Slaad

The Slaad are among the most zealous of the Outerfolk, committed beyond death or reason to the brutal creed of the Colossi. Formless spawn of the Void, they manifest on Aiaos in stolen flesh, warped into a hulking form similar, but not quite identical, to a vastly enlarged Smoothfolk. They enter the world via infection of humanoid hosts, taking their bipedal form from those hosts, but the reason for their frog-like features is unclear to scholars. It is believed that, within the Void, they congregate around a massive crystal, brimming with extra-ontological energies, from which the nascent forms of new slaadi emerge as shimmering motes of gemstone.
The slaad have four distinct forms, differentiated by colour - although the exact tones of any given slaad can vary widely - and morphology. All slaad grow from 'eggs' - the seed crystals of nascent slaadi - which when implanted in a humanoid host grow into a tadpole which consumes the host from within, emerging in a terminal fashion before feasting on the remaining flesh to fuel their initial metamorphosis. The crystal mote grows with the slaad, becoming larger and more complex throughout its metamorphoses. If the crystal can be extracted from a slaad, the one who holds it can control them, and perhaps more importantly, if it is destroyed the slaad will die with its current form.

• Blue Slaadi are the 'immature' phase of the race, hulking brutes that grow from the humble 'slaadpoles', and whose touch can inflict a wasting disease which transforms its victims into hosts for more advanced forms. Incredibly powerful, they have little wit or subtlety, and they do not return to the Void if killed.
• After a time in their blue form, a slaad metamorphoses again. A Red Slaad is slighter than a blue, but still massive and powerful. In the process of metamorphosis, they forge a connection to the spawning grounds in the Void, and if banished from or destroyed in the material world, they return their to be reborn through a blue slaad's infection. Although many red slaadi look down on the simple-minded blues, they need them to infect new victims.
  The reds themselves are able to infect a humanoid with a slaad egg. If the infection is not rooted out, the infected mortal suffers incredible pain as a part of their flesh is transformed into a tadpole-like form. This small, vicious creature is possessed of a powerful hunger, and will consume flesh in order to gain enough mass to metamorphose into a new, blue slaad.
• Green Slaadi are created when a mature slaad is able to incarnate through the infection of a poweful spellcaster, the blue slaad's contagion absorbing the magical energies that the host was able to channel into their essence as a conduit to the power of the Void. With keener minds and more tenacious natures, they lead groups of slaadi where present, and red and blue slaadi seek out spellcasters in order to instantiate greens. Green slaadi and higher forms are also capable of shapeshifting into any of the humanoid forms they have instantiated into throughout their lives.
• A green slaad eventually undergoes a final metamorphosis, losing its colour and becoming a Grey Slaad. Smaller, quicker, smarter, crueller and even more committed to their destructive cause, grey slaadi are also able to move themselves into the material plane to spearhead a process of infection.
• The masters of the slaadi are the Nine Deaths, nine grey slaadi of prodigious power, capable of bringing other slaadi into the material plane with them. To become one of the deaths, a grey slaad must consume the body of one of the extant deaths, either one who has fallen in battle, or one whom they have managed to overpower and kill. To do so is no easy thing, however, as the Nine Deaths are exceptionally powerful beings, suffused with the destructive energies of the Colossi.