Spined Toad

Picture a giant toad crossed with a hedgehog. Short, sharp spines cover everything but the belly. The back runs from tan to dark brown, and the underside is paler, often white.

It fights only by biting for 1d4, keeping the spines for defense. Anything that touches them, as most predators do and as characters striking with bare hands or short blades such as daggers and knives must, takes 2d4 damage. Facing a strong foe, the toad rolls into a spiky ball to shield its soft belly, and most natural enemies give up.

It can hop its full movement like other giant toads, but seldom does among trees, where its spines snag on trunks and low branches. Instead it lopes awkwardly, shredding leaves and twigs as it goes, so rangers tracking one gain +8. Sometimes, apparently for fun, one curls up atop a hill and rolls down, now and then spearing small animals on the way and eating them at the bottom.

They live in small family groups and lay eggs in water. A youngster leaving the tadpole stage is 2 feet long with 1 Hit Die and a 1-2 point bite. It grows a foot a year, and at four feet it reaches 2 Hit Dice with a 1d4 bite.

It eats insects and nearly any animal it outsizes, from snails to snakes, with small rodents the favorite. Mostly a land hunter, it sometimes slips into water and surfaces under ducks, swans and other waterfowl to gulp them whole.

Few creatures dare to eat them, but some lizard man tribes use them as weapons, flinging toads under three feet long at enemies with oars or paddles. A thrown toad deals 2d4 damage, takes 1-2 itself and has a 50% chance to be stunned for a round. Lizard men also make leather armor from the spiny hide, stretch it over frames into shields that work like spiked bucklers, and saw spines off big specimens for crude daggers or spear and morning star heads.

Humanoids invent games around them. Goblins jab one with spears until it balls up, then hold a tug of war across it with a 10-foot pole, each trying to drag his rival onto the spines. Others pelt one with apples to see whose fruit sticks most, and ogres compete to hurl a curled toad and stick it highest in a tree.