Yes, I am a big frog. Why do you ask?

[Michael Hopcroft]

I was looking over my copy of MMM and saw the Ran-Tari. I don't know why, but there seems to be something somewhat lovable in six-foot sentient frogs who have sucvh a bizarre method of child-rearing.

 

I'm wondering hopw to use them as a potneital PC race. The hardest part of the mindest to get into would be that they have no concept of family. A Ran-Tari probabyl doesn't know who his father or mother are, and it doesn't matter. They are of a community and probably aren't even names until that community accepts them. And their infancy is spend just trying to survive in an animaliostic state. Only when they have survived that stage and are brought into the community do they learn language or social training.

 

I wonder if they have a frog-like life cycle and perhaps the first two years are spent as tadpole-like creatures. If this is the case, and mating is done in a similar way, then the very concepts or romance, marriage and pair-bonding might be utterly alien to the Ran-Tari.

[Hierax]

Re: Yes, I am a big frog. Why do you ask?

 

Frog/Toad reproduction in Fantasy Hero, eh? Check this classic Clark Ashton Smith story out:

http://www.eldritchdark.com/wri/short/mother_of_toads_ed.html

[Curufea]

Re: Yes, I am a big frog. Why do you ask?

 

There's also the Vodyanoi from Perdido Street Station / The Scar. They were all quasi-magical in their manipulation of water (they could sculpt it like clay and it would retain its form for up to a day)

 

BTW - I think Vodyanoi is Russian for frog.

[tkdguy]

Re: Yes, I am a big frog. Why do you ask?

 

Not to mention the Old Slann from Warhammer.