Lizardfolk

Adult lizardfolk stood between 6'0" to 7'2" and typically weighed between 270 to 400 lbs, their heaviness caused by their musculature, long tails, and many scales. A lizardfolk could live as long as 60 years, but few ever did; the demands of ma'ko meant that most were ritually slain or banished before the age of 50 unless they remained uncommonly strong into old age. Most hatchlings did not survive past their first birthday, but those that did were typically considered mature around age 12 to 14 after proving themselves through some act of skill or bravery. Most did not take a first mate until around age 20. This short gap between adulthood and expected decline gave lizardfolk a hard, practical view of aging: an elder was tolerated only so long as their ma'ko held strong, and one who was allowed to visibly weaken brought deep shame on the children who lacked the strength, or the will, to end it.

Lizardfolk scales ran in shades of green that paled with age, a thick armor similar to that of Crocodiles, and had yellow-to-red eyes that also whitened as they grew old. Adult males developed bright display frills in yellow, orange, and red as a mark of maturity. Proportionally, lizard folk carried a head, torso, and limb ratio unremarkable by mortalborn standards, with legs slightly longer than their arms. Their hands ended in five long fingers with sharp jutted claws and an opposable thumb. Though less manipulable, their feet were also clawed, and lizardfolk relied on their long tails to maintain balance atop unstable ground.

Male lizardfolk were significantly larger than females, but beyond size and frill coloration, male and female lizardfolk were largely indistinguishable. Only females carried and laid eggs, laying a clutch of three to fourteen eggs each once per year, though most rarely laid again the following year if any of her previous offspring still live. They guarded ther hidden nest until its eggs hatched some two months later, which was was treated as a sacred, non-negotiable duty. Physical desirability among lizardfolk tracked closely with ma'ko rather than any fixed standard of beauty: a male's frills, a female's record of surviving offspring, or the scars and trophies a warrior carried were all read as evidence of strength and standing, and were the qualities that made an individual a sought-after mate.

Most lizardfolk possessed no innate magic of their own, relying on their scales, tails, and claws in combat. They were naturally powerful swimmers and most were capable of holding their breath for up to fifteen minutes at a time. Though lizardfolk shared many traits with true lizards, they were not purely ectothermic and did not depend on outside heat to function, even if they were rarely found in colder climates.

Lizardfolk were an intensely utilitarian people who believed that anything worth keeping needed an immediate, obvious use, and they took pride in reworking old tools or finding more efficient ways to do things. They fished with spears and hunted Boars and Deer by ambush, occasionally banding together as a tribe to bring down larger prey such as Sharks; they were exclusively meat-eaters. Many tribes kept tamed Giant Lizards as pets, mounts, and symbols of the tribe's strength. Fairness governed nearly everything a lizardfolk did: a strong individual who preyed on someone far weaker was considered dishonorable, and a lizardfolk who witnessed such an imbalance might intervene to end it. Among their own kind, lizardfolk were polite and cooperative, since rudeness was read as a challenge that could not go unanswered without appearing weak.

Lizardfolk society and religion both centered on ma'ko, a concept blending inner energy, honor, and identity that every living creature possessed to some degree. Ma'ko grew through honorable combat, courage, usefulness to the tribe, and honoring the dead, and shrank through cowardice, waste, and idleness. Tribes of up to forty related adult males and a similar number of females were led by whichever member held the most powerful ma'ko, a chieftainship open to any gender; in times of war or famine, disparate clan's shamans could elevate one tribal chief to a chief-of-chiefs, a position that could not be challenged until the shamans permitted its holder to step down. Weak, dishonorable, or crippled members were regularly culled by a higher-ranked relative, or banished by the tribe's shaman, to cleanse the tribe of their diminished ma'ko. Individuals with unusually powerful ma'ko were prized as mates, and a highly ranked male might attract as many as three female partners in a single breeding season; females who shared a mate this way considered themselves close kin, since their children were siblings. 

Young lizardfolk almost never became "Adventurer"s in the traditional sense, but nearly all left their tribes once they held an adult name but had not yet accumulated the ma'ko needed to claim a mate. They struck out to find challenges worth undertaking and bringing back trophies as proof to their elders, and highly capable ones were Brutes or Fighters. Some who could manipulate their ma'ko became Monks, while shamans typically studied Druidism and Ranger paths to harnessing natural Spellcraft. Warlock were treated as pariahs and dismissed as "cheaters," and Mages were exceedingly rare, since most lizardfolk never learned to read.

Though some Lizardfolk, especially the shamans, believed in Elteos and prayed to the brother god in fear, most lizardfolk did not put much stock in grander religions. Instead, ma'ko was as much a religion as a social system for lizardfolk, serving at once as their measure of honor, their life force, and the sum of who they were. The lizardfolk of the Caves of Jhirkorro had a unique belief in sacred crocodiles, and were forbidden to kill or hunt crocodiles as they had other animals; other similar tribes in other parts of the world had similar folk practices, usually made through an interpretation of Elteos' will.

Every tribe hosted a shaman, believed to be a conduit for the ma'ko of the world itself, whose own ma'ko was considered too vast for an ordinary lizardfolk to overcome in challenge. A shaman's sacred status exempted them from the culling and combat that governed everyone else and let them live to unusually advanced ages, sometimes into their sixties. Upon death, a shaman's flesh was considered too holy to be eaten by their own tribe; their bones were instead carved into sacred relics, with jawbones especially prized for crafting into magic wands.

Lizardfolk funerary rites were the practice most responsible for their fearsome reputation among other races. Because a lizardfolk's ma'ko was believed to leave the body quickly after death, an heir, usually whichever child or grandchild held the most powerful ma'ko, was expected to butcher and ceremonially distribute the corpse within a day. Heart, brain, and muscle were considered the choicest cuts, since eating them was believed to pass on a share of the deceased's ma'ko, while skin and large bones were kept for crafting into trophies, armor, or mementos. The custom extended to honored enemies and even to smooth-skinned friends, whom a lizardfolk might reassure that their body would be honored and not left to rot after death.

Little lizardfolk history was formally recorded, since most tribes were illiterate and passed their past down through oral history, legends, and tribal memory rather than written record. Many tribes had disparate legends regarding their own history, but such accounts were often unsubstantiated or downright contradictory.

Lizardfolk relations with other mortalborn were shaped almost entirely by their funerary customs and their code of honorable combat, both of which read very differently to outsiders than they did to lizardfolk themselves. Most mortalborn tended to regard lizardfolk as savage and cannibalistic, unaware that eating the dead was, to a lizardfolk, an act of reverence rather than desecration. Similarly, the few lizardfolk who spent time among the likes of Humanoids or Elfkin learned to be careful with them, knowing they were emotional and could be set off by strange acts. They had to be mindful that a "mild, corrective nibble" that would only chasten a hatchling could seriously injure or kill someone so comparatively fragile.

Lizardfolk tribes typically maintained rivalries with local other swamp-dwelling tribes that occupied similar territory. The maintained historic tensions with Frogfolk in swamplands, who were typically quite aggressive and mobile, as well as Turtlefolk on coastal lands, who were often resolute and difficult to move. Occasionally, deep-diving lizardfolk would come into contact with Sharkfolk, and the two scaled and ferocious peoples quite often engaged in conflict immediately.

Lizardfolk spoke an old dialect of Draconic, and few learned any other tongue. However, the lizardfolk of the Caves of Jhirkorro traced their origin to the Sister Springs, where three Cursed Bronze Dragons were transformed by Magic Pools into the first lizardfolk. Though little proof of this myth existed beyond the path to the Springs themselves, the legend did explain why lizardfolk spoke draconic the world over.

Naming among lizardfolk followed the same convention for both sexes. A surviving hatchling was given a clutch name, and around age 12 to 14, a lizardfolk claimed a permanent adult name. They did so by demonstrating some act of skill, cunning, or bravery, then presenting an offering to the tribe's shaman, who announced the new name to the tribe. A lizardfolk who failed to claim an adult name by 15 or 16 was typically culled by a parent or an ashamed sibling.

Clutch names were often cute identifiers of a surviving hatchling, while adult name was a literal Draconic word the individual claimed as their own, usually chosen for a useful object, an identifier of their feat, or a quality that might strengthen their ma'ko. Hatchlings were given clutch names such as Olo ("Small"), Thadres ("Spirit"), or Seshi ("Scratch"), while adults claimed names such as Vusj ("Axe"), Kilthiath ("Midnight"), or Sharkugu ("Ambition").