Yawnzay and Throads
Description
Nothing in nature is a perfect circle but a hanging Yawnzay is close. A round ball body, with a large mouth that bisects it. A single eye facing through a gelled dome of a head and a long, spiked, wretch tongue that floats along it in rest upon the water. These are actually the tadpole stage of a species of impressively large frogs called throads, which sit at 1.8m tall and when jumping are 2.6m from fingertip to toe. Throads have four holes under their vocal sac and a pond-growth green tone to their skin.
Behaviour
Yawnzay climb trees in the dawn, rest and warm in the morning light, fall into the water at noon and then hunt newts at night. Unless you catch one in an active transition between phases of a day then it’s hard to tell if it is alive or dead. They live through this phase for a year before freezing in winter and hibernating, in which they grow legs and arms and develop into throads. The throads then emerge from the swallow mud in spring to hunt in the fogs of the boggy landscape. They’re impressive mimics using their ability to confuse their insect prey into thinking they’re wanting to mate. They also have a limited ability to warm the atmosphere around them to make the insects more slow and relaxed in their movements.
Relationship to locals
While a constant warning for travellers it’s rare a Yawnzay will actually fall on one’s head if they walk out at noon, this lie is kept up however to prevent a foreigner from Interrupting the tradition of a post lunch rest upheld in the bog. Stilts that protrude out from the village deck are usually capped or bent to avoid skewering a Yawnzay as they leave a permanent odor wherever slain. Throads are mostly harmless to humanoids, however, their mimicry can be used to scare off or confuse intruders into their hunting grounds, as the throads have learned what sounds to make to scare off any threats, humanoids included.
Folktale
It’s said that Yawnzay are actually creations of the God of Enigmatic Decay, made to spy on any lizard-kin who were hiding books or notes from the God. After the god fell they continued to spy but with nothing to spy for, they go through the motions that once gave them purpose, possibly awaiting orders that will never come. This is of course ridiculous as throads have been around the bogs for a long expanse of time, and their strange nature brought to life the lizardfolk myth that the throads create the fog in which they hunt and dwell.