Arcana: Creatures

Element Toads

A Creature Story for Everway

by Erik Amundsen

Taken from fragments of a Journal kept by Coletus, aide de camp of General Moonswife Scrambler. Thick mists were clinging to the slopes, choking the valleys and obscuring our enemies' numbers. Our reconnaissance patrols assured us, however, that they were many. Equal in numbers to our own forces, in any case, and representing a fair array of spell casters. Thus far, our dog soldiers, element toads, and manslayers had been very successful in the many skirmishes we'd experienced during the preceding days, and the general was confident that the terrain would be our only real opposition in taking this Realm.

Their main force was reportedly armed primarily with slings, clubs, and shields, and lightly armored, wearing black tunics reinforced with metal plates inside. The general believed that a victory here might improve morale for our assault on that accursed city and their black-caped Crow army.

The general ordered the captains together just prior to dawn to go over the last details for our assault. I believe the enemy sensed us away from our companies and attempted to use that for leverage.

We were in the general's tent when the singing began. First, a single female voice, ringing out loud enough to vibrate the teeth in my skull, came through the mists. We all ran out of the tent, trying to get orders to the runners over the singing, but even the single voice made it difficult to speak or hear. Our dog soldiers, who (despite the general's great faith in their "steadiness") I have always found a trifle skittish, were clearly shaken by this one girl's singing, and seemed ready to bolt at any second.

My company of mercenaries and manslayers seemed to fair little better, and only the mostly mindless element toads and the undead seemed at all unmoved.

The single voice offered a few short phrases of salutation to her people, and then paused. There was almost a moment where the only sound we heard was the fading echo of her voice in the valley. Then the army answered all of them, faces and hands painted red with those curious designs of theirs, with their black tunics and no banners.

And we broke.

Calling it a total rout does no justice to the amount of panic and confusion that rippled through our army. The dog soldiers, true to my predictions, were the first to run, tails between their legs, quite literally, leaving their weapons where they dropped them and trampling any in their way. Most of my mercenaries and the undead kept the presence of mind to hold onto their weapons and pick a clear path, and the manslayers and element toads simply charged. They were cut down by a hail of stones that started when a deep male voice rose above the enemy's song.

The song did not last more than a few moments, after which the enemy charged our position. To the best of my knowledge they did not kill any of the mercenaries or dog soldiers, saving most of their violence for the enchanted and undead squads. They did, however, begin counting coup among the living units, disarming, knocking down, or touching them.

One young warrior was able to knock the sword out of my general's hand and shield-bash her to the ground. She then knelt beside the general long enough to kiss her forehead before running deeper into the battle...

	Element Toads
	Fire 3 (Hopping) Earth 3 (Tough Hide) Air 2 (Understanding Commands) Water 3 (Sense of Taste) Powers: Affinity

The mages of the Crookstaff family maintain a document that delineates their code of ethics, which few in the other great families know of. In this document, one of the first things listed as unacceptable under any circumstance is the creation of an element toad.

Among the spheres these creatures are known as demons, and those who make them are known as practitioners of the worst sort of evil magic. In Everway, sightings of element toads command the immediate and serious attention of Watcher and Crookstaff alike, and the last time a king declared martial law in the city was over reports of a group of these creatures in Strangerside.

Element toads are about half the height of an average Everwayan, with a warty, slick hide, a paunchy, amphibian, bipedal body, and a flat, almost human face. Their skin is partially transparent and, on close inspection, an observer can see what materials the element toad was made of. They are, individually, not terribly formidable in combat; they can kick with some force or wield a weapon, but they can do neither very well. They are not terribly bright, able to understand but not speak the Tongue and Cleacuun, and possessing a bit of low cunning upon which most beings would not rely.

Their creation employs no contact with evil spirits, nor has any demon since the dawn of time given a second thought to the pathetic constructs. What makes an element toad so feared and their creators so reviled is that anyone can create one, given the formula and about one hundred pounds of any given material, in about fifteen minutes. A mage beyond the level of apprentice can make them in about five minutes, and any relatively experienced mage can use the formula to create a crucible, which will keep churning out these creatures as quickly as she can shovel things into it. This is the true danger posed by element toads--the fact that a magician can set up shop and make hundreds of them in a day or so.

Element toads eat whatever substance was used to make them, and cannot be healed by medical attention, time, or magic, if wounded.

Once created, they last about a month. Element toads can live about a week without consuming the substance that created them. There is also very little practical limit to how much of the substance they can eat. Most element toads are created from dirt, leaves, water, sand--anything that is plentiful and easy to come by.

All element toads have an affinity to whatever they were made from, and can hide quite effectively in large quantities of the substance. Also, the element toad will take on some of the properties of whatever substance they are made from. Thus, an iron element toad will have a far stronger Earth score than the base, while one made from burning coals could be exceedingly hot to the touch and have a stronger fire score.

Of course, the element toad will draw weaknesses from its parent substance as well, so a straw element toad can be set on fire, and the burning coal toad can be destroyed with water.

Over time, certain dark humored miscreants have come up with fiendish variants on the element toad, such as vampiric or carnivorous toads made from human flesh or blood. Given their penchant for violently spraying forth their contents if forcefully destroyed, element toads have been made from thorns, glass, hot tar, sewage, and steel caltrops.

It has been rumored that a small group of angry mages loosed a group of iron and steel element toads within the Crow family armory, causing close to half the Crow arsenal to become dinner for these constructs.

The Chamber Platinum and the Crookstaff family are both reputed to possess copies of the formula for creation, however no one outside the innermost circles of each has any hope of accessing such documents, a fact for which most people are extremely grateful.

Element Toads copyright © 2001 Erik Amundsen, used with permission.