Toad Summon Ideas

[Nagao Hideki]

Hi All! 

As I finally managed to grow my toad summon to full size, it occured to me that compared to other summons (Monkey, Weasel, Ninken,...) Toads do look a bit basic in terms of appearance. So I've been thinking: Lore-wise we've got all these different Toads (Hoshitomo, Momotomo, Satomo, Yoshitomo, Taitomo, you name it...) at Toad Mountain, right? In the anime there's also an abundance of toads coming in all shapes and sizes who excel at different things (e.g. Gamabunta - Toad Oil Flame Bullet; Gamaken - Weapons; Gamariki - Genjutsu, Gama - Taijutsu etc) and have signature clothing / armour or colour. I think that one type of special attack is more than enough for summons in terms of game-balance, so there's no need to add genjutsu or other special attacks to toad summons in general.
What I do suggest however, is adding some sort of clothing to the summon to make it look well... less like just a giant toad.
We've been brainstorming with players in-game and came up with the following ideas to improve the looks of toad summons: 

For War toads:

- Gamabunta's happi vest (with the kanji "ebi" on the back)
- Gamabunta's kiseru pipe 
- Gamabunta's dosu blade
- Gamahiro's katanas
- Gamahiro's sash
- Gama's bead necklace (with the kanji chū)
- Gama's samurai armour
- Gamakichi's cigarette 
- Gamakichi's tanto

For Toads: 

- Gamakichi's vest 
- Gamatatsu's vest
- Gerotora's obi

For Tadpoles: 
There's not really much to add here as tadpoles are as small as they come.
(People's reactions to my tadpole mostly varied between "sweet" and "disgusting" but I was mostly proud of that little speck)

Some people have also suggested that there could be a total of 3 different toads wearing the respective armours of Gamabunta, Gamaken and Gamahiro. When the player utilizes the summoning jutsu they would randomly summon one of the aforementioned three or one could decide which toad to sign the contract with (as sort of a personal summon) upon acquiring a summoning scroll. A whole new idea on the latter would be the creation of a "toad customization" menu where one woud be able to customize their summon in terms of colour, armour and clothing.
Of course these are just suggestions which, in my opinion, could benefit the overall atmosphere of the game so please don't take them as me making demands or anything. I (like most of us) feel strongly about my summon and would like to see more of- and improve this specific game feature. 

Thank you for making it this far, feel free to react / comment as I'm curious about your thoughts on the matter.
See you in-game!  

[Tekkey Hinode]

Nice ideas, though in some cases art would need some time investment to be on the nin graphics level. I've heard @Magumawas considering the same thing - maybe you guys could cooperate on that?

[Nagao Hideki]

Never tried myself at pixel art, but I hope these might give you a rough idea about some of the concepts in the original post. 

Gamabunta's happi vest: 



Gamabunta's kiseru pipe:



Gamabunta's katana (instead of dosu blade): 



Gamabunta's set (without the dosu blade): 



Gamabunta's full set (with dosu blade):



Gamahiro's sash: 



Gamahiro's set (katanas + sash): 



Gamakichi's / Gamatatsu's vest:



Gerotora's obi: