Grung

Grungs were poisonous frog-like amphibious humanoids that lived in swamps or jungles. Their society was organized in castes determined by each grung's color.

Description

Adult grungs usually stood at approximately 3 feet (0.91 meters). Males were generally smaller than females. They resembled small humanoids with strong toad or frog-like legs that ends in webbed feet. Their torsos and heads were less amphibian and more humanoid. They had muscular forelimbs and their hands had opposable thumbs. These creatures stood upright erect and moved about in quick, short hops. Unlike frogs and toads, however, grung were incapable of long leaps.
The evolution of grung gave them intelligence, opposable thumbs, and ingenuity, but took away their prehensile tongues, which were common among other amphibian races. This adaptation left grung with wide, sharp teeth-filled mouths. Their bright-colored skins were kept slick and wet as they breathed through it. Grung eyes were comparatively smaller than those of frogs or toads and were crowned with hard protective ridges. Their eye color was red with black pupils.
Grungs reproduced by laying eggs, which hatched into grey tadpoles which metamorphosed into amphibious humanoids over three months, and into adults over another six to nine months by which time their skin had adopted the bright colors which would identify their castes. Grungs reproduced quickly: one chieftain named Yorb had at least one hundred and eighty children, and that was just his sons.
All grungs continuously secreted a poisonous substance that was harmless to them (however they were not immune to other poisons and venoms). This secretion was quite sticky, and grungs could easily wipe their weapons on their own skin to coat them in this highly toxic substance. When exposed to air, grung venom quickly deteriorated and broke down within a minute, making it extremely hard to harvest and bottle. Their saliva contained the same but weakened poison.
While all grung poisons had similarly debilitating effects, each color of grung poison also caused unique ailments in their victims. Green grungs' poison restricted movement, blue grungs' poison caused prey to shout and yelp against their will, purple grungs' poison drove victims to desperately seek water, red grungs' poison caused ravenous hunger, orange grungs' poison caused irrational fears of one's friends, and gold grungs' poison could charm the victim as well as gift them the ability to speak the grung language.
Grungs were amphibious, but although they could survive underwater, they were better climbers than swimmers. They needed to stay wet at all times as dry skin killed them via suffocation. They needed to submerge themselves in water for at least one full hour every day or their health began to deteriorate. Six days without access to water was sufficient to kill a grung.

A purple grung hunter

Society

Due to their size, grungs often avoided direct confrontation and preferred ambushing their prey. The most common ambush strategy was laying camouflaged and waiting for their opponents, grung from other tribes, or quarry to venture into the range of their short bows or throwing spears. In addition to their naturally poisonous nature, grungs also poisoned their weapons. If their prey survived the initially volleys, the grungs would flee across the tree tops so as not to leave any trail.
When unable to use their weapons of choice, grung could also deal significant amount of damage with a simple bite to deliver their less potent but still venomous saliva.
Grung society was a rigid caste system, and each grung's place was determined by its color:

• Green: Warriors, hunters, and general laborers.
• Blue: Artisans, domestic and childcare workers. Grung crafts were traded with with other races, and could be found in the marketplaces of cities near their habitats.
• Purple: Supervisors of the green and blue grungs. They make sure that the lower castes were happy.
• Red: Scholars and magic users. Also known as grung wildlings, they were superior to purple, green and blue castes, and respected even by higher castes. Red grungs were known to fulfill the roles of tribal shamans and priests.
• Orange: Elite warriors, with authority over all lesser grungs. The orange grungs were charged with protecting the grungs' most important or sacred sites.
• Gold: Also elite warriors, with the highest leadership positions. Every tribe leader was a gold grung.

Although tadpoles were all the same color initially, they were still raised in ground pools already separated by their destined caste. Some mobility was possible between the castes, such as in cases of valuable contributions and great deeds, in which case ritual magic and herbal compounds were used to change the individual grung's color.
Grung were aggressive and territorial. They often attacked any intruders, be they adventurers or members of another tribe. Border wars were quite common among clashing grung tribes. A single tribe usually claimed area within one mile around the settlement. The territory was rigorously patrolled and, if an intruder was encountered, the grungs never engaged in negotiations.
Grung tribes also made extensive use of slavery, and were always looking for new creatures to enslave. They held their slaves in crude pits covered in wooden bars, and kept them at bay by poisoning their food in order to inflict lethargy on them. Over extended periods of time, the effects of such poisoning could only be removed by magic.
Leaders were always the strongest fighters of the gold caste in the tribe, and as females tended to be larger than males, most tribes were matriarchal and led by female war chiefs, however some were led by a male king or chief. One way of reaching a position of power was via dueling to the death for the title. Each tribe also had a female shaman.

Religion

Most grung worshipped the Yuan-Ti god Jahat, believing that they recieved their poisinous abilities from him. It was also quite common for grung to worship demons, devils, and yugoloths. Some grung, particularly good grung, worshipped the deities of the Tabaxi Pantheon. Others still would occaisionally fall into worship of Epizón, as they valued his survival skills.

Player Race Features

• Ability Scores. Choose any +2; choose any other +1.
• Size. Small.
• Speed. Your walking speed is 25 feet, and you have a climbing speed equal to your walking speed.
• Arboreal Alertness. You have proficiency in the Perception skill.
• Amphibious. You can breathe air and water.
• Poison Immunity. You're immune to poison damage and the poisoned condition.
• Poisonous Skin. Any creature that grapples you or otherwise comes into direct contact with your skin must succeed on a DC 12 Constitution saving throw or become poisoned for 1 minute. A poisoned creature no longer in direct contact with you can repeat the saving throw at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on itself on a success. You can also apply this poison to any piercing weapon as part of an attack with that weapon, though when you hit the poison reacts differently. The target must succeed on a DC 12 Constitution saving throw or take 2d4 poison damage.
• Standing Leap. Your long jump is up to 25 feet and your high jump is up to 15 feet, with or without a running start.
• Water Dependency. If you fail to immerse yourself in water for at least 1 hour during a day, you suffer one level of exhaustion at the end of that day. You can only recover from this exhaustion through magic or by immersing yourself in water for at least 1 hour.
• Languages. You can speak, read, and write Common and Grung.