Bullywugs were a frog-like humanoid race that lived in swamps and other wet areas and called themselves its lords. Savage and self-destructive, they regularly tampered with forces far beyond them and their understanding, threatening the safety of others and their own brutish, noisome, and wet lives.³

Biology

Physiology

Bullywugs looked like a horrible cross between a humanoid and a frog. They were usually shorter than humans, with leathery olive-green, gray, or yellow skin and webbed digits, and appeared to be only 4 feet tall as they sat back resting on their long, muscular hind legs like a frog, though at full height they were substantially taller - up to 7 feet.

Their head looked almost exactly like that of their frog counterpart - bulging round eyes and a vast mouth lined not with teeth, but a single sharp ridge of bone and filled with a large, extendible, sticky tongue. Their torso looked vaguely humanoid, with its elongated arms capable of manipulating tools, but it was covered in the warty, grey-green skin of an amphibian. They could weigh anywhere between 100 and 300 pounds.

Like all amphibians, they required periodic immersion in water to stay healthy.

Growth. Female bullywug laid clutches of 200 eggs every year, with only 5% of those surviving into adulthood. Bullywug could live up to 20 years old, but few lived past the age of 5, with the bulk of young bullywugs being killed around 1 year old, either through predation or cannibalism.

Psychology

Bullywug were arrogant, self-destructive, and greedy, and vacillated between aggressive posturing and obsequious pandering, depending on whom they are dealing with.

Many bullywugs, especially those further up the social ladder, had profound inferiority complexes, and needed much posturing and showing off of their meagre belongings to satisfy themselves. One of the biggest "advantages" of the role of chieftains and lords was that they could flaunt their wealth and lands for hours. They craved the fear and respect of others, especially of outsiders and fellow nobles.

Simultaneously, all bullywug considered themselves superior to every other creature they encountered, including other bullywug, regardless of status - they were incapable of showing humility for long, often to the despair of chieftains and lords who tried to flaunt their wealth.

Culture

Language

Bullywug language was a series of croaks, clicks, tonal sounds and staccato notes and was unintelligible by non-bullywug. Their vocabulary was very limited and the grammar very basic, but it was nevertheless perfectly adapted to communicate small bits of vital information.

They could communicate over large distances by the sheer volume of their voices, and they could quickly act when threatened - whether that be converging on an area to attack, scattering in retreat, or setting up ambushes, the bullywug were quite verbal with one another, and their territories were rarely silent. News of intruders or other events in the swamp spread within minutes across this crude communication system.

Breeding and Incubating

Eggs were laid in a collective pond in the center of a tribe's territory, and guarded by the entire group. Usually, the shaman and his giant frogs were nearby.

After hatching, infant bullywugs swam around that same pond and some less shallow water nearby, learning to use their bodies in a basic form. They often fought their young kin, mainly for food but sometimes also for fun. At about four months of age, if they hadn't yet crept out themselves and started their existence as Meat Frog peasant, older bullywug pulled them out themselves.

Clothing Traditions

Bullywug were born naked, and those without any social standing remained so throughout their short and pathetic lives. If they managed to please their leader, or gained clothes and fashioned "weapons" by themselves, they could ascend the social ladder. Knights were permitted to wear a piece of clothing or adornment - or rather, their loincloth made them a knight.

Chieftains and lords, suitable to their tribe's wealth and their status, wore more elaborate clothing, including fancy headwear called "crowns".

Shamans wore more special clothing clearly distinguishing them from the others. This was often tanned skin of creatures not native to the swamps that contrasted with the other colors, or odd batches of twigs tied to their naked bodies. Their distinguishing factor, however, was usually the skull of a giant frog that went around their whole head as a kind of helmet. Apprentices wore the same, but without the lower jawbone. Some shamans used other heads of animals, such as decapitated birds or fish, to denote their position.

Warfare

Bullywug were most at home in the water, being very fast swimmers, and had natural camouflage that allowed them to be nearly invisible when still in foliage or submerged underwater. They could leap 20' forward, 10' high, and 10' backwards, and almost always leaped into battle, trying to shock their enemies with multiple trajectories of attack from ambush.

They often rode mounts into battle, including giant leeches, giant frogs, giant lizards, and, rarely, giant crocodiles.

They were, however, quite cowardly, and would often run from a fight that they were actually winning, having no real understanding of strategy or tactics. Whole tribe forces, under the command of shamans and chief-croaker knights, were more capable and sometimes even achieved expert swamp warfare levels. Routed groups often return in greater numbers, however, "safety in numbers" being an overarching mindset. If a whole tribe failed to capture some intruders, it could happen that the entire clan and even its allies deployed a supposedly insignificant enemy.

Although bullywugs had awesome natural weapons in the form of powerful fists and sticky tongues, they preferred to use armor and actual weapons when available. Spearmen almost always carried poisoned weapons, and the warriors carried crude weapons made of indigenous swamp materials - often clubs of wood or bone studded with the sharp teeth of local beasts. The armor they wore was of similar construction - being made of crudely cured reptile hides and giant turtle shells. The nobility sometimes used actual equipment looted from outsiders.

Outsiders

Bullywug warriors attempted to capture intruders into their swamps, rather than simply slaying them. Captives were dragged before a chieftain or lord and forced to beg for mercy. Bribes, treasure, and flattery could trick the bullywug ruler into letting its captives go, but not before it tried to impress its "guests" with the majesty of its treasure and its realm.

Naming (Titles)

Newborn bullywug received little attention and, accordingly, no names. They were usually referred to as "you there". Only more successful bullywug, such as knights and nobility, could get a label and some recognition for themselves.

Titles, which were used instead of names, were both primitive and evocative, and the longer the title, the more respect the individual had. Examples included "Long Tongue Large Eater Too Worthy of Respect", or "Long Legs Sharp Eye Most Respected and Feared".

Naked (peasant) bullywug were never allowed to give themselves a title.

Religion

The bullywug had no proper gods, although they venerated Froghemoths as if they were divine, and a caste of shamans developed to care for these creatures - there was no centralized clergy. They did not "interpret" any signs or wishes, they were simply caretakers who understood the monsters better than the rest of the society. These clerics had enormous social power, and even had some limited access to spellcasting. They often used hallucinogens in their arcane rituals.

Bullywugs could be considered followers of the "cargo cult" philosophy, wherein they tried to equate coincidence with causation, and would often attempt to recreate actions or conditions in which a favorable thing occurred, without realizing the correlation was flawed.

Shamans also treated giant frogs as revered beings, and often formed alliances with them, feeding them and having them act as guards, mounts, and "early warning" systems. Their ability to swallow prey whole provides raiding parties an easy means to carry prey back to their clan.

Society

Bullywugs followed the tribal clan system, albeit with some minor tweaks, such as the role of shamans. Most bullywug clans counted between 1000 to 2000 individuals at any given time, since warfare kept the numbers manageable.

Tribes were of manageable size, counting somewhere between 20 to 200 members. Each tribe had its chieftain and shaman, and swore allegiance to the clan's lord. When a lord died, a clan usually disbanded, and the constituent tribes reformed their allegiances, creating a constantly shifting net of "clans".

A recently born bullywug, after creeping out of the pond by itself, had two ways to advance among its kind. It could either murder its rivals, though it had to take pains to keep its criminal deeds secret from fear of retribution from the shaman, or it could find recognition through other means, sometimes by finding a treasure or magic item and present it as tribute or a token of obediance to its liege. A bullywug that murdered its rivals without cunning was likely to be executed, so it was more common for bullywugs to stage raids against caravans and settlements, with the goal of securing precious baubles to impress their lords and win their good graces. Once a gift lost its sheen, a bullywug lord invariably demanded that its subjects bring it more treasure as tribute.

Offices

Naked peasants, also called "Meat Frogs" because they could be casually eaten by their betters, received no attention and had no status. Most quickly died.

Very few bullywug got beyond the "young naked inexperienced peasant" stage. Social movement could occur when all more prestigious bullywugs died, when a bullywug came across equipment that warranted their ascension, or when they succeeded in raids, either against other clans or against completely different races. These individuals, called knights but usually just referred to as clothes-wearer, managed to wear clothing (usually no more than plain leather or fibre loincloths) and had "the right to bear arms", meaning they could parade weapons before the "nobility". Any sorcerers, called brei'iahk, automatically became knights, and often even quickly continued to rise before they were assassinated by rivals.

Some knights with especially strong voices were usable on the "battlefield" when the whole clan went to war, both for strategic communication and to intimidate the enemy. They were called chief-croakers and were specially protected from backstabbing by the shamans, a luxury not even lords or chieftains had.

Each tribe was led by the most powerful knight, the chieftain. He was the lowest member of the nobility. This was a strongly contested position, and chieftains commonly died to the hands of their peers. Although they were technically still peasants of the clan lords, many chieftains had hoards of their own, including actual clothing, small crown-like items, weapons looted from others, and small bauble hoards.

Each clan was led by a lord, the chieftain of the strongest tribe, who supposedly owned all the loot of his subservient clans. Any loot of note, including most real weapons, had to be delivered to his hoard. His power was respected, because his displeasure could be a perfect excuse for all the other tribes to raid an offender. He attained his power mainly through coercion, gaining the allegiance of chieftains, and luck. Whenever a lord died, the clan shattered, and everyone tried to loot his hoard before joining another lord. It was also common for a successful and powerful chieftain to secede from its old clan, forming a new one with other neighboring tribes and becoming a lord itself.

Shamans

Some bullywugs came to the role of shamans. Few learned the skills necessary for this office, and most shamans only trained one or two apprentices in their life. They took care of a tribe's froghemoth and giant frogs. In a way, they were the caretakers of the gods. They also wielded a clan's most potent military force, and, often, its only source of magic.

Tribes each had one full shaman. It was quasi-impossible for a group of bullywug to survive without one. Thus, and since chieftains were disposable, the unity and existence of a tribe was tied to the shaman. A shaman, and its apprentice - who was completely subject to it - was thus untouchable. No knight, chieftain, or even lord was allowed to lay a finger on a shaman, and whoever dared to anger - or worse, maim or kill - a shaman could be directly pursued with violence.