Boggard

**Boggards** (pronounced BAH-gurd) are primitive toad like humanoids with vile dispositions who have long plagued travelers who pass too close to their swampy homes. They are sometimes termed "toadfolk".

## Appearance

Boggards look like a humanoid frog or toad with a human's posture and ability to use weapons. Boggards normally appear only four feet tall, as they sit back resting on their long, muscular hind legs like a frog; at full height they are substantially taller. A boggard's head looks almost exactly like that of its frog counterpart, with bulging round eyes and a vast mouth lined not with teeth, but a single sharp ridge of bone and filled with a large, extendable, sticky tongue. The torso is vaguely humanoid in appearance, with its elongated arms capable of manipulating tools, but is covered in the warty, grey-green skin of an amphibian. Its webbed hands normally wield crude weapons made of indigenous swamp material, often clubs of wood or bone, studded with the sharp teeth of local beasts. The armor boggards wear is of similar construction, being made of crudely cured reptile hides and the shells of giant turtles.

## Habitat and ecology

Boggards seem to prefer temperate swamps and marshlands. Boggards, like the toads and frogs they are so closely resemble, change their appearance depending on their environment. Supposedly these variations in color often indicate unique abilities like tougher skin, poisonous flesh, sticky hands and feet, and several other amphibian adaptations. Despite their aberrant appearance, boggards embrace their environment.

### Life cycle

The boggard life cycle resembles that of frogs more than humans, beginning with their birth as tadpoles in the fetid birthing pools that form the center of any boggard village. As tadpoles, boggards learn the first lesson of their lives: survival in the swamps is brutal. Tadpoles are forced to compete with their siblings for food. By the time they have spent half a year in this state, the tadpoles have reached three foot in length, and they begin sprouting arms and legs. It takes another three months for the arms and legs to grow to full size, at which point the juvenile boggards emerge from the birthing pool. The weaker members of the clutch, as well as any deformed young, are culled at this point.

Following their emergence onto dry land, the juvenile boggards are grouped into gangs that are led by young but experienced hunters who teach the juvenile boggards how to track and kill. At the end of this two years of training, each young boggard is sent off on a rite of initiation where they must hunt and kill a sentient humanoid. If the boggard fails to do this within a month, they are cast out of the tribe; most do not survive this exile. If they succeed in their hunt, they are considered an adult boggard and fully part of the tribe.

The young of a tribe's priest-king follow a somewhat different path. They are fed a diet of poisonous dragonflies that kills most of them, but which gives some of the survivors enhanced mental and magical abilities. Most of the young who survive this diet, however, develop into mentally and physically stunted creatures known as bogwiggles.

## Society

Boggard society is dominated by the priest-king of the tribe. The priest-king's residence, a ziggurat-like mound, sits at the center of each village; the huts of its immediate subordinates are located around this mound, and those of the rest of the tribe around them. Boggards further denote their status through the size of their dwellings — boggards of greater standing tend to live in larger mounds — and through decorating their homes with shells, bones and other trinkets.

Boggards make little use of metal, as it corrodes quickly in the humid environments they inhabit, and their tools are primarily made of stone, bone and similar materials as a result. They value magic items when they can obtain them, due to their resistance to physical corrosion.

 Racial Traits

* **Ability Scores:** +2 Strength, +2 Constitution, -2 Intelligence: Boggards are strong and hardy, but dimwitted.
* **Type:** Boggards are humanoid with the boggard subtype
* **Size:** Boggards are Medium creatures and have no bonuses or penalties due to their size.
* **Base Speed:**  Boggards have a base speed of 20 feet, but their speed is never modified by armor or encumbrance.
* **Languages:** Boggards begin play speaking Common.
* **Vision:** Boggards Darkvision out to 60 ft. Low-Light Vision.

####  Movement/Other Racial Traits

* **Swim Speed:** Boggards have a swim speed of 30 feet and gain the +8 racial bonus on Swim checks that a swim speed normally grants.
* **Hold Breath:** Boggards can hold their breath for a number of rounds equal to four times their Constitution score before risking drowning or suffocating.
* **Terrain Stride:** Boggards can move through natural difficult terrain at their normal speed while within a swamp.

#### Offense Racial Traits

* **Sticky Tongue:** Boggards can make melee attacks with their long, sticky tongues. This is a secondary attack. A creature hit by this attack cannot move more than 10 feet away from the attacker and takes a –2 penalty to AC as long as the tongue is attached (this penalty does not stack if multiple tongues are attached). The tongue can be removed by the target or an adjacent ally by making an opposed Strength check against the attacking creature as a standard action or by dealing 2 points of damage to the tongue (AC 11, damage does not reduce the sticky-tongued creature’s hit points). Boggards cannot move more than 10 feet away from a creature stuck to its tongue, but it can release its tongue from the target as a free action. They can only have one creature attached to its tongue at a time.
* **Terrifying Croak:** Once per hour as a standard action, a boggard can emit a thunderous croak. Any creature not of its subtype within 30 feet must make a successful Will saving throw (DC 10 + 1/2 the user’s character level + the user’s Charisma modifier) or become shaken for 1d4 rounds. A target that successfully saves cannot be affected by the boggard’s terrifying croak for 24 hours. Creatures that are already shaken become frightened for 1d4 rounds instead. This is a sonic, mind-affecting effect.