time short of actual death, if the Frogling is reintroduced to a water environment, the Frogling will rapidly become lucid, active and heal his dehydration damage at the rate of 1 hit point per hour spent in the water.
Froglings never drink water, they absorb it through their entire bodies. They prefer such foods as raw fish, crawdads, shell fish and so on. However, they are truly omnivorous and can subsist on most anything they can swallow. Eels are a particular favorite of theirs (live wiggly ones that slither all the way down their throats are the best!).
Their basic culture is patriarchal and tribal in nature with the older males dominating in order of age and prowness in the Ritual (non-lethal) wrestling matches which determine the tribal "pecking order."
Very chauvinistic, females are chosen by the males in order of their pecking order, females have no say in their mates, and it is common for females to be the "prize" in wrestling matches. Females are considered only useful for breeding, domestic work and as wrestling "Prizes." Many females "run away" and become adventurers, just to get away from Frogling society. Often such runaway brides will have as an enemy a male Frogling, often a jilted male, but a brother or father may stalk a female with the intention of taking the wayward female back home.
Most Froglings seldom leave their tribal territory, and a few never leave their underwater (beaver like) villages. Some do decide to travel for a time (as they legend singers tell it) they have "become a Jumper" (i.e., gotten the wanderlust). A Frogling may take many short trips, using his tribe's village as a base, or he may wander for years and may never return, joining another Frogling village somewhere else or settling down by himself.
Froglings are honest and loyal to their friends to a fault, but see nothing wrong with lying to a "Not-friend." Cruelty is not usually a part of their emotional make-up yet they also have a depressingly small understanding of just what is cruel, so they frequently end up doing cruel things to "Not-friends" just because "it seemed like a good idea at the time."
The Swamp of Despair is confusing, dank and depressing. The Froglings who call it home are in a constant state of war with the Trolls and Ogres that live there. The Froglings range in toughness from tads (as the youngest froglings are called) through fishers, to warriors, to foragers (the toughest, kindred to rangers). They have a tendency to be able to call on each other when in need, so it is quite easy for their foes to find themselves outnumbered and surrounded in an unfamiliar part of the swamp, with no knowledge of which way to go.
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