The Lizardfolk are an ancient people who walked Alaria long before the rise of the younger races. Their societies took shape in isolation, developing along four distinct paths set by the harsh environments they call home. While outsiders often dismiss them as primitive savages, the Lizardfolk possess complex social structures and deep cultural traditions passed down through countless generations.
All Lizardfolk share certain traits: they are cold-blooded, requiring external heat to maintain their energy; they possess scales that provide natural protection; and they view the world through the lens of predator and prey, a perspective that makes them seem alien and cruel to warm-blooded races. Yet this same perspective has allowed them to survive and thrive in some of Alaria's most inhospitable regions.
The making
The Lizardfolk are Gaea's reptile-kind, named at the Birth of Man with all her minor animal-children (see Beastman). That they walked Alaria long before the younger races is true, but it does not make them older than their making; every beastman kind dates to the same brief season of Gaea's work, and the Lizardfolk are no exception. What sets them apart is what she named into the body. She made them cold-blooded, which is to say she made a people whose warmth does not come from inside them. It comes from the world, or it does not come at all.
Everything else follows from that single fact. A Lizardfolk wakes when the sun or the stone or the vent gives it heat and slows toward stillness when the heat is taken away; the day is not theirs to spend until the world has funded it. A mind built around that dependency learns to read the world as the dependency demands, and so the Lizardfolk read every place and every creature as one of two things: a source of the heat they cannot make for themselves, or a threat to it. This is the predator-and-prey lens the warm-blooded races find so cold in them. It is not cruelty. It is the shape a thought takes when the one thinking it can never once stop reckoning where the next warmth will come from.
A hunting band of Ix'Vasyla at first light, laid out motionless on a slab of black rock above the Nashua marsh, scales turned flat to catch the early sun. They have lain there since before dawn, unable to move faster than a crawl until the stone gives the day's heat back into them. The prey they are waiting on knows this, and crosses the open ground early, while the marsh is still cold and the hunters are still slow. Both sides are reading the same temperature off the same stone.
Vitals
- Size: Medium
- Height: 5-7 feet (varies by subrace)
- Weight: 120-250 pounds
Heritages
- Ix'Tyrann — Strength-obsessed swamp-dwellers of Da Trang; war-scarred chieftain culture that prizes resilience and brutality above all. See Ix'Tyrann.
- Ix'Vasyla — Black-scaled venomous assassins of Nashua's toxic marshlands; cunning hunters waging endless patient war against Trømgar and Gorath. See Ix'Vasyla.
- Ix'Lorett — Iguana-like contemplatives of M'Svyla's forests and Crystal Mountains; philosophers and artists with legendary regenerative abilities. See Ix'Lorett.
- Ix'Meglyakuk — Raptor-bonded Lizardfolk of the Dygon Beastlands; sacred rider culture built on lifelong bonds with utahraptors. See Ix'Meglyakuk.
Game mechanics
Cold-Blooded Metabolism
Passive ability.
Your reptilian nature grants you unique advantages and disadvantages. While in warm temperatures (comfortable or hotter), you gain +10 feet to your movement speed and remove one additional level of fading conditions at the start of each round. While in cold temperatures (chilly or colder), your movement speed is reduced by 10 feet and you gain a level of slowed that does not fade until you warm up.
Ix'Tyrann — Savage Ferocity
Passive ability.
Your brutal fighting style makes you deadlier but also more vulnerable. Whenever you deal damage with an attack, add 2 to the damage dealt. However, whenever you take damage from any source, increase that damage by 2. Additionally, when you would reduce a creature to 0 hit points, you may instead choose to reduce them to 1 hit point and inflict one of the following permanent conditions: blinded, deafened, or reduce their movement speed by half.
Ix'Vasyla — Venomous Bite
Passive ability.
Your bite delivers a potent neurotoxin that causes excruciating pain. Your teeth count as an ultralight, piercing melee weapon. If you bite and deal damage, the target takes normal damage plus 1 level of poisoned that lasts until they take a long rest. These levels of poisoned do not stack. A creature can only be affected by one instance of your venom at a time.
Ix'Lorett — Regenerative Vitality
Passive ability.
Your body possesses remarkable regenerative properties. After your first short rest each day, reduce the rank of all wounds by 1. During a long rest, reduce the ranks of all your wounds by an additional 2 (3 total). Additionally, if you lose a limb or other body part, it regrows over the course of 2d6 months.
Ix'Meglyakuk — Raptor Rider
Passive ability.
You begin with a bonded utahraptor mount that has been your companion since youth. Your raptor uses the following stats: Move speed 80 feet, 30 HP, d8 heart die, d8 might/d8 agility/d4 cunning/d2 presence. It can make claw attacks as light slashing weapons. Your raptor can carry you and 20 slots of equipment without movement penalties.
You share an instinctive bond with your mount—it obeys your commands without requiring actions.
If your raptor dies, you can bond with a new utahraptor during a week-long ritual in a jungle environment, though the loss of your first mount leaves you with a permanent level of shaken that cannot be removed.