Racial Description

  Fishy Appearance: A Kuo-Toa superficially resemble a grotesque cross between a fish and a humanoid. Their stout, stocky bodies are covered in slippery blue or purple scales, with clawed, webbed feet and black nails. Their hands are much more human-like, ending in the blunt nails typical of most humanoid races. Where one would normally expect the neck of a humanoid to be, there is instead the head of a fish, placed as if it had been grafted on. Some Kuo-Toa will display whiskers similar to those of a catfish, others have fins at the sides or tops of their heads, and a few have a mixture of both. Their bulging eyes are always a sickly yellow color, with a massive black pupil in the center.   Mutated and Freedom: In days long past, Kuo-Toa once dwelled on the shores and islands of the surface world. The Kuo-Toa were driven deep underground by the humans and their like, dooming them to spend eternity in darkness. In their prison of the Underdark, the Kuo-Toa came into contact with the Illithids and found themselves a new set of oppressors. The Illithids subjected the Kuo-Toa to slavery, condemning thousands to lives as chattel. The Kuo-Toa were a simple race and were never intended to bear through the mental strain the Illithids' psychic energy placed upon them. Nearly every Kuo-Toa was driven hopelessly mad and paranoid, and they retain their madness, even long after the mind flayers abandoned them. They invent their own gods in their madness, in a vain effort to protect themselves from the threats they face in their dangerous home.   Zealots Life: Kuo-Toa revere deities of their own design. Though their gods are not real, if enough Kuo-Toa fervently believe in a deity, their subconscious minds have a strange way of combining their power and manifesting that deity as a physical entity. Among the most revered Kuo-Toa gods is, Blibdoolpoolp the Sea Mother, a female human with a crayfish head, claws, and shell covering her shoulders. Archpriests hold among the highest positions in Kuo-Toa society, being surrounded by fanatical devotees of their faith. Archpriests' devotion to their deity is so fervent that they manifest divine powers similar to a cleric. Archpriests also have the power to bestow a fraction of their mystical powers to particularly loyal underlings known as whips, who fight to the death to become the archpriest's heir when the archpriest succumbs. A disloyal whip may be stripped of its powers, if not its life. Most other humanoid societies view the Kuo-Toa strange ways with disdain, chief among them being the Drow, who have slain the Kuo-Toa on sight as long as the two races have known each other.   Kuo-Toa Names: Kuo-Toa names are either stolen from other cultures or pulled from the dark depths of their insane minds, providing little deep meaning.