Breaking News: Kuo-Toa Not Froggy Anymore

[WhimsyTheFae]

Grotesque and ugly is the point.

Exactly.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

I believe that IS correct -- I seem to recall a comment in a playtest report that didn't directly say, but implied, that dryads could "turn ugly" or some such thing.

That would fit with a lot of fae, actually -- that they look pretty until you get past the illusion and find out that they're utterly inhuman and possibly horrifically ugly.

I always sort of liked the idea that dryads actually looked like shapely human women, and were extremely attractive to humans, up until you touched them. Then you'd notice that they're actually made of wood, are cold as death, and you can pick up splinters or chiggers from them. If you've ever touched an arbutus tree, you'll get the idea. Being captured by one of these things for the purposes of procreation sounds like a good idea to a thirteen-year-old boy, but anyone who knows what they're like knows it's a fate worse than death.

 

[Aeolius]

I see sahuagin as more sharky and surface-going; they are the ones in the shallow waters near the surface.

My sea goblins were inspired by goblin sharks, it seemed a natural fit.

I once commented to my brother that I thought it very odd that the Kuo-toa goddess had a human body....She's a horrible evil demon goddess, and her human body is there to inspire terror in the Kuo-toa.

A lobster-like goddess with boobs... seems to fit 4e

 

[fnwc]

Thing is, as far back as I can remember, kuo-toa were written to be fishy, not froggy. The frogginess came specifically from the art--which often failed to match the written word.

Yeah, frogginess lands squarely in the realm of the bullywug. I think some people might be remembering these guys from the D&D cartoon, from so long ago...

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

To make me happy?

(edit: given the typical world has more water than land, one would expect more aquatic life than terrestrial. Plus in a typical ocean setting there are amphibious races that tend to stay in the shallows, deep-dwelling races that spend their time in the depths, and numerous races in between. 2,000 posts... w00t! )

Congrats on 2000. Also, your games look like fun!

 

[HeinorNY]

Thumbs up from a Lovecraft fan.

 

[Wolfspider]

How about a link to a screenshot of Treebeard? Mobile tree-people aren't anywhere close to being a Guild Wars invention.

No, but those the tree-folk in those two pictures do share some interesting similarities. They are much more like each other than they are like an Ent....

 

[HeinorNY]

HA! HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Too true...too true....

If they are still inspired on Deep Ones, they should have breasts.

 

[Wolfspider]

Wolfspiderborn

The horror...the horror....

 

[Desdichado]

Yeah, frogginess lands squarely in the realm of the bullywug. I think some people might be remembering these guys from the D&D cartoon, from so long ago...

No, frogginess lands squarely in the source material on which the kuo-toa were based. Lovecraft's Deep Ones were often as often described as "bactrian" and froglike as they were "ichtheous" and fishlike in The Shadow Over Innsmouth.

Of course, I'm making up those adjectives... I can't remember what words he literally used. Probably a lot of eldritch and squamous in there too.