D&D General Slaads are failures as exemplars of Chaotic NEUTRAL

[jgsugden]

Evil is not the product of action, but of intent. Characters of all alignments end the lives of others of their own race... what matters is why they do it.

Chaotic neutral creatures follow their whims, holding their personal freedom above all else.

That is all it means. It means that they don't care what rules you put in place as they serve their whims and desires, not out of a malicious intent, but out of personal desire. They do not lash out to hurt, but rather to please themselves.

If they're too greedy, bloodlusty, or hateful (with no regard to how it impacts others), they're CE, rather than CN, but if it is just pursuing their own pleasures and biological needs ... CN.

As the emobiment of CN, Simple Red and Bue Slaadi seek to reproduce, to experience, and to follow their whims. Their reproduction is horrific, but they do not relish in it... it is just the way of reproduction. Hunting down humans to serve as hosts is no more evil than a wolf hunting people for food. Green Slaadi are similar, but their dark devolution to evil, where they advance to Gray and then Death Slaadi takes them down a darker path.

So, a group of slaadi might very well attack a small village, kill the fighters, and then implant those too weak to fight them off. They do this to reproduce, not because it is fun. They will not attack a village just to plunder the gold. They will not murder children just to kill them. They have a need, and they fill it, and they don't care that others say they can't do it.

 

[gyor]

Evil is not the product of action, but of intent. Characters of all alignments end the lives of others of their own race... what matters is why they do it.

Chaotic neutral creatures follow their whims, holding their personal freedom above all else.

That is all it means. It means that they don't care what rules you put in place as they serve their whims and desires, not out of a malicious intent, but out of personal desire. They do not lash out to hurt, but rather to please themselves.

If they're too greedy, bloodlusty, or hateful (with no regard to how it impacts others), they're CE, rather than CN, but if it is just pursuing their own pleasures and biological needs ... CN.

As the emobiment of CN, Simple Red and Bue Slaadi seek to reproduce, to experience, and to follow their whims. Their reproduction is horrific, but they do not relish in it... it is just the way of reproduction. Hunting down humans to serve as hosts is no more evil than a wolf hunting people for food. Green Slaadi are similar, but their dark devolution to evil, where they advance to Gray and then Death Slaadi takes them down a darker path.

So, a group of slaadi might very well attack a small village, kill the fighters, and then implant those too weak to fight them off. They do this to reproduce, not because it is fun. They will not attack a village just to plunder the gold. They will not murder children just to kill them. They have a need, and they fill it, and they don't care that others say they can't do it.

Actually yeah it's more evil then wolves, humans aren't sheep and both species are senitient.

 

[Mecheon]

So, a group of slaadi might very well attack a small village, kill the fighters, and then implant those too weak to fight them off.

Hate to say it, but this is basically a lawful thing. They're not doing it to spread chaos, they're limiting how much they're doing, they're doing it for a very specific purpose.

Compare them to Inevitables. Inevitables go across the multiverse, enforcing Laws. Do Slaadi? Nope. They don't do anything like that.

 

[Salthorae]

They're not doing it to spread chaos, they're limiting how much they're doing, they're doing it for a very specific purpose.

Chaotic creatures can have specific purposes without being lawful.

Slaadi don't do anything "to spread chaos". They are just chaotic.

Chaos follows their actions. So when they raid that village, they'll kill those they can, but won't chase some, they will others. They'll implant anyone they can at all, not just the weak. They'll do whatever they want when they want, but just because they want to do it, not because they want to cause harm.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Honestly, more and more I want to just remove Chaos from the axis.

Chaos is just doing what you want, when you want, following whims, urges and desires... and doesn't that sound a lot like an animal? Do you think animals do anything except follow their whims, urges and desires, doing what they want to do?

But animals are listed as neutral. Because they aren't smart enough to be chaotic? So, chaos is only a thing if you are smart enough to not be an animal, but choose to act like one anyways? But elves are chaotic, and they are just people with funny ears and a penchant for art, poetry, and self-expression.

It all just ends up devolving into a mess of value judgements.

 

[Quickleaf]

@gyor Slaads are the ultimate solipsists, at least that was my interpretation of them. Each slaad could only be sure its own mind existed. Ultimate chaos is ultimate individuality. Individuality taken to its extreme becomes an obsession with one's own needs, desires, emotions, and thoughts.

However, it's not the hedonism of a CE demon.

A slaad's Chaotic Neutrality is a belief that its mind is the only mind that's real and knowable to me. Everything else is unknowable mystery and/or illusion. An altruistic slaad might pity "illusions" believing in their own reality.

Inevitably, this belief leads to madness which afflicts all older slaadi.

So, from the slaadi perspective, Chaos Phage converting other creatures into slaadi is about making the unknown external world into a more known internal world. It's about dispelling illusion and grounding it in (the slaad's) reality.

EDIT: I just remembered that I had an old storyline where I explored the afterlife of the githzerai (LN people living in CN Limbo). Essentially each dead githzerai had an individualized pocket of order within the chaos, with mental projections of people and loved ones. To the githzerai people these "shaped afterlife bubbles" were sacred secrets. However, green slaad would invade these "personal heavens/hells" and (as shapeshifters) take on the form of various loved ones in an attempt to break the githzerai's will – and thus dissolve the imposed order back into the chaos soup of Limbo. This helped me explain the whole shapeshifting aspect of slaadi that never quite made sense to me before. I just realized now how well this old idea synchs up with my solipsist take on slaadi.

 

[Bohandas]

I've statted up a "life slaad" to counterbalance the death slaad as an alternate possibility for the most advanced form of slaadi

Monster: Life Slaad
LIFE SLAAD
Medium Outsider (Chaotic, Extraplanar)
Hit Dice: 15d8+75 (142 hp)
Initiative: +10
Speed: 30 ft. (6 squares)
Armor Class: 28 (+6 Dex, +12 natural), touch 16, flat-footed 22
Base Attack/Grapple: +15/+20
Attack: Claw +20 melee (3d6+5)
Full Attack: 2 claws +20 melee (3d6+5) and bite +18 melee (2d10+2)
Space/Reach: 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Implant, spell-like abilities, summon slaad
Special Qualities: Change shape, damage reduction 10/lawful, darkvision 60 ft., fast healing 5, immunity to sonic, resistance to acid 5, cold 5, electricity 5, and fire 5, telepathy 100 ft.
Saves: Fort +14, Ref +15, Will +13
Abilities: Str 21, Dex 23, Con 21, Int 18, Wis 18, Cha 18
Skills: Climb +23, Concentration +15, Escape Artist +24, Heal +24, Hide +24, Jump +23, Knowledge (any two) +22,
Listen +22, Move Silently +24, Search +22, Spot +22, Survival +14 (+16 when tracking), Use Rope +6 (+8 with bindings)
Feats: Graft Flesh, Self Sufficient, Improved Initiative, Improved Sunder, Multiattack, Power Attack
Environment: Ever-Changing Chaos of Limbo
Organization: Solitary or pair
Challenge Rating: 13
Treasure: Double standard
Alignment: Chaotic Good or Chaotic Neutral
Advancement: 16–22 HD (Medium); 23–45 HD (Large)

Implant (ex): A lofe slaad that hits with a claw attack can inject an egg pellet into the opponent’s body. The affected creature must succeed on a DC 18 Fortitude save to avoid implantation. The save DC is Constitution-based.
Often the slaad implants an unconscious or otherwise helpless creature (which gets no saving throw).
The egg gestates for one week before hatching into randomly either a blue slaad, red slaad, green slaad, or mud slaad (Fiend Folio pg157) that eats its way out, killing the host. Twenty-four hours before the egg fully matures, the victim falls extremely ill (–10 to all ability scores, to a minimum of 1). A remove disease spell rids a victim of the pellet, as does a DC 25 Heal check. If the check fails, the healer can try again, but each attempt (successful or not) deals 1d4 points of damage to the patient.

Spell-Like Abilities:
At will—animate objects, chaos hammer (DC 18), contagion [Instead of the normal disease selection, the choice of diseases is Slaad fever (MM p230), Mud Slaad Fever (FF p157), Warp Touch (BOVD p31-32), Filth Fever, or Cancer], cure light wounds, detect magic, dispel law (DC 19), fear (DC 18), fly, identify, invisibility, lightning bolt, magic circle against law, see invisibility, shatter (DC 16), regenerate;

3/day— Animate plants, cloak of chaos (DC 22), lesser restoratiom, word of chaos (DC 21);

1/day— Awaken, power word blind, true resurrection. Caster level 15th.
The save DCs are Charisma-based.

Change Shape (Su): A life slaad can assume any humanoid form as a standard action. In humanoid form, a life slaad cannot use its natural weapons (although a slaad can equip itself with weapons and armor appropriate to its appearance). A death slaad remains in one form until it chooses to assume a new one. A change in form cannot be dispelled, but the slaad reverts to its natural form when killed. A true seeing spell reveals its natural form.

Summon Slaad (Sp): Twice per day a life slaad can attempt to summon 1–2 red or blue slaadi with a 60% chance of success, or 1–2 green slaadi with a 40% chance of success. This ability is the
equivalent of a 6th-level spell.

The life slaad is the good and life themed counterpart to the death slaad. Though good natured and focused around healing they can still create a lot of mayhem. Imagine, if you will, coming downstairs one morning to find that the ham has been brought back to life and is wrecking up the living room, the toaster has sprouted legs and wandered off, and that your dog is no longer neutered.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

They aren’t the only CN race that is actually presented in a CE manner. If they weren’t the CN Exemplars I would change their alignment. Since they are, I change their behavior.

 

[Xenonnonex]

Slaad are frankly failures in general.

 

[Anoth]

I would like to see something that exemplified entropy aspect of chaos. That’s basically the math definition of chaos.