Spotted leaper

Spotted leaper Picture Level 4 Family leaper family creatures Body Type Quadruped Undead No Areas Found Noralgar Forest Rambling Meadows BCS <Not Known> HP <Not Known> Armor [?]

Attack Attributes Physical Attacks Bite +76 AS Stomp +76 AS

Defense Attributes Melee +20 to +33 DS Ranged +17 DS Bolt +15 DS Bard Base +12 TD Ranger Base +12 TD Sorcerer Base <N/A> TD Wizard Base <N/A> TD Cleric Base <N/A> TD Empath Base +12 TD Paladin Base <N/A> TD Major Elemental +12 TD Minor Elemental +12 TD Major Spiritual +12 TD Minor Spiritual +12 TD Major Mental <N/A> TD Minor Mental <N/A> TD

Treasure Attributes Skin a spotted leaper pelt Other none

The spotted leaper appears a bizarre cross between a wolf and a frog. Perhaps six feet from snout to rump, covered with slick, hairless skin that is a dark green color with occasional pink splotches, it lacks all trace of fur but has a set of fangs worthy of any wolf that ever strode the land. Extra long front legs tipped with raking claws give it the bounding gait that has earned it its name.

Hunting strategies

This section has not been added yet; please add to it now!

Other information

This section has not been added yet; please add to it now!

Behind The Scenes

The leapers on the Coastal Cliffs appear to be transformation curse victims of Bandur Etrevion in allusion to "The Doom That Came To Sarnath". Similarly, there is a parallel to The Graveyard in Castle Anwyn regarding Purgatory, including borrowed wording from the scroll room implying its connection to "The Shadow out of Time". The writhing serpent encircled mirror in this room comes instead from "The Colossus of Ylourgne", which is obviously the basis of Bonespear Tower, written in this case by Clark Ashton Smith rather than H.P. Lovecraft and set in Averoigne. When Norandar read the Vvrael scroll in Castle Anwyn, he began physically transforming with "bulging eyes" like the Sarnath creatures, and it had turned the Queen of Anwyn into a demon. The pumas are also mythologically related to shape-shifting shamans like Marliese of Darkstone Castle.

The forest of Averoigne is famous for its werewolves. Castle Anwyn has another subtle werewolf motif in its wolf depictions, including the third body in its crypt who probably corresponds to Melion, the knight of King Arthur who is transformed into a werewolf involving a magic ring. This story has roots in a version by the medieval French author Marie de France, who wrote "Legend of the Purgatory of St. Patrick" about the Arthurian knight Owain, which is important for unifying the subtexts implicit in the design of Castle Anwyn. Spotted leapers are thus implicitly like werewolves.

Leapers derive from the "bounders" of Rolemaster, where they are hunting hounds used by Dark Elves. This is probably referencing the fact that Lorgalis conquered the region surrounding Castle Anwyn in the I.C.E. Age history. These leapers being "spotted" might refer the lullaby of the fairy queen Titania from Shakespeare's "Midsummer Night's Dream", who sleeps in a bower like the one in Castle Anwyn. It starts with a fairy singing: "You spotted snakes with double tongue, thorny hedgehogs, be not seen. Newts and blindworms, do no wrong. Come not near our fairy queen."

This is an allusion to the witches' cauldron scene in Macbeth, which in turn is referenced elsewhere in the Lysierian Hills. (Puck is actually based on pookas, which relates to Shadow Valley.) This is an older set of rooms involving a ring of colored mushrooms, which is a "fairy ring" caused by fairies dancing in a circle like the lullaby, next to trees massing for an assault. This refers to witches' prophecy of Macbeth being safe until Birnam Wood moves on Dunsinane Hill, and the striped warcat extension to the nearby fire cat caves further alludes to this scene from Macbeth. Similarly, it refers to the Battle of the Trees involving the King of Annwn, another medieval Welsh poem from the Book of Taliesin. This would have originally been intended to allude to Nodens (father of the King of Annwn) being the master of the night-gaunts in "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath", the primary subtext of The Broken Lands, and the fact that it was based on the fairy fantasy literature of Lord Dunsany by playing off Dunsinane Hill.

References

• Spotted leaper on Play.net bestiary

Near-level creatures

Level 2 big ugly kobold brown gak cave gnome coconut crab fanged goblin ghost goblin lesser frost shade lesser shade Mistydeep siren moaning phantom pale crab phantom rabid squirrel sea nymph spotted gak thyril Level 3 Bresnahanini rolton cave gnoll cave nipper dark vysan fire salamander greater ghoul greater ice spider hobgoblin ice skeleton kobold shepherd mountain snowcat relnak spotted velnalin striped gak striped relnak troglodyte velnalin white vysan Level 4 black urgh cobra fanged viper mongrel kobold revenant ridge orc spotted leaper urgh water moccasin whiptail Level 5 bobcat coyote dark apparition mist wraith mongrel hobgoblin nasty little gremlin night golem water witch Level 6 cockatrice firephantom leaper lesser mummy lesser orc monkey snowy cockatrice spectral fisherman spotted lynx