Quote Originally Posted by Ruck View Post
That too (bolded emphasis mine). At this point I don't expect to convince anyone new, but I am frustrated with how consistently the people trying to argue against me specifically keep misrepresenting what I've said.
Now, before we'd skip to business, listen here for a moment. Full disclosure: I'll be blunt.

–If I happen to misunderstand something you say, feel free to correct an explain again. I don't mind that. Doesn't mean I'll agree. But I don't mind it. If repeated explanations fail, that might be on me. Whatever. You can bask in the warm sun of being very clever. I like warm suns. I'm fine with that.

–Alternatively, if you think I'm intentionally and maliciously misrepresent your point to make it appear weaker because I can't handle your cleverness or out of spite or because I'm too invested in winning a pointless debate or whatever you think the reason is, because that is what strawmaning means, just ****ing report the ****ing post. Simple as that.

Either way, don't fling second-hand accusations at me. Because that I do mind. Thank you well in advance.

First, the Protean has a default size unless it's actively changing into a creature of a different size. That's in its statblock.
Purportedly, yes. It's an epic creature of odd design that constantly shifts its shape, and as such, can change its size as a free action without noticing, which is a poorly conceived monster design idea for something in a game (in general, and a stroy context, it would be far more viable and no less interesting, of course), but that's WotC doing Epic for you.

Second, the partial in "partial shapeshifting" is important here. He can easily maintain a face while the rest of his body still boils and such.
He can, through active and deliberate effort, spending the appropriate action cost when able to, yes.

Yes, I've been saying that there are both explanations that involve MitD holding his face or eyes in position, and explanations that do not involve that but involve something in the artistic style and/or the rules of dramatic convention OOTS runs on.

And I've said I don't know which one explanation is correct, but the fact that I can find enough I consider reasonable or plausible satisfies the doubts I've had there.
There's a gap between possible and plausible, plausible and likely, as well as between likely and true.

The Air Gnome Solution of the Oracle's prophecy for Belkar's death satisfies possible and arguably plausible, but it is too contrived to be likely as far as I'm concerned.

Ignoring defining features "so as not to kill the guessing game" (mute young portly female Sean Connery; advertising Deadpool 2 as a Brad Pitt movie where his not featuring in promotional material is a VERY IMPORTANT clue to the role he plays…) is possible, but hardly satisfying, not for me anyway. You do you of course, but for me it sounds both contrived and trolling.

(Also, I'll throw my support for your points about the "closed eyes as shorthand for sleep" position. It's clear that Rich has to use certain artistic conventions in order to accurately convey his characters' emotions in a stick figure comic.)
But he doesn't for the Likeable Death Worm. And Xykon's eye sockets are less of a stretch for me than having, say, Xykon maintain fixed eye sockets with two emoting yellow eyes hovering over his left shoulder "as a shorthand". (Also, while I don't think Big X. looks like he is drawn with that in mind, D&D liches may and usually do retain skin stretched over their bones, as per their official description.)

I might just be repeating or summarizing my essay here, but I felt it might help to present the sum total of my perspective on MitD's species, rather than arguing bits and pieces of it.
Yes, and I thank you for it.

[*]The white/black Slaad's reproduction cycle doesn't fit MitD's comments on his dad,
You literally linked the strip where spawning is conceptualized as parenthood, which makes this a poor argument. All White Slaadi have parents if we go by what the comic explicitly tells us: the Red or Blue that made them a Green back when. White Slaadi are Large. Red and Blue grow to Huge. Do the math. If what you are looking for is sometheing possible, ny RAW and by the comic, look no further.

and the age he would have to be and stages of evolution he would have to go through to be a white/black Slaad doesn't fit with him being a juvenile.
Origin establishes, and explicitly, that at the age of 20, Elves are still in diapers; at 26, they are kindergarten age; and, as per Origin, once more, they are still small children at 43, when a D&D!Human (physically and legally an adult at 15) can have teenaged grandchildren already. This doesn't align with official D&D fluff, despite retaining the raw numbers.

Nonhumans maturing differently is an established thing in the Stickverse. Possible again.

The SBGH should not be surprised a Slaad can talk in Common.
The same goes for a Protean. At any rate, it is a second language for a Slaad. This is neither here nor there.

As already portrayed in comic, a Slaad is also not the kind of creature that would cause a learned wizard to say "I've never seen anything like it!"

On top of that, a Slaad has already been portrayed in the comic, and I don't think Rich would do that if the Slaad was his planned reveal. (This is still a story first, and I don't think Rich would undercut a big moment in the story, a big reveal he's been planning for decades, just for a joke about a pregnant deva.)
1. We have also seen Mimics, and even Belkar knows how they work (v. trolling Durkon and the treasure chest comment). Is this a point against the Protean? Not in my book.

2. Slaadi are not even the only batrachiate Outsiders in the game. We have Neraphim, Hezrou Demons, Farastu Demodands… And then we have Gripplis, Sivs, DraMag!Vodyanoi and Anthropomorphic Toads on the race front, Ice Toads (warty, white übertoads, but quadrupedal)…

A White Slaad resembles many of these, but is very obviously not any pof the commonly encountered Slaadi, let alone the other creatures, and rare enough that even a learned caster could fail the check to recognize it properly, both from a mechanical and a logical standpoint. Unless you take "I haven't seen anything like" to mean they literally didn't (I would say that upon encountering a massive, white toad with teeth, even though I have seen toads before), it is more than plausible, and if you do… Well, that's projecting.

3. Also, unlike how
[t]he Protean normally wouldn't appear as two eyes in the dark
, it both could and would.

4. And unlike the Protean that
would have to partially shapeshift into the right creature with the right power to teleport Vaarsuvius and O-Chul away
, it can just do that. So…

If it is true that
[o]nly one of those monsters has drawbacks that are possible to explain with the rules, mechanics, and portrayal as established
, it is the Slaad. It doesn't even take anything but the rules and what the comic establishes, explicitly, elsewhere to do so. No need to imagine Astral battles with Umbral Blots. No need to come up with "the eyes are there to signify that the eyes are not there" level arguments.

Clean and simple.

It's also the strongest creature on the FBS, which I think makes it the best fit for the Tower Scene.
Undercut by the fact that it's also the one candidate that could, in fact, hit lighter, even if its powers are vibes based, I might add.

I also think its unique qualities make it the best fit for the Circus scene-- by a substantial margin, I might add.
You do. I don't. That's okay.

And, finally, the story reasons and thematic resonance for it really work for me: MITD is a character expected to be a scary monster, who's been content to follow others around and do what they want, and who now has to find the inner strength to follow his own heart and mind and change, to be who he wants to be instead of what other people expect of him.
See the parallelism I made between Sabine/Nale and MitD/O-Chul earlier. An oddly behaving Chaotic exemplar begins questioning its counterintuitive loyalties due to froming a strong bond with a Human.

That character then being revealed to be a species of constant change, with more power to change than anything else we've seen in this world, makes a lot of sense to me.
…which is just as well, because a White Slaad still has a change left in it! it's even (wait for it) literal growth, and becoming visually similar to what we have gotten used to he looks like might double as a metaphor for self-acceptance, if you lean that way. There.

And so far I have not come up with or been presented with a good story reason for any of the other candidates.
See above. A story reason, and entirely plausible.