What They Don't Tell You About Lizardfolk - D&D

lizard folk are more than just cold-blooded murderers they have a rich culture with a strong oral history they have a religion that spans tens of thousands of years they live hard lives of constant struggle for survival they are fears when they need to be and loyal when their word is given they do not cheat neither do they lie more often than not everything that they do is merely to survive in the harsh environment where they are born doing their best to make sure that their brothers and sisters see another day and they're also cold-blooded murderers the idea of a lizard folk is actually pretty straightforward originally that we're called lizard men or lizard people because the general onus of them is that they look like a hybrid of a human and a lizard their scales tend to change depending on the tribe and the environment where they reside on but other than that they are generally fairly tall being about six to seven feet tall and weighing about 200 250 pounds their bodies are strong their claws are sharp their scales can take a lot of hits these guys are ferocious warriors now before we get into the weeds here let's first see what the Monster Manual tells us about these guys before we start talking about what they don't actually tell you they are primitive reptilians that lurk in swamps and jungles with their Hut villages thriving in old forgotten places they are territorial and xenophobic when unwelcome visitors are detected a tribe sends a hunting band to harass or drive the dispatcher's off or trick them into blundering into the lair of Crowell's and other dangerous creatures this part here is crucial to understanding these guys lizard folk have no notion of traditional morality and they find the concepts of good and evil utterly alien now they're truly neutral creatures they kill when it is expedient and do whatever it takes to survive they never leave their territories and anyone else that makes it into their lair is killed and they don't care whether it is a humanoid or a beast or a monster there's no distinction between them rarely they will make alliances but when they do they are fierce allies lizard folk are omnivorous but they particularly like humanoid flesh prisoners are often taken back to their camps to become the centerpiece of great feasts and rites involving dancing storytelling and ritual combat victims are either cooked and eaten by the tribe or are sacrificed to semuanya the lizard folk God lizard folk respect and fear magic their shamans lead their tribes overseeing the rites and ceremonies however every once in a while a powerful figure touched by a cynic a reptilian Demon Lord will be born this is what we call a lizard king or queen they are larger more cunning and very very evil they will take over the tribe and slowly manipulate the tribe into becoming more aggressive and more bloodthirsty lastly lizard Fulks speak draconic which they are thought to have learned from dragons in ancient times a tribe that OneSource into the territory of a dragon will offer a tribute to win its favor though of course an evil dragon might exploit this fact and instead use the litter folk to its advantage now I do want to bring to your notice a couple of things I want you to notice the intelligence stat on lizard folk this stat right here is what generally speaking a normal laser focus going to have that would be the average of what you would find in this race the lizard king has a higher intelligence because it has demonic blood the illicit folk shaman has higher intelligence because of a very rare genetic anomaly that happens sometimes when a lizard Foulke is born now the warrior we will talk about that in a bit the big thing here though is that little folk are not very intelligent and their culture shuns intelligence females do not breed with intelligent lizard folks so those genes never propagate the entire religion of the lizard folk is also literally sad on the fact intelligence socks the book doesn't tell you this but I just wanted it to not be glossed over now lizard folk are special in that we actually have an entire section dedicated for them outside of the monster manual for fifth edition in the book volus guide to monsters we actually have a section in there just for them two delicious pages full of info now the point of these videos is for me to cover what they don't tell you not what they do tell you but for the sake of completeness I do have to at least go over this section as well god this vid is gonna be really long now we'll cover this part at the end of the video though so that those of you who actually do own the book don't have to sit through it in any case without further ado let's go over what 5th edition does not tell you about lizard folk the most important thing and what I want to cover first is samanya which was very shortly mentioned in the monster manual as the god of lizard folk this is that the type of God that you might hear about normally in it it is crucial in understanding the culture of lizard men see lizard folk have a very strong oral tradition since they do not know how to write and neither would they really be able to sustain books just based on the way they live people generally have this assumption when they think of lizard folk that they live in huts in the swamps but in reality lizard folk that have the technology to even make huts are about one in ten only one out of ten tribes of lizard Foulke even know how to make huts a generic lizard folk will claw you or bite you to death and if they have weapons that would only wield a great Club lizard fork that use shields or Spears they're actually pretty rare and would only come from those tribes that do happen to have above-average technology most often the not lizard folks sleep in leaves my point is with this lifestyle even if they knew how to write they wouldn't be able to really have much of a rich written history especially considering the fact that they're not particularly good artisans they don't build temples or churches instead the soul of the religion of semuanya carried in the hearts and words of the lizard for the use stories to convey their teachings and to spread the word of samanya many of these teachings of course are told to literal from the moment that they hatch the most important story is the legend of where lisauk came from the story goes that a long long time ago there were two gods one called koala and the other called semuanya and both lived in harmony together they both brawled the primordial jungles seeking out their enemies hunting and scavenging but also breeding and protecting their eggs the story says that semuanya settled happily with its life but ki koala did not 4k quality high qualit would constantly ask pointless questions it would wonder about whether its decisions were right or wrong it would concern itself with the consequences of its actions because of this key koala made no decisions it spanned its whole life thinking and never accomplishing anything one day semuanya asked a koala about this and it responded quote how can I watch or hunt or breed without first thinking the decisions are so many and so great what if my actions bring trouble I must be cautious must be careful must think things through and quote the story says that semuanya did not understand foursome Juana did not think that way but one day when samanya returned from hunting kick koala was gone in its place there were now two koalas it had seemed that in its indecision koala had split in half one of the koalas was aggressive with his sharp claws in the air while the other hid behind its partner hissing its wail to stay home and breed quote samanya in its wisdom called the aggressive koala male and the passive koala female and helped them build a place to live and breed and quote this story is interesting because it relates to the way of life of lizard folk and they base their culture on this very old story see the lizard folk believe that those two koalas breeded and from there Union came more key koalas have you ever wondered what lizard fook called themselves do you think that lizard fool called themselves lizard people no that's just ridiculous that's just a name that humans and Emme humans gave lizard for but it is probably fairly demeaning to them or at least it would be if they had feelings no lizard Foulke called themselves koalas that's what they call their race the mushroom mantle didn't tell you that now the story ends with semuanya essentially taking care of the koalas and helping them make a place for themselves in the world why because semuanya was the mate of koala and for lizard fold there are only two things that matter feeding and breeding semuanya can feed but it cannot breed with a koala problem is for as long as koala continues to be split it is not whole and without the whole semuanya cannot breathe with it but this is why semuanya I see God helps the lizard Falk and this is why the lizard fell prey to semuanya who gives them some semblance of protection and help now if you paid attention to the story you would realize that the moral of it is that thinking is bad k koala essentially screwed himself over by thinking too hard and this is a lesson that all these are folk teach their children and each other bringing it back to what I said in the beginning of the video the lizard Fork hate intelligence if you're intelligent you'll be somewhat ostracized by the community and nobody will want to mate with you now just like there is a difference between intelligence and wisdom there is a difference between being smart and being cunning see literal respect cunning they hate intelligence this is one of the many reasons why their technology level is so low why they refuse or seem unable to progress and why their greatest achievement siming lee is building huts made out of read quote lizard full condemned intelligence as pointless and wasteful they believe that life is meant to be lived and that hunting fighting and breeding matters most intelligence leads to overthinking situations and to the corruption of their straightforward culture and quote the story also showcases the very clear roles that sex has in the Society of Lizard folk males hunt and Scout while females breed and protect the home lizard folk culture is a traditional patrocle society where the most physically powerful becomes the leader whenever there is a dispute of any kind typically it is resolved via a duel to the death including disputes of who is the leader of the tribe keep in mind that the shamans even though they are highly ranked within the hierarchy of the society are never actually leaders merely the advice of those who lead now even more interesting if you pay attention to the stories you might have noticed that the gods semuanya and koala didn't actually have a sex it was only after koalas split in half that it's two sides each had a sex and then each side had a defined role SIA and this is cool when a lizard Foulke is born there is a very low chance that the baby will have the sexual organs of both males and females when this happens the baby will also be born with much higher intelligence than the others these lizards are considered to be holy for they are essentially the two pieces of koala combined the two sexes combined into one who also happened to be highly intelligent just like a koala was these lizard folk are the only ones who are essentially allowed to be intelligent within the community they are highly respected and given roles of advisors to the leaders and of course they become the shamans this is why the shaman in the monster manual has a higher intelligence score than the traditional lizard folk the caveat however is that by the nature of their doable sex organs these special lizard folks are actually in fur tiles so they cannot reproduce now it is described to us that it is actually very very difficult to tell a male lizard fall from a female lizard folk that the only observable way other than very intimate examination is through the crests a male has a single long crest that runs from the top of its head all way down to the shoulder blades females on the other hand have two smaller crests that run parallel to the back of their necks that's basically the only way to tell them apart the rule of thumb is if you find a female in a swamp you're actually very dangerously close to their camp and if you find a male you're probably looking at a scout far from camp now listen for creep reduce sexual ESN they literally have sex the female will then lay about one to three eggs several weeks after the mating process the eggs which will be buried down under the ground now this part is really cool the eggs of lizard folk are very sensitive to what actually happens during this period which is uncommon when compared to other eggs normally a chicken for example will generally be the same regardless of where you nurture the egg and of course the baby chick uses the yolk of the egg and the white to feed itself during the process this is not the case for the little baby inside of the lizard full keg there really isn't a yolk to the laser for gag and the baby does not feed using anything inside instead the leisure folk egg has pores in it it actually absorbs things outside of the egg to use for sustenance because of this first of all these eggs are inedible and are extremely bitter you cannot eat them predators do not really eat these eggs anyways it is really interesting that lizard folk babies don't actually develop genitalia until only about a week before it hatches because it actually waits and sees how well taken care of the egg is to decide its gender see when the egg is buried and it's typically buried with composed plant matter and water this will serve as nutrients for the egg to absorb if the egg was buried with not a lot of nutritious plant matter then the egg will produce a male lizard fold evolutionarily speaking this is because if there isn't a lot of nutrition or a lot of care given to the egg then it is assumed that the lizard folk are struggling and don't have a lot of food to give which means that they need more male warriors probably in order to obtain more food a female lizard flow would produce too much of a strain on the society because females don't hunt for food and instead breed which would create even more mouths to feed so essentially the lizard folk have evolved for the eggs to know if the tribe is suffering and require more warriors now on the other hand if the egg was nurtured with a lot of plant matter and a lot of nutrients then there will be a 50% chance that it'll be born a male or a 50% chance that it would be born a female it doesn't end there though it gets even crazier the coloration of the scales of a lizard folk are actually dependent on the ground dirt mud water and nutrients that the egg absorbed during its time underground see the egg tries to modify its genes in a way so that the lizard fog will grow scales that are similar in color to the foliage around where it was born that way the lizard would have an easier time camouflaging in its home this means that technically speaking you could actively create lizard folk that can have any kind of interesting scale colors all of it depending on the color of the plant matter that you buried it the egg with now the problem here though is that lizard folk are very tribal based you would never see a lizard fall purposefully have its baby have red scales or white scales just for the fun of it they instead want their whole tribe to be of a single color to create a more cohesive group and for everybody to feel like they belong together plus the herald of semuanya the celestial entity that semuanya would send it to the Material Plane to bring its word to the lizard fold is an albino lizard man called spirit scale so purposefully creating a white scaled lizard folk would probably be considered heresy within the community but yeah since we are on the subject if you were to see an adventurer lizard folk or just a particularly powerful shaman or druid if the lizard folk were to do any form of high-level cleric or druid spell in order to converse with its God it would be spirit scale who would answer he is the herald of Samanya samanya does not answer and never and I mean ever talks to anybody it doesn't matter who you are the only times that semuanya has ever done anything actively for the loser folk or in times when hundreds of thousands of laser folk were in danger of dying because of massive Wars or cataclysmic events but literally nothing short of that lever gets him wanted to intercept for the lizard folk remember samanya is not only the god of breeding and hunting but it is also the goddess of survival and wolf self-reliance in your survival is crucial at least as put samanya thinks that's what it teaches also semuanya is a she when she is been prayed for for breeding purposes and he is a he when he is prayed upon for hunting and war and purposes it's sex changes depending on which side of samanya you're praying to but you're anyways if a high-level cleric or druid lasar folk were to cast a spell like planner ally he would get a celestial or fiendish dinosaur giant crocodile Hydra or what is known as attend Rick Ulis these are the sort of monsters that spirits kale would send in order to help a cleric of samanya a spiritual weapon spell made by such a loser folk would grow in the shape of a great club the favorite weapon of samanya now in terms of war lizard fell prey to semuanya via short hisses and reptilian barks made before battle in times of peace you would see long chants and epic songs intoned in draconic quote semi Aeneas only temples are in the hearts and minds of his worshippers only the occasional symbol or Idol is made as a physical representation of its worship and quote before we move on though I do want to point out that even though these scales can change color depending on the region where the egg was buried body size eye color and the number of serrations on their crests are all inherited traits from their parents also lizard men do have skin beneath their scales their skin is actually a thin white membrane it is this membrane that grows two scales now lizard folk are omnivores they will eat anything as long as it is literally edible the Monster Manual does say that they prefer hue flesh though what it doesn't say is which kind though you probably already guessed it lizard-men favor human flesh above all other kinds it is considered to be their favorite type of meal in fact this is how the demonic lizard Kings foment aggressiveness within the literal community see the monster manual mentions a specific lizard demon that once in a while corrupts a lizard folk and turns it into a more powerful more intelligent version and that lizard folk typically becomes king or queen thanks to his or her newfound strength this king or queen will generally turn the tribe evil by making them more aggressive what the mushroom matter doesn't tell you is how they do it generally speaking what happens is this king or queen will instill into the tribe a stronger desire for human flesh in fact if it has to it'll go so far as to make it a weekly ritual to capture humans in order to feast on them a ritual that if missed will result in deadly consequences for itself the king or queen will ask for at least two humans to be brought to him or her to be eaten every single week if no humans can be found then to deme humans of any kind then humans are dwarves elves gnomes etc and if any of those cannot be found either then the king or queen will kill and eat two of its bodyguards this is how they make the tribe slowly more aggressive and slowly more evil now this is the case specifically only for the demonic kings and queens that can sometimes be born they do these things out of sheer malice and to corrupt the tribe but normal natural lizard people already do have some of these desires for example lizard folk don't actually have any pets because they typically will just eat them lizard folk don't really have emotions they don't have approximations of emotions and only two three types of emotions they can feel fear they can feel pleasure and they can feel aggressiveness or rather once again they only really feel approximations of those things but only those things we will talk a little bit about that later because that's part of the entry in Volos guy - monsters but our point here is that they have no quarrels about eating humans and to them it is no better or worse than eating a monster or a beast or a pet that has been with them for years and it is no better or worse than eating their lesser Foulke neighbour in fact whenever a member of the tribe passes away they're actually eaten by the others in a form of ceremonial wake in this way they become part of the tribe again not just figuratively but literally due to the martial nature of the Lycia folk their lack of emotions and their cannibalistic attitudes humanoids see them as a violent and savage race but the reality is that their costumes and their methods actually changed from tribe to tribe quote they generally have no strong leaning towards any extreme alignment and no particular philosophy other than survival of the fittest they will defend their territory ferociously but when approached respectfully most tribes trade and negotiate with other races willingly and quote it is also important to mention that literal despise deception and the concept of politics quote if they want something that another race possesses they might try to trade for it or take it by force each tribe differs but most broadcaster intentions straightforwardly and openly and quote a tribe of lizard folk typically numbers around 150 members including females and hatchlings when at war if they feel like they have more numbers than their enemies then their tactic is to simply charge the small horde of lizard folk for the most part will behave independently and without much coordination it will basically look like a straightforward massive charge of dozens of lissa folk they will generally try and push the enemies towards the water where they know that they have the advantage things however get interesting when they feel like they are on the defensive when they have less numbers this is when they're conning really starts to shine you will never see them use straps or ambushes or anything nefarious like that when they simply overpower you but if you're stronger than they are you will see all kinds of shenanigans being used the full extent of cleverness in building pitfalls wire traps using poisonous plants etc if you happen to be dealing with the one in ten tribes the tribe that at least knows how to use shields or Spears and build huts then you might see more advanced forms of warfare like having your supply lines burned down in combat however merely because their brain literally only focuses on two things breeding and feeding you might actually see mostly sorwful become actually distracted every single time they take down an opponent that's because every time a person dies in front of them they get this Rush and craving to feed and eat similarly they might get the same level of distraction from shinies and gems tools that can be used to signify treasures of war that will allow them to impress a female back in camp lastly I do want to point out because I know this probably goes against the popular perception but a third of all lesser folk that exist actually live underwater lizard fool can't actually breathe in their water so what they do is they find underwater caves with buckets of air where they can layer they are great swimmers and can hold their breath for far longer times and humans and Demi humans can also I am a little bit torn in something because it seems rather too peculiar as far as I am aware we haven't really gotten a very detailed description of how the jaw or mouth of a lizard man is supposed to look like outside of the official art that we have gotten I mentioned this because I came across a really interesting paragraph in an old Dungeons & Dragons magazine that talks about the teeth of lizard men here I'm gonna quote it for you quote the jaws of lizard for bear a unique construction of solid stone plates with a serrated front edge and quote now at first I figured that they were talking about something like this sort of like bony spikes that jut out of the jaw from the sides but then it says this quote the sharp edge of the jaw bone protrudes from the gum line functioning as canines for ripping meat while more like ridges run along the rear of the jawbone and quote I'm actually not sure if I am misinterpreting this but they make it sound as if lizard folk don't actually have teeth but rather it's all spikey serrated bones that poke out of their gums directly from their jaw I'm not sure if this means that their teeth are all bone or if they have both animal-based teeth and bone teeth or if they mean something like this this is the official picture for lizard man in second edition notice how the actual lips have a serrated look to it I'm not sure if that's what they mean because the idea of him having not normal teeth but instead spiked you bones that come out of their gums it just sounds too crazy but maybe that's what it is normal teeth are actually stronger than bones so this would make the bite of a little weaker I think I don't know let me know what you think about this I'm actually curious boy this video is already far too long for me to really cover in detail Volos guide to monsters once again these videos are supposed to be me finding out really cool stuff that 5th edition does not tell you not what they actually do tell you because I guess the idea would be that all of this information I mean you could already access it on your own but to give a small summary of what you can find here essentially Lycia folk are emotionless I mentioned part of this before when I said that they really only have three types of emotions fear aggressiveness and pleasure but even still they feel these things as detached concepts they don't actually fully filled them in the same way that a human does this translates as well to a complete detachment of the past and little care for the future they're not worried about what the future might bring neither do they feel nostalgic about the past they fully live in the present and the only care about what they need right now to survive - a lizard folk a comrade who dies becomes a potential source of food art and beauty have little use to them they don't rage when a family member is killed they don't quake in their boots when a terrible monster appear but they don't laugh when a good joke is told they have no emotions everything in here is basically all about this lack of emotion and there's plenty of examples as to how that affects their day to day and what impact that has on their behavior if you want to explore this particular side of their mind and then I actually do suggest to go and read it it's it's a pretty good read I just don't have time on this video to cover it I would like to personally thank my patron supporters Ricardo fan major fail gaming Wyatt curl and berry masks and 5e magic shop and Tony kleiers to be Oliver Yoga Guth Lord of Dreams Daniel Umar sak bowel max D Noah Perkins Simon Holman and mediocre at best for supporting me on patreon at the $25 level if you would like to support me as well then police head on over to patreon complex to support guys thank you so much for staying here all the way until the end I I think this might be the longest video that I have done on B&B at least as far as the neo D&D videos are concerned this was man I I don't know if I want to make another video this long this was crazy but there was just a lot of stuff to talk about there really was a lot to talk about here in any case please go and make sure that you watch the playlist for all of my D&D videos they are all awesome if you like this one I guarantee you that you're gonna like all of the other ones so please make sure to go and click that playlist and watch them otherwise go follow me on Twitter go leave me a comment down here in the comment section so that I can know if you guys enjoy the video let me know what was your favorite thing that you've learned about the lizard Foulke and let me know what other types of creatures you guys want to know about leave those comments down below thank you once again for watching and I will see you all next time bye bye you

Channel: MrRhexx

Views: 883,771

Keywords: mrrhexx, rhexx, dungeons and dragons, d&d, dnd, lizardfolk, lizardmen, lizardpeople

Id: HbVh6MUc2Xs

Length: 30min 39sec (1839 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 26 2019