@Clinodev, but also before: Amphibians of that kind tend to be naturally flatter[1] when being be inconspicuous and inflate themselves (
sometimes fatally!) when trying to look threatening/more-trouble-than-it's-worth.
@Iä! RIAKTOR!, more specifically: It's hard to know what fantasy beasts might look like in a fantasy world. The same with the GCS. The 'rules' for aposematism may develop differently (assuming 'honest signalling') or its mechanism for blending in (assuming 'dazzle camouflage' as the reason) if it isn't a pure mating display like I
almost already linked, before.
In-game, I rather always assumed that it's more or less a 'perception filter' that lets it go unseen. Perhaps cephalopod-like chromatophores carefully controlled
just like they do it, but of course even more impressive, and capable of fooling dwarven infravision[2] right until it is too late. But who knows what's in Toady's head.
@Vordak, but more aimed at those Vordak was aiming at: Don't be afraid to edit down a quote of chaff, to leave just the wheat you're most interested in responding to, also. Add "[...]"s in if you don't want to look like you're trying to change meaning by an invisible blue-pencil.
In fact, if you can spare the time, close a quote after a point, comment on what was just quoted, and re-open (does not need repeated "=attribution-link" bit) to bring up the next point, if that makes things clearer and allows easier editing in follow-ups to you. I tend to do that by just clicking in a "[qu
ote][/qu
ote]" pair into the quote then shift the "/" from the usual closer into the usual opener, then put my new words between them.
Anyway, as I didn't quote anybody (because there wasn't much that would be left after chopping it down) I'm trying the "@"ed method. Unreadable in a different way.
[1] Though not as flat as they become when dealing with traffic.
[2] Firstly, the one thing Toady hasn't meticulously modelled is the need for illumination (beyond bringing sightlines up slughtly shorter outside of daylight times/places) and a GCS cannot rely on light in its GC, even the bioluminescent sort as not all of its haunts are replete with plant/fungi that might be prime candidates for supplying that. Thus every non-blind(ed) creature must have an infravision-like ability, atop their daylight-seeing ability, to which a GCS must have a viable counter. And it must work in daylight (or backlit by magma?) also... Clever girl!