Lizard-Kin

"Don't cross one of theirs, hard to escape the vengeance of folk that can swim and climb as good as they can sprint."

The Lizard-Kin are a harsh, enduring people native to the shattered coasts of what was once San Reign, the eastern nation of the lands of Tarmahc; Cradle of Humans, Smallfolk, and Half-Giants alike; Before Tarmahc's calamitous shattering in the wake of The Fall, reduced the land to sweltering islands of salt and sand battered by the The Laughing Sea. This calamity would chase most to the lands of Everwealth, some lizard-kin following suit, but the majority would hold-fast through waves of fire and water one after the next, refusing to loose their grips on their ancestral homes no-matter how many had to drown to weather the storm, holding fast to this day. Scaled hides, slit-pupil eyes, and lineages etched into their skin, they are creatures of heat, salt, and survival. Their culture clings tightly to the bones of the past: myth-wrapped godkings, ancestral rites of cannibalism, extravagant dances and festivals, and rigid ceremonies of conquest-fueled slave trades; Many have since abandoned their past's more... divisive aspects, though not all. Despite the sweeping transformations brought on by The Great Schism in The Fall's wake, the Lizard-Kin at-large have changed the least, their ways preserved through insular customs and sun-scorched pride, or at the end of a whip. Gifted with active camouflage, immunity to many poisons, and a relentless constitution capable of regenerating entire limbs, they are formidable as their history is rife with benevolence and barbarism in equal measure. Their male bloodlines pass down dominant coloration and scale patterns that mark noble or cursed lineages. Though often mistrusted, and with cause, the modern Lizard-Kin are not the monsters of ancient record. Many have grown humbler, wiser, and even compassionate in a world that has not returned the favor. Yet in salt-bitten ruins and slaver dens alike, echoes of their old brutality remain. Now scattered across island remnants and cohabiting with the equally checkered Serpentine, the Lizard-Kin live hard, speak bluntly, and survive where others fall. Feared, respected, and rarely forgotten, they are as much a warning as they are a people, living proof that not all the old ways were buried in the Fall.

Naming Traditions

Feminine names

• T’shara.
• Vellin.
• Ashet.
• Niraxa.

Masculine names

• Korr.
• Vashik.
• Theron.
• Gral.

Unisex names

• Izet.
• Rhess.
• Talek.
• Zir.

Family names

Lizard-Kin names often incorporate territorial or ancestral elements, especially from the pre-Schism Tarmahc tongue. Examples: 

• Ashclimb.
• Varnath’s Coil.
• Dune-Born.
• Hollowcrest.

Other names

• Scalebacks (surface nickname, neutral to slightly wary).
• Blood-Slicks (slur, referencing their violent rites and cannibalism).
• Saltsons (term used by sailors referring to their survival in salt-marred ruins).
• Legacy-Eaters (rare, formal insult by Elfese scholars, alluding to forgotten greatness lost to brutality).

Culture

Major language groups and dialects

They speak Tarmashi, an ancient language rich in hard consonants and throat-vibrated vowels. It is ceremonial and often punctuated by claw-gestures or tail-slaps for emphasis. Examples:

• “Zhar’mekh.” The bones remember.
• “Isshra thal.” Step forward without shame.
• “Vraka denash.” You are not welcome in this coil.

Culture and cultural heritage

The Lizard-Kin culture is obsessed with permanence, dominance, and ancestral echo. Ruin-haunters and archivists by instinct, they shape stone and bone not for comfort but for legacy. Cannibalistic rituals, long since outlawed in many regions, once formed a core expression of victory and conquest, consuming one’s enemy not out of hunger, but as a demonstration of total control. In many ways, their worldview mirrors the Goblins’, though stripped of whimsy and layered in rigid caste and ceremony, suggesting an ancient mingling long forgotten by surface dwellers. Their society, when stable, functions on an ethos of earned position and visible lineage.

Shared customary codes and values

• "Victory grants the right to reshape."
• "Blood is the stone of memory."
• "Shame is not inherited, but neither is redemption."
• Betrayal and cowardice are punishable by exile, sometimes ritualized maiming.

Average technological level

Despite an appearance of brutality, the Lizard-Kin are master engineers and ritualists. Their coastal machines once ran on geothermal pressure and wind-capture, now mostly dormant. Modern tools are rough, but cleverly reinforced: obsidian-hilted glaives, smoke-conducting incense engines, salt-glass filtration columns. Their metallurgic techniques, lost in the Fall, once rivaled Dwarfish methods in durability.

Common Etiquette rules

• One must lower their eyes before speaking to an elder or decorated warrior.
• It is offensive to comment on another’s scale pattern or color uninvited.
• Spitting in fire or salt is a direct insult.
• Sharing warmth (fire or blanket) is a sign of respect or intimacy.

Common Dress code

Minimalist but decorated. Most wear scale-hardened leather, metal-threaded robes, or hide belts. Jewelry, particularly jawbone pendants, copper fingerbands, and engraved collarplates, is reserved for the powerful or honored. Many leave parts of their bodies bare to display lineage patterns.

Art & Architecture

Lizard-Kin art emphasizes permanence, symbolism, and ancestry. Relief carvings, bone-stacked totems, and mural-frescoes dominate their ruins. Architecture is tiered and defensive, buildings half-sunken into cliffs or braced by coralcrete pillars. Most structures are made of sun-bleached stone, oxidized bronze, and volcanic glass, with doorways marked by guardian glyphs warning of past misdeeds or heroic sacrifice.

Foods & Cuisine

Carnivorous by culture and biology, Lizard-Kin meals focus on strength-giving meats: eel, crab, game, and the occasional ceremonial consumption of fallen enemies. In modern settlements, they supplement with eggs, fermented mushrooms, seaweed oils, and spiced blood sausage. Sweet flavors are rare, and considered childish or medicinal.Carnivorous by culture and biology, Lizard-Kin meals focus on strength-giving meats: eel, crab, game, and the occasional ceremonial consumption of fallen enemies. In modern settlements, they supplement with eggs, fermented mushrooms, seaweed oils, and spiced blood sausage. Sweet flavors are rare, and considered childish or medicinal.

Common Customs, traditions and rituals

• Scale Rite: Upon maturity, Lizard-Kin receive scarification or etching of scale to denote family and feats.
• Dominion Feast: A communal meal after a successful defense, often involving ritualistic sharing of hunted meat.
• Shadeshred: A rare but legal form of vengeance duel, ending in either submission or death.
• Bonefasting: A meditative ritual of starvation and venom-dosing to induce prophetic dreams.

Birth & Baptismal Rites

Infants are submerged in saltwater and marked with ash, then placed atop a warm stone slab surrounded by bones of the clan’s honored dead. Their first hiss or growl is interpreted as a blessing or omen.

Coming of Age Rites

When a Lizard-Kin nears physical maturity (typically between 14-16), they are sent into the coastal ruins of old Tarmahc alone, where they must bring back either the tooth of a dead beast or a relic untouched by light. Upon return, the youth receives their first scale-carving or family etching, signifying their bloodline and strength.

Funerary and Memorial customs

The dead are not mourned publicly but entombed within brine crypts or reefstone vaults, their bodies calcified and preserved among ancestral bones. In rare cases, a portion of the deceased is ceremonially consumed by close kin, believed to carry their wisdom forward. Tombs are marked with claw-scribed plates listing only victories and punishments, not dates or kin-ties.

Common Taboos

• Consuming sweet fruits or honey outside of ritual sickness.
• Touching a Lizard-Kin’s scale etchings without permission.
• Failing to acknowledge an elder’s presence with a gesture of claw or tail.
• Allowing the body of a slain enemy to rot unburied or uneaten.
• Seeking surface-born education without clan approval.

Common Myths and Legends

• The Sun-Shedder: A god-king who tore out his own eyes to see the world without illusion and led the First Coil into fire.
• The Scale That Spoke: A single scale that fell from a betrayed chieftain and whispered vengeance until the clan returned to ash.
• The Deep Maw: A mythical sea-beast that birthed the Lizard-Kin in molten coral caves, demanding blood once each cycle.
• Korran’s Flame: A cursed torch said to burn only in the hands of one who has eaten kin, used to light exilic paths.
• The Shard Throne: A throne said to reject unworthy leaders by flaying their backs with obsidian blades hidden in its seat.

Historical figures

• Theron Coilbreaker: Led the bloodiest recorded rebellion against Half-Giant slavers, only to crown himself and enact worse.
• Niraxa the Unquenching: Priestess-general of the Bonefasted Choir, responsible for hundreds of enemy sacrifices during the Pre-Schism Raids.
• Zir of the Hollowcrest: A rare reformist chieftain who attempted, briefly and bloodily, to abolish cannibalism among her tribe.
• Gral Tidescourge: A modern-day Lizard-Kin who commands the Merchant’s Consortium, known for curbing caravan raids through brutal efficiency.

Ideals

Beauty Ideals

Lineage and resilience are the most valued traits. Prominent scale ridges, symmetrical frill growth, and bold coloration, especially passed from the male line, are signs of strong blood. Ritual scarring, gold-dust scale rubs, and ornamental piercings signify maturity and worth.

Gender Ideals

Gender exists but holds little sway outside ceremonial roles. Certain rites or offices (such as death-hissers or chain-weavers) may lean toward one sex, but caste and merit overrule all. Spiritual "coil-balance" is more important than biological sex, a harmony between aggression and endurance.

Courtship Ideals

Displays of strength, memory, and territory are common in courtship. Partners exchange teeth or bones of meaningful kills, and often challenge one another physically before mutual acceptance. Mating bonds are rare, intense, and not necessarily monogamous, coils can split and reform without shame.

Relationship Ideals

Lizard-Kin relationships are less about love and more about legacy. A pair is expected to better the clan or coil through skill, strength, or alliance. Emotional vulnerability is reserved for private dens, and parenting is communal when possible. Betrayal is met with exile or execution.

Interesting Facts & Folklore

• Chameleon-Kin: Some regional subraces, especially inland jungle dwellers, exhibit greater camouflage abilities, blending into stone or canopy alike.
• Coil-Marks: A swirling, scale-etched insignia carved by hand or blade onto warriors of renown, often mistaken as tattoos by outsiders.
• Glassborn Blades: Rare ancestral weapons formed from sea-glass and obsidian, said to hold echoes of the one who forged or fell to them.
• The Ash Coil: A philosophical sect of Lizard-Kin who reject dominance and believe in cyclical suffering to purge ancestral shame.
• Saltskin Tradition: During hardship or grief, some Lizard-Kin soak themselves in salt brine until the skin splits and scars, an act of bodily repentance.

Idioms and Metaphors:

• “The coil tightens.” A warning that retribution or consequence is near.
• “You shed before the fire.” A phrase implying premature pride or revealing weakness too early.
• “The bones hum low.” A saying that something ancient or important is stirring.
• “Let the salt speak.” Encouragement to stop talking and let truth, age, or pain reveal itself.
• “Spine to the stone.” A phrase meaning to endure shame, punishment, or humiliation without breaking.