Part 65: Regarding Lizardkin

Regarding Lizardkin

Lizardkin are, arguably, the most primitive race of both worlds, rivalled only by the gnolls in this regard. Such history as I have been able to uncover suggests they did not exist before the Confederation, and may perhaps have been a project of the Horned King to create a new manner of folk. Regardless of their origins, lizardkin are sluggish of wit and limited in their understanding. They are easily the largest and strongest of any of the living races of the modern day, and covered in thick coarse green scales that serve as powerful natural armor. Only the long-dead trolls were a larger and stronger folk. They also may hold their breath for hours on end, and are extremely powerful swimmers, capable of surviving indefinitely at sea. Though similar in some regards in appearance to dragonkin, their color is fall duller and more drab, their size greater, and their bodies more insulated by layers of fat. They also lack any wings, unlike the dragonkin.

They maintain a primitive society with only the barest of knowledge in the crafts or any civilised art. They are extremely poor metalworkers, and their 'swords' are made of little teeth of sharpened metal set crudely in a sort of wooden paddle or club. Their written language is a crude system combining pictures with a few markers for sounds, and is only truly able to be read by their little class of priests. They are barely even capable of mining or timbering on any real scale, more relying on cutting branches to shape into wooden articles and gathering loose stones and ore for what tools and weapons they need. Thus, despite their great size and strength, their exceedingly poor weapons and armor greatly limit the extent to which this is of advantage to them in war. Their dwellings and structures are crude structures of mud and straw, sun-dried into very poor brick. Their society, such as it is, is ruled by a single priest-king tyrant with absolute power over every inhabitant of their realm.

Their priests have access to some fairly crude Nature magic, and form the only truly distinct class from the masses of drudging thralls or the occasional temple guard. Their spiritual beliefs personify Arcanus itself as a great living and thinking being, which their priest-king communes with and appeases. From my perspective, this appears to be a rather superstitious and crude understanding of Nature magic itself, which amongst any more sophisticated people is understood not to be a thinking being but rather an impersonal force.

There might be some difficulties in incorporating lizardkin into a realm ruled by dwarves, but the benefit of going so far out of our way to subdue such an exceedingly primitive people would seem to me to be a pointless endeavor. What the Horned King even hoped to gain by their creation in unclear to me- perhaps he hoped that they would be great soldiers or laborers. Whatever his intent, it has been lost to time, and it seems unlikely the lizardkin ever fulfilled their purpose.