Frogfolk
Frogfolk are a shy and cautious people who generally seek to avoid being drawn into the complicated and dangerous affairs of others. Despite their outlook and small stature, frogfolk often take bold and noble action when the situation demands it.
Reclusive and canny, frogfolk are treetop and wetland survivalists who harvest their homes’ bounty and defend themselves against terrible threats. Their reliance on cunning and simple tools has led to frogfolk being mischaracterized as primitive, yet this overlooks their shaping of the land with hidden orchards and camouflaged causeways that allow frogfolk to live in prosperous peace. Frogfolk are most likely to emerge from their forest or swamp homes to trade, explore, and combat threats that would despoil the world.
Frogfolk resemble humanoid frogs, with oversized eyes, wide mouths, and often gangly physiques. Their slight frames and large toes afford excellent grip while climbing, while their colorful skin provides reliable camouflage that varies by their home environment— green and brown for jungle-dwelling groups, blue and orange for riparian communities, and many other colors between. A frogfolk grows quickly, reaching adult size of about 2 feet in height about 3 years after hatching, though they’re only considered adults around age 12. Frogfolk rarely live beyond 60 years, though exceptional individuals occasionally live as long as a century.
Frogfolk lead a sophisticated hunter-gatherer lifestyle with which they reshape the landscape to suit their needs: building spillways to trap fish, seeding fruit-bearing trees, sowing cover-granting foliage for future hunts, and more techniques that often escape an agriculturist’s eye. These strategies rely on community cooperation as well as dispersed populations, so frogfolk commonly live in small villages, each part of a complex web of alliances and relationships. Reclusiveness has preserved frogfolk lives and lifestyles for millennia, yet they increasingly find themselves threatened by ancient evils and new explorers alike.
