Grippli

A grippli is a small, smart humanoid tree frog, 2 1/2 feet tall and 25 to 30 pounds, with a frog's body but humanlike hands and handlike feet. Its eyes are yellow with slit pupils, and its gray-green skin is striped and swirled for camouflage; it looks damp but feels dry, and smells of old wet leaves. They crave bright colors and dress only for show or pockets, usually in a belt or loincloth.

They speak in croaks, groans, clicks and squeaks. Most tribes have someone who knows common, elvish or a nearby jungle tongue, but the croak in their voices makes any foreign language hard to follow.

Their coloring, especially while still among plants, imposes -3 on opponents' surprise rolls. They climb trees or rough rock at full speed and have 10-yard infravision, so night hampers them little. Their arms are nets, snares, poison darts and the odd dagger or sword, occasionally spears or blowguns; metal weapons must come from outside, so swords are rare, and they favor small arms that do not hinder climbing. They never wear armor.

Gripplis are skilled at out-planning bigger, stronger foes. Ambushes and traps are their mainstay: tangle the enemy in snares and nets, then pelt it with darts from high branches. Left alone, they start fights only to steal shiny trinkets.

Villages are wood-and-mud huts in deep tree shade, rarely up in the branches. A tribe mother rules (HD 3, AC 7, 1d6+1 by weapon), nearly four feet tall and said to carry a trace of their god's blood; once a day she can release a musk cloud that works as stinking cloud. She has 1d3 large mates (AC 8, HD 2, poisoned weapons 1d4+1) standing 3 to 3 1/2 feet. A village has 5d6 male defenders, as many noncombatant females and 1d6 young, living in human-style families with a hut each. The tribe mother's hut is also a shrine to their small frog god, in a pantheon that also holds wicked serpent gods and spider goddesses.

Bright and quick to master new tools, gripplis have no wish to make them and trade rare fruits and jungle goods instead, but deal only with neighbors they trust fully, like good elves or the odd good human settlement.

They eat fruit and insects, trapping small bugs by the bushel and stalking giant ones as humans hunt deer. Most big ground and tree predators hunt them, giant snakes and spiders especially. They live to 700 but bear only about six young in that span, so they are rare and defend their young fiercely.