This started out as a fun sketchbook exercise to see if I could come up with a unique design by simply combining two random things together. I like knights, armor, and animals so I just dove in. Tadpoles came to mind because they are slimy, unique, and fit into the dark fantasy aesthetic I was going for. 

I knew I wanted this creature to feel demented and unnatural, like it was once a human being, or a tadpole transfigured by magic. I thought of a kingdom where the higher ranks are a cult of sentient frogs, once human nobles, cursed to immortality as frogmen. As their once proud kingdom slides to ruin, these afflicted frog kings slowly degrade in sanity.  In their crumbling towers, they experiment with dark magics, alchemy, and biomancy to create increasingly aberrant denizens to inhabit their lands.

Spawned in tadpole farms and subjected to foul rituals, those that survive become children to The God of Slime and Bile. Ten feet tall with black, corrupted blood flowing through their alchemically wrought veins; their feeble minds are imbued with an insatiable hunger for flesh. Armored by filth and equipped with hate, they hunt for intruders and adventurers alike. Forever roaming the endless tracts of shadowy swampland that was once a beautiful coastal kingdom, cursed by the canker at its heart.

I wanted to set this in the world of Dungeons and Dragons. This Knight has been hunting a player party for days, having already taken the heads of two of them and thus far resisted their attempts to bring about its demise. Almost impossible to kill, it inexorably marches forward towards its next victim, shrugging off pain like nothing and never tiring. Run or fight, the result will likely be the same. 

-Sam Bogits

Process