Froghemoth

Hailing from the rotting swamplands of the Rot at the Edges, this huge beast is all tentacles, fangs and unbridled rage.

Basic Information

Anatomy

A Froghemoth is around five and a half metres long and three metres wide. Yellowish-green on the belly and undersides of the legs, shading light green on the sides. and then to mottled green on its back and on the four large tentacles around its body. It has a pair of nostrils on short stalks and three amber eyes similarly located on retractable appendage. A fully grown Frogehemoth would weigh almost five tonnes.

Genetics and Reproduction

A froghemoth will spawn hundreds of eggs in the shallow swamps, these grow into Tadhemoths , violent and aggressive black tadpoles that form small legs and tentacles and will fight viciously over resources, when only a few remain, they climb up their parent and burrow into its skin, which forms amniotic sacs around the children where they can finish their growth stages until they become smaller versions of the full froghemoth. Bursting forth violently after a few weeks and resuming their rampage, attacking and eating anything in sight.

Growth Rate & Stages

The Tadhemoth hatches from an egg in a pile of Hemothspawn, emerging as a black, slick water breathing creature some 30 cm long with a powerful tail and vestigial tentacles. Over a few weeks, it grows in size, develops legs and the tentacles grow, it begins to fight with its fellow Tadhemoth and anything else in the spawning pool. After a few months, the creature is around a metre long and the spawning pool can only support a handful of them, the rest falling prey to their siblings. The tentacles begin to develop into long, powerful weapons and the legs have began to grow from the body.
At the four month mark, the Tadhemoths will crawl from the spawning pool and climb up to their parents backs. The few that make it to the Froghemoth with burrow into the skin on the creatures back and an amniotic blister will form around them, allowing them to continue their development on the parent, driving the parent to even greater rampages as it is forced to consume ever more to feed the parasitic children in its back.
After six months of this, the children will hatch from the pustules on the Froghemoth parent, now full developed into their adult shape, their skin the same mottled green and yellow and eye stalks finally emerging from their heads, They will be about a two metres long, less than a quarter of their final size, which will take years of eating to attain.