Lizard Man [Dragonlance]

Mirespawn are hunched, heavy lizard men sheathed in thin green scales, with a bony crest running from the snout between the eyes and down the back, a 4- to 5-foot whip tail. Hooked teeth fill the jaws, every hand and foot ends in long claws, and their beady red or pink eyes sit behind transparent lids, so they seem never to blink, and a limp, nearly 2-foot pink tongue hangs from the mouth with no sensory use. They wear little but bone jewelry and crude tattoos seared into the scales with heated blades. Rank is shown by heavy collars: gem-studded for the king, copper-banded for knights, bone-set for priests. They talk in clipped hisses and growls; 15% understand the common tongue and 5% can speak it crudely.

Mirespawn relish bloodshed but fight without finesse, usually charging headlong into melee; against clearly stronger foes they hide and wait to ambush from behind. Besides claws and bite they use short and long swords, daggers, javelins and bone-studded clubs (2d4). They never wear armor but sometimes carry small shields for AC 4. Their thick spittle is an acid that burns anything but lizard men. They cannot spit it, lacking the jaw muscles, but they smear it on weapons: a victim struck must save vs. poison or take 1d4 more damage.

A tail lash hits foes behind for 1d4. The tail can be shed at will, leaving a grabbing enemy wrestling a thrashing stump while its owner flees, and grows back in 1d4+8 weeks. Some 15% can puff neck flaps into 3-foot balloons to scare predators, and 25% can hiss loudly enough to make animals mistake them for venomous snakes or small dragons, though intelligent foes are rarely impressed. Some ride surly giant lizards that obey only simple commands but eagerly chase and devour anything they consider food.

At the dawn of the world a nature god made the marsh lizardfolk to worship him. Emerging from the northern moors, they founded swamp colonies but angered other races by abducting people for sacrifice and were pushed into the bleakest swamps. Wars, disease and one egg per female every five years shrank their numbers until they begged their god for help. He answered with the mirespawn: for 50 years every egg a lizardfolk female laid hatched as the new breed, whose females produce 10-20 young a year. The newcomers soon outnumbered their forebears, and an ambitious schemer led them in a massacre of every marsh lizardfolk they could catch. Survivors fled by crude boat to a distant continent and now thrive in a southern blackwater swamp, while rumor says a few still advise mirespawn rulers in secret.

Mirespawn have no laws beyond the cruel whims of a king, who rarely survives more than a few years before an assassin, usually one of his own 1d4+6 knights (each with at least 15 hp), takes the throne. They live in mud pits or filthy caves shared with snakes and rats and learn no skill but fighting, so they have no crafts or trade. For every 20 members there is a shaman casting as a 3rd-level shaman, with 1d4 acolytes of 1st level. Everyone else is militia, including children from age 10 with at least 5 hp. They mostly eat, sleep and wallow in mud, but for the seven days each month when the black moon is full, shamans lead chanting, prayer and the sacrifice of many slaves.

Those who know of them loathe and fear them, especially the shadow folk whose caverns they covet. They eat small animals, algae, fungus, humans and one another, and can dislocate their jaws to gulp down prey as big as a sheep, a painful job lasting up to four hours. Their bitter meat and jellylike eggs are inedible, so predators leave them be, but armorers can make their hides into scale armor (AC 6).

The elder race resembles the mirespawn in shape, ranging a little shorter to a little taller, its hide yellow-green or a blotchy brown. Brighter than their descendants, who still scorn them, they are wary loners who seldom leave home and seem cruel to outsiders, yet they hold a strong code of honor, repay kindness and injury alike, and treasure friendship with any race. Though warm-blooded, they take 1 extra point per die from cold attacks. Their hide equals AC 7, they move equally well on land and in water, and they lack infravision, but protective eye membranes give +1 to saves against blinding or dazzling effects.