Lizard Kin [Savage Coast]

About 1,700 years ago, wizard-lords of a wizard-governed nation reshaped captives of a peaceful chameleon-like folk into would-be slave soldiers. All three results disappointed: two were freed and one escaped, and now the skinkin, gator men and scalewardens fill the great bayou of their peninsula on the frontier coast. The winged skyscales live on a remote mountainous coast.

The bayou races share one language in three mutually intelligible dialects, written only by scalewardens and a few gator-man mages; very few know the common tongue.

Foot-tall, green or brown, black-eyed and gifted with 90-foot infravision, skinkin were built tough for their size. They herd aurochs (shaggy bison 6 feet at the shoulder) by riding them and tugging their ears with hooked sticks, harness 2- to 3-foot lizards to war chariots and carts, and trade meat and the curse-warding red metal to scalewardens.

They fight only in self-defense, hitting from cover and then running. With 40% to sneak and to hide in shadows, their ambushes impose -2 on surprise. Weapons include bone daggers (1d2), little javelins (1d6) and grenades made by their spellcasters.

Villages of 10d6 adults and half as many young are tunnel warrens behind flimsy mud-and-stick palisades, full of concealed entrances, and their builders refuse to see any flaw in them. Young mature in a year; adults live 40 years. A shaman (5th- to 7th-level priest) leads each village, lives to 60, has tough AC 6 hide and raises a group's morale by one step. Top warriors flaunt bone-and-feather headdresses, though never in battle. Skinkin tolerate scalewardens, fear gator men, mistrust large races, and are often enslaved by evil ones.

These 8-foot, 300-pound brutes have alligator heads, dark green hides and red, slit-pupiled eyes. They live for hunting and war, never parley with strangers, and ambush careless human and demihuman parties. When they outgrow their food supply, shamans order raids so the tribe does not start eating itself. Their goddess, a reptile queen of water and evil, made them bloodthirsty, inspired their revolt and grants them victory. They see scalewardens as mortal enemies to be driven off on sight. Artificial though they are, they rule the bayou's food chain, eating lizards, alligators, fish, the odd scalewarden and, on raids against remote settlements, humans.

Six-foot, gold-eyed, peaceful folk with dark green or brown scales, they have built writing, art and trade under a hereditary monarch since their release. They are less ferocious than gator men but strong, hardy and far more reliable, use anything from spears to swords, and sometimes hire out to the nobles of their makers' nation. Leaders and beast-riders fly domesticated giant bats. Driven from the bayou by gator men, they adapted to the woodlands, where they fish, make pottery, cull old trees for rare wood to sell, and keep plant and animal numbers in balance, while fending off gator-man raids and invasions from a neighboring cat-folk kingdom.

These warm-blooded, winged lizardmen stand 7-8 feet tall but weigh only 150-180 pounds. Swift short-range fliers, they carry 30 pounds unencumbered or 45 encumbered. Unencumbered, a skyscale saves vs. paralyzation every 15 minutes aloft (every 5 if encumbered); on a failure it must rest one hour for each 15 minutes already flown. Its bare wings are AC 7, attackable from the front only by taller foes and always from behind, and a skyscale that has lost half its hit points or more cannot fly.

With superhuman Dexterity, tremendous Strength and keen senses, all are trained hard from youth. On the ground they claw twice and bite; in the air they add a rear claw, dealing 1d8+1 per foreclaw, 1d10 for the rear claw and 1d6+1 for the bite, and can strike foes standing below. Only 30% use weapons, though many carry shields. Of the population, 95% are fighters able to reach 7th level and the rest are usually priests of their preserving patron god.

Eyries of 3d20, with one 7th-level fighter per ten adults and young (1/2 HD) numbering about 10% of the adults, sit far from humans. Still, skyscales go wherever profit lies, trading or serving as mercenaries. Females lay 2d4 hard-shelled eggs yearly, only a quarter of which hatch, and helping a hatchling out is forbidden to keep the race strong, a custom that appalls outsiders. Survivors can live 125 years, though warriors rarely do.