Celebrim
Legend
Part the First: Introduction
I will now undertake to do something which I know to be foolish – provide for the reader a summary and overview of the race which is most commonly called ‘Slaad’ amongst the learned. There is much that is said regarding this race which is sheer poppycock and nonsense. This is hardly surprising, because in many ways the Slaad are the most nonsensical of all races of beings. The Slaad are truly random functions. Therefore any attempt to explain trends, to categorize, to generalize, or to make blanket statements is foredoomed to failure – including this one.
Nonetheless, since even saying that a function is random tells us something about its behavior which is predictable – namely that it is unpredictable – that we did not know before, I will risk joining my name to those illustrious scholars that have tread on these foolish paths before.
When reading any description of the Slaad one must first realize that any observation of Slaad behavior is immediately wrong. Slaad are not modrons. If you observe a Slaad doing something in a situation, there is simply no knowing whether a different Slaad in a different situation will do the same thing and in fact your best bet is to assume that in fact that every observation you have made is meaningless. If you don’t, you run the risk of making really foolish assumptions, for example, that the Slaad have a strict hierarchy. In fact, the Slaad have many strict hierarchies which they interchange and discard at random, which – as in so many other things regarding the Slaad – calls into question the definition of the word ‘strict’ or any other word that we might apply to them. For example, while I’ve said that the Slaad are random and this is strictly true, it is also true that they observe from time to time consistent patterns of behavior. It’s just that they engage in and discard these patterns of behavior randomly and unpredictably for no more reason than what might be called a whim. For example, there is no doubt in my mind that on occasion some scholar has observed the Slaad lining up one after the other to engage a foe in single combat. However, readers would be best advised not to expect this to occur. It might. Then in again, it might not.
To understand the slaad, it is best to understand what they are not and in understanding what they are not come to understand what little constancy we may observe in them. To begin with, slaad are not mindless engines of destruction. While it’s true that they arise out of mindlessness, the Slaad are not themselves mindless by necessity. They are agents of chaos, and as agents of chaos they are both creative and destructive just as chaos is both creative and destructive. The slaad are the embodiment of the destructive aspect of chaos but they are not mindless in their destructiveness. If they were, they would be agents of pure evil delighting in destruction for destructiveness’ sake. But the Slaad are not purveyors of nihilism however much meaninglessness they find in all things, but rather artists of destruction which use destruction as the means toward renewal and creativity. To the slaad way of thinking, if we may use such a phrase, destruction is beautiful not because it creates a void or pain or an absence, but because it is the harbinger of change and the enemy of stasis. A slaad delights in the rebirth as much as the destruction. In fact, in their own fashion, the slaad are beings of pure joy and if they could understand that they caused pain would be quite bewildered and perhaps unhappy to discover it. It is ultimately stasis, and perhaps only stasis, which is antithetical and hateful to the slaad, and it is the destruction of stasis that is their one true and universal motivation. It is impossible for a slaad to understand why anyone or thing should oppose such a great, and to a slaad, self-evidently good goal.
Then again, it’s impossible for a slaad to understand that anyone but that individual slaad actually exists and is not in fact a figment of their abundant imagination.
With this in mind it ought to be easy to understand that the Slaad are not the demonic fiends they are so often confused with. True, to someone who is in their way, the differences may seem to be putting too fine a point on it, as they are every bit as destructive as any force in the universe when they put their minds to it. But, the relative lack of influence the slaad have in mortal affairs compared to say demons or devils can be easily understood as the outcome of the slaad’s different motivations. Unlike either demons or devils, the Slaad have no desire to conquer or rule over anything, nor do they have any particular interest in being served or worshiped. As soon as something is thrown into disarray, they lose any interest in destroying it and disappear from its domain as quickly and mysteriously as they entered it. Unlike the demons, who never take real joy in anything but are rather beings of pain and rage whose only motivation is to extend that pain and rage to others, the Slaad have little real interest in other beings at all. In fact, the Slaad are generally amused by living things and find that above all other things in the universe, the ever changing and growing part of the universe we call alive deserves to continue existing. Many people are surprised to discover that the Slaad bear nearly as great an enmity to undead as the most devout Paladin – though perhaps for quite different reasons. It is only when living things try to hinder the universe from changing and grow so powerful as to be effectual in this desire that Slaad are truly put off.
For this reason, a slaad would never trample a flower, but rather would be inspired by its beauty. Not because of any loveliness of form, but rather because it is such a transitory and ephemeral thing. With so many rocks to crush in the world, a slaad would see someone that went out of his way to trample flowers as being as deranged as you or I would. But lest we grow too fond of these creatures remember that if the thought occurs to them, the average red slaad will set fire to an orphanage simply because they find the leaping ever changing flames more beautiful than anything that’s within the walls and it would be quite outside their ability to notice that they were destroying other beings, or if noticing to care. Fortunately, the brighter slaad tend to recognize that living creatures are more interesting alive than dead.
So on the whole, we may say that a traveler in the outer planes need not fear the Slaad any more than he fears a modron, and perhaps less, because there are no rules to break and thereby give offense. The slaad are not immoral beings and are no more likely to be an inconvenience to a traveler when approached on their terms than any other incarnate idea. Indeed, on rare occasions the slaad can even be said to be quite helpful, especially to a like minded being that amuses them. That being said, no traveler should devise a plan of action that depends on slaad behavior, for they seem to have a powerful sixth sense which enables them to know when someone expects them to act in a particular way and therefore they are sure to perversely act in the opposite fashion.
The origins of the slaad are lost in the depths of time, and unlike some of the other races they make no stories or histories so it is probably forever hidden from mortal understanding just how they came about. Those races inclined to make records prefer not to even think about the slaad. The following should therefore be considered shear wild speculation and guesses on the part of a learned fool. I think therefore it is probably more likely to be correct than any thing else except perhaps the babblings of a mad man. (Unfortunately, the best educated mad man I could find who might have known something on the subject must have known my intentions, because he shut up as soon as I began to scribble his rantings down.) It is my belief that in the early primal formlessness of Limbo, as the chaotic soup first began to eject from its substanceless expanse shadowy dreamlike things which were its first acts of creation, that there were (inevitably) impulses within these which by virtue of having form lost a certain degree of pure chaos, and which could be categorized therefore as being like or unlike to this other thing or the other. These first impulses, while still very chaotic indeed being just one step removed from pure chaos itself, nonetheless had in their substance certain trends and commonalities between them. They had as it were a purpose. Some of these purposes were largely creative in nature, for example, the impulse to create new and wonderful things. But since a purely creative impulse would not be chaotic, they were balanced by impulses which were largely destructive in nature which would ensure that the universe would have in it always room for new things, new experiences, and new acts of creation.
At least some of the more destructive of these early primal impulses became embodied as the first Slaad Lords. They are in fact something less than a being and something more than a force of nature. For reasons which I’m about to describe, it is not known and probably never will be known for certain how many of these Slaad lords exist. For one thing, the number is I have little doubt always in a state of flux as old Slaad Lords disappear and new ones appear, or as existing Slaad Lords merge or divide as suits them (or more precisely, as suits the chaotic impulse which drives and existantiates them). Although they seldom are recorded in mortal histories, the number of Slaad lords is – going by the names which are recorded – in fact very great: far greater than is commonly believed. Those Slaad Lords that are most commonly described in learned tomes on the matter – Ygorl, Ssendam, and a few others - are probably only those few Slaad Lords whose existence may be described as enduring on a mortal scale and which have dabbled in mortal affairs. But even in these cases we cannot be completely certain whether or not we are discussing the same entity, or whether we are describing a succession of entities each of which has born for reasons of its own the same name.
It is in fact the matter of names which makes the discussion of Slaad Lords so fraught with difficulty. As best as I or anyone else has been able to tell, slaad are unique among sentient free-willed beings in that they have no discoverable True Name – not even the seemingly unique and individual ones. It is therefore impossible to know with certainty whether any two beings are the same one in different forms, or whether any creature with the same form encountered twice is not in fact two different beings. The slaad give no permanent names to themselves; identifying themselves on one occasion by one name and then shedding the name like used clothing and using a wholly different one on a new occasion. Even names such as Ygorl or Ssendam are merely names given to the beings in question (if but one being they are) by history or scholars which have continued in use for a long period. This confusion exceeds the difficulty in enumerating the Gods, as not only any number of different names may be found which used to refer to the same being, or which at least appears to be the same being, but the Slaad have no real unease with being misidentified and come and go from history with far greater frequency. Despite the seemingly infinite variation, all names which Slaad give to themselves mean in fact the same thing - ‘me’. And likewise, all names which they give to other Slaad are singularly unhelpful variations on the theme of ‘it’.
It is my contention though that there are a finite number of these animating impulses from which the Slaad race is derived, and that these impulses are eternal even if the individual beings they give rise to are not. Therefore, despite the difficulties created by the Slaad Lords lack of actually useful names and consequent or attendant lack of true permanent forms, it is possible to roughly enumerate the major Slaad Lords by paying careful attention to the particular impulses which they incarnate.
The attentive reader may have surmised from my description thus far that the Slaad lords, while by no means immortal, are nonetheless in their own fashion indestructible or at least as indestructible as the chaotic impulses which animate them. There is some evidence in the texts that whenever the physical form of a Slaad lord is destroyed, one of the greater Slaad begins to transform into a new Slaad lord embodying the newly liberated impulse and often one which is similar to if not quite identical to the newly destroyed Slaad Lord. This is without question what happens in the case of a lesser Slaad slaying a Slaad Lord. There is even some indication in the texts that any being so rash and so potent as to destroy a Slaad Lord risks being caught up in this strange transformation process and, losing much of his former identity, ultimately turns into the destroyed Slaad Lord or at least a being quite like it.
This fact, if fact it is, gives us one further key to unlocking the mysteries of the Slaad Lords. For it is hardly surprising that the Slaad Lords should have such a great proliferation of names and forms if in fact they are, or at least many of them are, an endless procession beings arising to perform the same general function while still retaining some measure of individuality in the performance of the role. Similarly, this procession of identities is to the traveler which enjoys good relations with the Slaad yet another fact which should promote caution. For there is no knowing not just whether a given Slaad Lords mood and demeanor toward the traveler will change from moment to moment, but whether any given Slaad Lord which is encountered again at a latter point is even in fact the same individual at all and which might possess a character totally foreign to ones prior experience with the same apparent entity.
The Slaad Lords do not associate with each other, and never act in concert except in the face of a direct threat to the whole of Limbo or their race. They form no alliances or special friendships with each other or any other being, but there is a particular animosity between certain of the lords which may be put down to competing impulses. Naturally, the mere existence of the slaad is held to be an abomination by the lawfully aligned, and they likewise hold in contempt lawful beings of every sort.
A great number of scholars become fixated on what slaad appear to be. Correctly speaking, I can only describe what this slaad can be expected to appear like. If you have been following along, you should already realize this is likely to be the most unreliable of guides. The slaad as a race in the historical record have been described in many different ways. There current ‘toad’ phase is likely only to be a passing fad, and it is possible to find many lesser Slaad in rebellion to this current racial archetype wearing daring suggestions and alternatives like salamander, parakeet, hippo, chimpanzee, jackal or some hybrid thing which isn’t quite any of the above. This is true to an even greater extent of the Slaad Lords. Some scholars have wasted a great deal of words arguing over whether this Slaad Lord or the other is male or female. This greatly misses the point. The Slaad Lords are either male or female or neither or both. To them gender - and as often as not anything else about their bodies or minds - is something as impermanent and as artificially constructed as anything else in their existence.
That is about enough to go on for now. Should I continue with generalizing, I will be without a doubt misleading the reader further. The Slaad Lords are best described as individuals, not as collections. To this end, I will now endeavor to catalogue and describe the known Slaad Lords taking care to focus on the more obscure ones which are seldom mentioned elsewhere. Of the eighteen Slaad Lords, four – Ygorl, Ssendam, Chourst, and Renbou - are described adequately elsewhere in well known compendiums and any reader reading this dusty tome will likely have knowledge of them from those works. Of the other fourteen I plan to present, four of them I have directly observed and are to the best of my knowledge currently existing as of the writing of this tome. (If you reading this tome more than a few decades hence you can assume that all the knowledge herein is already out of date.) The remaining entries I have pieced together from bits of obscure lore and historical records. While I’m more or less convinced that each of these ten existed in the form described at one time or another, I cannot say with any degree of certainty whether they still exist or if they do exist whether the description I’ve provided is anything like the truth. This compendium, extensive as it may seem, is by necessity both incomplete and erroneous. In fact, it may be that some of the beings which I left out as too improbable and whose existence is too unsubstantiated, for example Nurster the Lord of Error or Jelicol the Lord of Flowers, are real and the whole catalog I’ve compiled are mere madman’s fantasies. Or perhaps they were real and are no more. Only the madman knows for sure, and he’s not telling.
I would advise the student of the planes to refrain from attempting to establish or contradict any of the facts herein because of the very real danger involved, but – should by chance the reader encounter any of the beings described herein – I would be obliged to hear of it.
With no further ado, let us begin with the menagerie.
I will now undertake to do something which I know to be foolish – provide for the reader a summary and overview of the race which is most commonly called ‘Slaad’ amongst the learned. There is much that is said regarding this race which is sheer poppycock and nonsense. This is hardly surprising, because in many ways the Slaad are the most nonsensical of all races of beings. The Slaad are truly random functions. Therefore any attempt to explain trends, to categorize, to generalize, or to make blanket statements is foredoomed to failure – including this one.
Nonetheless, since even saying that a function is random tells us something about its behavior which is predictable – namely that it is unpredictable – that we did not know before, I will risk joining my name to those illustrious scholars that have tread on these foolish paths before.
When reading any description of the Slaad one must first realize that any observation of Slaad behavior is immediately wrong. Slaad are not modrons. If you observe a Slaad doing something in a situation, there is simply no knowing whether a different Slaad in a different situation will do the same thing and in fact your best bet is to assume that in fact that every observation you have made is meaningless. If you don’t, you run the risk of making really foolish assumptions, for example, that the Slaad have a strict hierarchy. In fact, the Slaad have many strict hierarchies which they interchange and discard at random, which – as in so many other things regarding the Slaad – calls into question the definition of the word ‘strict’ or any other word that we might apply to them. For example, while I’ve said that the Slaad are random and this is strictly true, it is also true that they observe from time to time consistent patterns of behavior. It’s just that they engage in and discard these patterns of behavior randomly and unpredictably for no more reason than what might be called a whim. For example, there is no doubt in my mind that on occasion some scholar has observed the Slaad lining up one after the other to engage a foe in single combat. However, readers would be best advised not to expect this to occur. It might. Then in again, it might not.
To understand the slaad, it is best to understand what they are not and in understanding what they are not come to understand what little constancy we may observe in them. To begin with, slaad are not mindless engines of destruction. While it’s true that they arise out of mindlessness, the Slaad are not themselves mindless by necessity. They are agents of chaos, and as agents of chaos they are both creative and destructive just as chaos is both creative and destructive. The slaad are the embodiment of the destructive aspect of chaos but they are not mindless in their destructiveness. If they were, they would be agents of pure evil delighting in destruction for destructiveness’ sake. But the Slaad are not purveyors of nihilism however much meaninglessness they find in all things, but rather artists of destruction which use destruction as the means toward renewal and creativity. To the slaad way of thinking, if we may use such a phrase, destruction is beautiful not because it creates a void or pain or an absence, but because it is the harbinger of change and the enemy of stasis. A slaad delights in the rebirth as much as the destruction. In fact, in their own fashion, the slaad are beings of pure joy and if they could understand that they caused pain would be quite bewildered and perhaps unhappy to discover it. It is ultimately stasis, and perhaps only stasis, which is antithetical and hateful to the slaad, and it is the destruction of stasis that is their one true and universal motivation. It is impossible for a slaad to understand why anyone or thing should oppose such a great, and to a slaad, self-evidently good goal.
Then again, it’s impossible for a slaad to understand that anyone but that individual slaad actually exists and is not in fact a figment of their abundant imagination.
With this in mind it ought to be easy to understand that the Slaad are not the demonic fiends they are so often confused with. True, to someone who is in their way, the differences may seem to be putting too fine a point on it, as they are every bit as destructive as any force in the universe when they put their minds to it. But, the relative lack of influence the slaad have in mortal affairs compared to say demons or devils can be easily understood as the outcome of the slaad’s different motivations. Unlike either demons or devils, the Slaad have no desire to conquer or rule over anything, nor do they have any particular interest in being served or worshiped. As soon as something is thrown into disarray, they lose any interest in destroying it and disappear from its domain as quickly and mysteriously as they entered it. Unlike the demons, who never take real joy in anything but are rather beings of pain and rage whose only motivation is to extend that pain and rage to others, the Slaad have little real interest in other beings at all. In fact, the Slaad are generally amused by living things and find that above all other things in the universe, the ever changing and growing part of the universe we call alive deserves to continue existing. Many people are surprised to discover that the Slaad bear nearly as great an enmity to undead as the most devout Paladin – though perhaps for quite different reasons. It is only when living things try to hinder the universe from changing and grow so powerful as to be effectual in this desire that Slaad are truly put off.
For this reason, a slaad would never trample a flower, but rather would be inspired by its beauty. Not because of any loveliness of form, but rather because it is such a transitory and ephemeral thing. With so many rocks to crush in the world, a slaad would see someone that went out of his way to trample flowers as being as deranged as you or I would. But lest we grow too fond of these creatures remember that if the thought occurs to them, the average red slaad will set fire to an orphanage simply because they find the leaping ever changing flames more beautiful than anything that’s within the walls and it would be quite outside their ability to notice that they were destroying other beings, or if noticing to care. Fortunately, the brighter slaad tend to recognize that living creatures are more interesting alive than dead.
So on the whole, we may say that a traveler in the outer planes need not fear the Slaad any more than he fears a modron, and perhaps less, because there are no rules to break and thereby give offense. The slaad are not immoral beings and are no more likely to be an inconvenience to a traveler when approached on their terms than any other incarnate idea. Indeed, on rare occasions the slaad can even be said to be quite helpful, especially to a like minded being that amuses them. That being said, no traveler should devise a plan of action that depends on slaad behavior, for they seem to have a powerful sixth sense which enables them to know when someone expects them to act in a particular way and therefore they are sure to perversely act in the opposite fashion.
The origins of the slaad are lost in the depths of time, and unlike some of the other races they make no stories or histories so it is probably forever hidden from mortal understanding just how they came about. Those races inclined to make records prefer not to even think about the slaad. The following should therefore be considered shear wild speculation and guesses on the part of a learned fool. I think therefore it is probably more likely to be correct than any thing else except perhaps the babblings of a mad man. (Unfortunately, the best educated mad man I could find who might have known something on the subject must have known my intentions, because he shut up as soon as I began to scribble his rantings down.) It is my belief that in the early primal formlessness of Limbo, as the chaotic soup first began to eject from its substanceless expanse shadowy dreamlike things which were its first acts of creation, that there were (inevitably) impulses within these which by virtue of having form lost a certain degree of pure chaos, and which could be categorized therefore as being like or unlike to this other thing or the other. These first impulses, while still very chaotic indeed being just one step removed from pure chaos itself, nonetheless had in their substance certain trends and commonalities between them. They had as it were a purpose. Some of these purposes were largely creative in nature, for example, the impulse to create new and wonderful things. But since a purely creative impulse would not be chaotic, they were balanced by impulses which were largely destructive in nature which would ensure that the universe would have in it always room for new things, new experiences, and new acts of creation.
At least some of the more destructive of these early primal impulses became embodied as the first Slaad Lords. They are in fact something less than a being and something more than a force of nature. For reasons which I’m about to describe, it is not known and probably never will be known for certain how many of these Slaad lords exist. For one thing, the number is I have little doubt always in a state of flux as old Slaad Lords disappear and new ones appear, or as existing Slaad Lords merge or divide as suits them (or more precisely, as suits the chaotic impulse which drives and existantiates them). Although they seldom are recorded in mortal histories, the number of Slaad lords is – going by the names which are recorded – in fact very great: far greater than is commonly believed. Those Slaad Lords that are most commonly described in learned tomes on the matter – Ygorl, Ssendam, and a few others - are probably only those few Slaad Lords whose existence may be described as enduring on a mortal scale and which have dabbled in mortal affairs. But even in these cases we cannot be completely certain whether or not we are discussing the same entity, or whether we are describing a succession of entities each of which has born for reasons of its own the same name.
It is in fact the matter of names which makes the discussion of Slaad Lords so fraught with difficulty. As best as I or anyone else has been able to tell, slaad are unique among sentient free-willed beings in that they have no discoverable True Name – not even the seemingly unique and individual ones. It is therefore impossible to know with certainty whether any two beings are the same one in different forms, or whether any creature with the same form encountered twice is not in fact two different beings. The slaad give no permanent names to themselves; identifying themselves on one occasion by one name and then shedding the name like used clothing and using a wholly different one on a new occasion. Even names such as Ygorl or Ssendam are merely names given to the beings in question (if but one being they are) by history or scholars which have continued in use for a long period. This confusion exceeds the difficulty in enumerating the Gods, as not only any number of different names may be found which used to refer to the same being, or which at least appears to be the same being, but the Slaad have no real unease with being misidentified and come and go from history with far greater frequency. Despite the seemingly infinite variation, all names which Slaad give to themselves mean in fact the same thing - ‘me’. And likewise, all names which they give to other Slaad are singularly unhelpful variations on the theme of ‘it’.
It is my contention though that there are a finite number of these animating impulses from which the Slaad race is derived, and that these impulses are eternal even if the individual beings they give rise to are not. Therefore, despite the difficulties created by the Slaad Lords lack of actually useful names and consequent or attendant lack of true permanent forms, it is possible to roughly enumerate the major Slaad Lords by paying careful attention to the particular impulses which they incarnate.
The attentive reader may have surmised from my description thus far that the Slaad lords, while by no means immortal, are nonetheless in their own fashion indestructible or at least as indestructible as the chaotic impulses which animate them. There is some evidence in the texts that whenever the physical form of a Slaad lord is destroyed, one of the greater Slaad begins to transform into a new Slaad lord embodying the newly liberated impulse and often one which is similar to if not quite identical to the newly destroyed Slaad Lord. This is without question what happens in the case of a lesser Slaad slaying a Slaad Lord. There is even some indication in the texts that any being so rash and so potent as to destroy a Slaad Lord risks being caught up in this strange transformation process and, losing much of his former identity, ultimately turns into the destroyed Slaad Lord or at least a being quite like it.
This fact, if fact it is, gives us one further key to unlocking the mysteries of the Slaad Lords. For it is hardly surprising that the Slaad Lords should have such a great proliferation of names and forms if in fact they are, or at least many of them are, an endless procession beings arising to perform the same general function while still retaining some measure of individuality in the performance of the role. Similarly, this procession of identities is to the traveler which enjoys good relations with the Slaad yet another fact which should promote caution. For there is no knowing not just whether a given Slaad Lords mood and demeanor toward the traveler will change from moment to moment, but whether any given Slaad Lord which is encountered again at a latter point is even in fact the same individual at all and which might possess a character totally foreign to ones prior experience with the same apparent entity.
The Slaad Lords do not associate with each other, and never act in concert except in the face of a direct threat to the whole of Limbo or their race. They form no alliances or special friendships with each other or any other being, but there is a particular animosity between certain of the lords which may be put down to competing impulses. Naturally, the mere existence of the slaad is held to be an abomination by the lawfully aligned, and they likewise hold in contempt lawful beings of every sort.
A great number of scholars become fixated on what slaad appear to be. Correctly speaking, I can only describe what this slaad can be expected to appear like. If you have been following along, you should already realize this is likely to be the most unreliable of guides. The slaad as a race in the historical record have been described in many different ways. There current ‘toad’ phase is likely only to be a passing fad, and it is possible to find many lesser Slaad in rebellion to this current racial archetype wearing daring suggestions and alternatives like salamander, parakeet, hippo, chimpanzee, jackal or some hybrid thing which isn’t quite any of the above. This is true to an even greater extent of the Slaad Lords. Some scholars have wasted a great deal of words arguing over whether this Slaad Lord or the other is male or female. This greatly misses the point. The Slaad Lords are either male or female or neither or both. To them gender - and as often as not anything else about their bodies or minds - is something as impermanent and as artificially constructed as anything else in their existence.
That is about enough to go on for now. Should I continue with generalizing, I will be without a doubt misleading the reader further. The Slaad Lords are best described as individuals, not as collections. To this end, I will now endeavor to catalogue and describe the known Slaad Lords taking care to focus on the more obscure ones which are seldom mentioned elsewhere. Of the eighteen Slaad Lords, four – Ygorl, Ssendam, Chourst, and Renbou - are described adequately elsewhere in well known compendiums and any reader reading this dusty tome will likely have knowledge of them from those works. Of the other fourteen I plan to present, four of them I have directly observed and are to the best of my knowledge currently existing as of the writing of this tome. (If you reading this tome more than a few decades hence you can assume that all the knowledge herein is already out of date.) The remaining entries I have pieced together from bits of obscure lore and historical records. While I’m more or less convinced that each of these ten existed in the form described at one time or another, I cannot say with any degree of certainty whether they still exist or if they do exist whether the description I’ve provided is anything like the truth. This compendium, extensive as it may seem, is by necessity both incomplete and erroneous. In fact, it may be that some of the beings which I left out as too improbable and whose existence is too unsubstantiated, for example Nurster the Lord of Error or Jelicol the Lord of Flowers, are real and the whole catalog I’ve compiled are mere madman’s fantasies. Or perhaps they were real and are no more. Only the madman knows for sure, and he’s not telling.
I would advise the student of the planes to refrain from attempting to establish or contradict any of the facts herein because of the very real danger involved, but – should by chance the reader encounter any of the beings described herein – I would be obliged to hear of it.
With no further ado, let us begin with the menagerie.
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