The Trash Toad
Creativity is fleeting and energy remains low as I wrestle with turning around health issues I put off for years, managing seasonal depression, and dealing with everything that goes into modern life. But I've got time this morning while the snow falls and the sound of reggae is drowned out by the bluster of the heater and the thrum of the washing machine running in the next room. So here's a critter I'm mulling over for when I get back to seriously preparing tabletop games.
Trash Toad
The Trash Toad is a rather large toad, ranging in size from a medium dog to a black bear. They are prized by dungeon dwellers for their ability to consume just about anything - vegetables, plants, the slime that grows next to the cursed well we really should do something about, and the trash leftover from when those adventurers from up-top cleared out the crypt of candlebone skeletons. They're easier to raise than gelatinous cubes and are more versatile then keeping pens of carrion crawlers and rust monsters about.
They have a fairly swift growth cycle and react peculiarly to all sorts of environmental factors and feedstock. As a result, there are about as many variants of Trash Toads as there are birds and bugs, and the various families and clans living in a dungeon guard their own breeding stock while coveting the desirable Toads of their neighbors. Enterprising adventurers can make coin and friends by skimming tadpoles from the breeding ponds of one set of residents to sell to another group in the dungeon.
Efforts to relocate or raise Trash Toads above ground have failed. A peculiarity of the creature is its intense agoraphobia - the mere sight of the sky causes it to have a severe heart attack. Illusionists are cautioned to practice their landscapes well away from the family Trash Toad.
I have another funny lil' guy in my idea journal, but I want to think it through some more. They're a kind of person, so I have to check myself and make sure I haven't accidentally created some sort of terrible stereotype instead of a comical lil' fellah to vex and entertain friends with. Once I do, I'll try and get a post up about them.