Bloaters are a species of large fat somewhat toadlike herbivorous amphibians. They can grow up to 1.5 meters meters long, can get sustenance out of any plant matter more succulent than driftwood, go from eggs to adult females in as little as fifteen months and have a combination of being both gregarious and dumber than a sack of hammers. As such, bloaters are raised by salamanders for meat and hides and are tended by Bloaterherds.







Bloaterherds are adult male salamanders and while they may not be prestigious like warriors or skilled artisans can often be well off. They lead their herds of bloaters out through the swamps, forests and grasslands letting them bloat themselves on plant matter while keeping them going astray before returning them to their pens. Their iconic lead stick is used to help guide their animals along. A well established Bloaterherd usually has about 200-500 bloaters in his herd proper (these range from cat sized young to fully grown female adults) along with morphlings kept in hutches. He also has one or two younger adult proteges and four to eight Juvenile slaves working with him, hoping to become protegees themselves should they survive their brutal childhood and trials by fire. Proteges will after three or four years of service be rewarded with a small herd of usually thirty adult bloaters, usually enough to get them started.





The fate of most adult domesticated bloaters is either to be sold to butchers or (in the case of one out of four of them) to be given to their matron in tribute. But the best specimens of a herd are allowed to fully grow and mature into females. Bloaterherds breed their females with up and comers in the herds of other bloaters who lay their clutches in nursery ponds. Once the tadpoles become hamster sized bloater morphlings, the best of them are collected and put into hutches, usually tended by juveniles until they become cat sized and join the herd proper. Other bloater morphlings are bought by adult males with other jobs, which keep a bloater or two on the side in backyard pens.



