Looking for a creative Slaadi encounter idea.

[Oryan77]

I have a scenario where the PCs will travel through a deserted town. I would like to use some Slaadi as an encounter for my first time.

Does anyone have any interesting ideas for a Slaadi encounter? Do any of the 3.5 books have a Slaadi encounter? I know some of the newer books now have very short monster encounters included in them. Or are there any good 1e/2e adventures that I can mine for ideas for a Slaadi encounter?

Do any of the Dungeon mags have good Slaadi encounters that I might pull ideas from?

 

[Shemeska]

Where's the town, and does it have any history to play on (ie the Slaad were summoned and bound decades back and only recently managed to break down the wards bottling them up, and now need to find a way to break the final spells that prevent them from just planeshifting back to Limbo).

Slaadi aren't too terribly known for jumping onto the prime material very often, but random portals, color pools, etc might give them access. Having been called (and promptly ignored their summoner, or eaten them) and then went about their merry way doing nothing twice, except for trying to make more slaadi perhaps- works too.

Most importantly though, avoid the 3e WotC stereotype of making Slaadi evil-lite death machines. They're bizarre, dangerous creatures, but there's often little reason to make them act like actual fiends when they're anything but. Polite slaadi, or NPCs you aren't openly aware of being slaadi, are fun little twists for any encounter with their kind.

And just one last idea, maybe the PCs walk into a bit of mutual antipathy between blue and red slaad?

 

[MrApothecary]

Well, unlike with normal monsters, you won't have to worry about a reason the Slaad do anything they do. You can have the Slaad pelt the characters with several varieties of cheese if you want.

 

[Shemeska]

One rather fun slaad that I remember was in a back-issue of Dragon, in one of the deity articles by SKR. The article on Olidammara had a nice description of a (gray? green?) slaad servitor of his. Pretty interesting character as I recall (and awesome illustration), and gives some good idea of how they can be used beyond just being angry monsters from the planes.

And then there's wartle, but nobody remembers him (nor cares, including me). Poor Wartle.

Oddly enough perhaps, coming from me, I've used slaadi on remarkably few occassions over the years. Used a green slaad and two blues in the gatetown of aXoS/XaoS/sOAx/etc dressed up like the guys in clockwork orange. Disturbing conversations ensued before the PCs ditched them and ran. I've also used a death slaad wild mage with anarch abilities as a epic single combat that was never intended to be anything more than a combat, so no real depth of character there.

To tell the truth, I've used chaos imps, Xaositects, and a sometimes chosen of Chourst (who thinks they're a chosen of Renbuu) more often than actual slaadi (but mostly because I've never concentrated as much on the chaotic planes as the evil and lawful ones).

 

[Oryan77]

Where's the town, and does it have any history to play on

I'm actually running Dead Gods and I wanted to spice up the Ranais town encounter in chapter 4. Rather than there just being undead in the prime town, I thought sticking some Sladdi in there might make things more interesting.

I just can't think of a scenario for them other than "A red skinned creature steps from the shadows and attacks".

 

[Shemeska]

I'm actually running Dead Gods and I wanted to spice up the Ranais town encounter in chapter 4. Rather than there just being undead in the prime town, I thought sticking some Sladdi in there might make things more interesting.

I just can't think of a scenario for them other than "A red skinned creature steps from the shadows and attacks".

How about a slaad chatting up one of the ghosts of Ranais, either ignoring or completely oblivious of the fact that the entire planet is a dead world, and has been for some time. Or the slaad was there when it was a living world, and it's searching out something left behind, for a reason or just because it seemed like a good thing to do at the time. Would make for an interesting (if not always trustworthy or predictable) character to tag along with the PCs versus the visages later on in Ranais.

 

[Psion]

Hmmm. Well, perhaps the players meet some wanderers in search of a reclusive sage living in town, someone rumored to be an expert on fiends. Together, they seek the sage, and learn the sage is an eccentric (well, not so eccentric for a slaad) slaad by the name of Xanxost.

 

[Kzach]

There's a perfect module for this that was presented in Dungeon magazine years ago.

It was called "Jacob's Well" by Randy Maxwell. Dungeon 43 (Sept/Oct 1993).