Lizardfolk

Lizardfolk are one of the most misunderstood races in the world, reviled by other humanoid societies for their practice of cannibalism, their frequent alliances with or subjugation by evil dragons, and their tendency to war over border encroachments and environmental exploitation.

Despite the misunderstandings of outsiders about this race of people, lizardfolk occupy and protect ecological niches which benefit the world at large. When treated fairly and given the means to peaceably integrate with other humanoid societies, they become valued allies and powerful members of standing multicultural armies.

Physical Description: Most lizardfolk resemble iguanadescended humanoids, with thick scales and spines running down the length of their backs and tails. Scale coloration varies from a bright blue to all shades of yellow and green and several hues of dusky brown. Lizardfolk who evolved from other species of lizards also exist; depending on the individual racial traits they possess, a tribe may more closely resemble geckos, chameleons, or monitors, with scale coloration varying correspondingly. Some lizardfolk are also descended in part from true dragons, and typically sport the scale coloration and bone structure of the type of dragon whose genes they inherited. Although their average height and weight are only slightly more than that of humans (6 to 7 feet tall, 200 to 250 pounds), lizardfolk hulks and pygmies represent extreme outliers to the median, with varying statistics as described below.

Alignment and Religion: Lizardfolk are highly attuned to nature, and their superstitions reflect this closeness to the environment. Druidic and elemental faiths are the most common religions among lizardfolk tribes, although a tribe may adopt a deity as a result of exposure to another culture or having been conquered by another race. A few lizardfolk tribes, particularly the dragonsired variants, worship dragons as gods made flesh. They appear to be granted spells through their prayers to these living “gods,” but exactly how this happens is largely a mystery. Given their reverence for equilibrium, lizardfolk typically tend toward neutrality on both alignment axes, although their individual tribal cultures and favored deities can swing them toward good or evil quite easily.

Names: Lizardfolk names feature many h, s, and k consonant sounds. They avoid b, m, and p consonant sounds due to the lack of a true bilabial mouth; although these phonetics are absent from the Draconic language for this very reason, lizardfolk can approximate these sounds when speaking other languages.

In personal names, the first spot between two consonants which would normally be joined by a vowel sound is a slurred combination of the consonants, denoted in written Common with an apostrophe. Typically, female names end in vowels, and male names end in consonants.

Tribal names are one-word phrases in Draconic, usually ending in i, that translate to a descriptor-noun pairing of either the tribe’s physical appearance or the place where they live. Tribal names are not usually part of a personal introduction, unless the lizardfolk is formally representing her tribe. When a lizardfolk speaks in another language, she translates the pairing literally—so F’haisa, our signature lizardfolk, would introduce herself in Common as F’haisa Yellow Crest if speaking for her tribe.

Male Names: H’serisseth, K’vaal, L’soorh, S’hesh, T’siik.

Female Names: F’haisa, J’haira, N’hannali, T’siika, V’sana.

Tribe Names: Dry Riverbed (Vhitaari), Low Marsh (Tsiikil), Red Talon (Kharusi), Ruined Temple (Ixtupi), Yellow Crest (Dhuuvij).

Racial Traits

Lizardfolk have the following racial traits.

• Ability Score Modifiers: +2 Strength, +2 Constitution: Lizardfolk are strong and hardy due to life in harsh, adverse habitats.
• Type: Lizardfolk are humanoids with the reptilian subtype.
• Size: Lizardfolk are Medium creatures and receive no bonuses or penalties due to their size.
• Speed: Lizardfolk have a base land speed of 30 feet. They also have a swim speed of 15 feet, allowing them to move in water without making Swim checks and granting them a +8 racial bonus on Swim checks.
• Hold Breath: A lizardfolk can hold its breath for a number of rounds equal to four times its Constitution score before it risks drowning.
• Natural Armor: Lizardfolk have tough scaly skin, granting them a +2 natural armor bonus.
• Natural Attacks: Lizardfolk have sharp teeth and hard nails, granting them two claw attacks (1d4 points of damage each) and a bite attack (1d3 points of damage).
• Languages: Lizardfolk begin play speaking Common and Draconic. Lizardfolk with high Intelligence scores can choose from the following: Aquan, Dwarven, Grippli, and Sylvan.

Traits

The following race traits are available for lizardfolk.

• Autotomic Tail: Your tail can break off and regrow itself, allowing you to escape certain situations more easily. You may take a +20 trait bonus to any CMB check or Escape Artist check to escape a grapple or full-body restraint as a swift action; when you do so, your tail breaks off, and you lose any benefits gained from having a tail until it regenerates. The tail regrows itself in 1d6+8 days (if you have regeneration, such as from a magic ring, spell, or other effect, this time is halved).
• Expressive Dewlap: You have a colorful flap of skin beneath your chin and neck that expands dramatically when you breathe, and you can use this when attempting to impress others. You gain a +2 trait bonus to all Intimidate and Perform checks and also on Bluff and Diplomacy checks against any creatures of the dragon type or reptilian subtype who are sexually attracted to you.
• Nictitating Membranes: You possess a secondary set of translucent eyelids that protect you from assaults against your vision. You gain a +2 trait bonus to all saving throws against effects that would cause you to become blinded.
• Pain Tolerance: You gain a +2 trait bonus to Constitution checks made to stabilize when reduced to negative hit points, as well as to concentration checks made due to taking damage while casting spells.
• Tough-Scaled: You gain a +2 trait bonus to your AC against critical hit confirmation rolls from bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing weapons.

Alternate Racial Traits

• Adhesive Feet: Lizardfolk whose evolutionary forebears include geckos frequently exhibit this trait. These lizardfolk have a climb speed of 15 feet, allowing them to take 10 on most Climb checks and granting them a +8 racial bonus on Climb checks (see the Climb skill description in the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook for more details). Additionally, a Climb check that fails by 9 or less means that she makes no progress, and one that fails by 10 or more means that she falls from whatever height she has already attained. The lizardfolk must not be wearing a hands or feet slot item in order to benefit from this ability. This replaces the lizardfolk’s swim speed and hold breath racial trait.
• Change Color: Chameleon-like genes in some lizardfolk’s lineages allow them to blend in nearly flawlessly with their surroundings when they remain perfectly still. As a full-round action, the lizardfolk gains concealment from creatures more than 10 feet away (attacks have a 20% miss chance), and total concealment from creatures more than 40 feet away (attacks have a 50% miss chance), but is considered flat-footed (regardless of any ability that would otherwise prevent it, such as uncanny dodge). The effect ends immediately if she takes any action other than remaining still. This replaces the lizardfolk’s swim speed and hold breath racial trait. A lizardfolk oracle who selects this alternate racial trait may not select the albinism curse (detailed below).
• Diseased Bite: Lizardfolk descendants of monitor lizards have gingivitic gums that bleed during feeding, leaving virulent saliva in the bite wounds they inflict. The lizardfolk’s bite attacks inflict the disease detailed below. This replaces the lizardfolk’s natural claw attacks.

Saurian Filth: type disease (injury); save Fortitude DC 10 + 1/2 lizardfolk’s HD + lizardfolk’s Con mod; onset 6 rounds; frequency 1/day; effect 1d2 Str and 1d2 Con damage; cure 2 consecutive saves

• Dragonsired: A dragonsired lizardfolk boasts the ancestry of wyrms in her family. She gains resistance to one of the following energy types equal to her Hit Dice (maximum 5; this type cannot be changed once chosen): acid, cold, electricity, fire. Once per day, she can also breathe a 30-foot line or 15-foot cone of the energy type chosen as a standard action. This breath weapon deals 1d4 points of damage per Hit Die of the lizardfolk (maximum 5d4, Reflex half, DC 10 + 1/2 the lizardfolk’s HD + the lizardfolk’s Con modifier). If she later gains a breath weapon from another class feature, such as the draconic sorcerer bloodline or the dragon disciple’s breath weapon ability, that breath weapon replaces this one. This trait replaces the lizardfolk’s swim speed, hold breath racial trait, and natural armor bonus; dragonsired lizardfolk may still select the hulk or pygmy alternate racial traits, but at an additional cost (see those trait descriptions for more details).
• Hulk: The impressive stature of lizardfolk hulks lets them function in many ways as if they were one size category larger. A lizardfolk hulk receives a +1 size modifier to her Combat Maneuver Bonus and Combat Maneuver Defense. A lizardfolk hulk is also considered to be one size larger when determining whether a creature’s combat maneuvers or special attacks based on size (such as bull rush, drag, overrun, reposition, trip, grab or swallow whole) can affect her. A lizardfolk hulk can use weapons designed for a creature one size larger without penalty. However, her space and reach remain those of a Medium creature. The benefits of this racial trait stack with the effects of powers, abilities, and spells that change the subject’s size category. This replaces the lizardfolk’s natural armor bonus. A dragonsired lizardfolk who selects this alternate trait also loses her racial bonus to Constitution.
• Parietal Eye: Lizardfolk with iguana progenitors often can sense subtle changes in heat and light that other creatures can’t. The lizardfolk has blindsense out to a range by a greater power such as a dragon. Instead, two to five tribal leaders are recognized by the collective community and rule via majority consensus in disputes. Any dispute which cannot be settled peaceably is decided in ritual combat (which is usually not fought to the death).

Love and Mating: Romantic love is a strange concept to lizardfolk; they acknowledge it on some level, but it takes up far less of their socialization process than it does among other humanoid races. Given their species’ narrow focus on reproduction and survival, lizardfolk have no concept of monogamy, and homosexual behavior is extremely rare. However, there is evidence to suggest that protandry and protogyny (the spontaneous changing of biological sex) occurs within stressed lizardfolk populations, which may cause a sudden reversal of an individual’s gender role. Although lizardfolk manipulate the distribution of males and females within their communities by altering the ambient temperature of their hatcheries, sometimes calamity (usually war or plague) befalls a tribe so as to deplete large numbers of one sex. As a result, lizardfolk may spontaneously change sex so as to rebalance the population.

Language and Script: Lizardfolk use the Draconic language for all communication. They arrange stones or hack letters into trees to mark their territory in simple Draconic words, usually no more than four to a sentence. Writing is otherwise scarce among their people; the oral tradition plays a central role in lizardfolk life, since nights are spent by cookfires reciting tribal histories over meals. Lizardfolk can learn other languages but speak with sibilant, hissing accents regardless of the tongue in which they are speaking.

Relations: Lizardfolk tribes share borders, and sometimes crucial trade routes and resources, with a multitude of races. Their relations with their neighbors are as varied as their own genes.

• Aasimars and Tieflings: Superstitious lizardfolk may interpret the appearance of a humanoid with outsider blood as a sign from a deity. Which way that interpretation falls of 15 feet. This replaces the lizardfolk’s swim speed and hold breath racial trait.
• Pygmy: The diminutive stature of lizardfolk pygmies lets them function in many ways as if they were one size category smaller. A lizardfolk pygmy receives a +1 size modifier to her Armor Class and attack rolls, and a +4 size bonus on Stealth checks. A lizardfolk pygmy can use weapons designed for a creature one size smaller without penalty. However, her space and reach remain those of a Medium creature. The benefits of this racial trait stack with the effects of powers, abilities, and spells that change the subject’s size category. This replaces the lizardfolk’s natural armor bonus. A dragonsired lizardfolk who selects this alternate trait also loses her racial bonus to Strength.

Society and Lands

Tribes and Families: Lizardfolk tribes consist of anywhere from three to 20 families living and working in concert to ensure their continued survival. For this very reason, cannibalism is not taboo among their kind: the dead are a food source, no different from hunted game or butchered cattle. Hatcheries are a core element of tribal society: every tribe has a dedicated building for laying, storing, and caring for eggs and younglings. Juveniles live in these hatching enclaves for the first year of their lives before returning to their families, protected by the tribe’s strongest warriors and taught to work and contribute from birth. Mothers rotate shifts within the hatching enclave so that the younglings learn to value those who have given them life and acquire a wide range of skills from the tribe’s parental figures.

Government and Leaders: Due to their survivalistic nature, lizardfolk pick their leaders from those most capable of leading them toward prosperity. Typically, tribal leaders include the most powerful warriors, the most fertile females, and the advisors with the most sophisticated understanding of nature and magic. Rarely does a tribe defer to a single leader, unless they have been subjugated is dependent upon what sort of deity the lizardfolk tribe in question happens to worship. At best, they might consider the half-outsider a piece of divinity made flesh, beseeching them for guidance or blessings. At worst, they’ll deem the very presence of such a being an encroachment by a rival power and attack it mercilessly, lest the “godling” draw its presumed master’s attention to the tribe.

Table 1: Height/Weight Table Gender Base Height Base Weight Modifier Multiplier Male 5 ft. 4 in. 200 lbs. +2d10 x5 lbs. Female 5 ft. 3 in. 190 lbs. +2d10 x5 lbs. Table 2: Random Starting Age Adulthood Intuitive Self Taught Trained 14 years +1d4 +1d6 +2d6 Table 3: Aging Effects Middle Age Old Age Venerable Max Age 35 years 53 years 70 years 70+2d10 years

• Humans: Contact between humans and lizardfolk is overwhelmingly tense and fraught with diplomatic pitfalls on both sides of the racial divide. Humans tend to exploit and divert natural resources without regard for the environmental impact they may cause on a given ecosystem. This does not sit well with lizardfolk, whose survival depends on steady, predictable equilibrium. As a result, even well-meaning human visitors are viewed with suspicion among lizardfolk. Humans also have a funny way of opening relations with new people, when they bother to even do it—usually, it involves a lot of words, and most lizardfolk are too concerned with survival and duty to indulge in loquaciousness. Human delegates may mistake a tribe’s curt, but honest (and even positive), response to diplomatic overtures for an insulting retort or a disregard for the station of the noble or government who sent them.
• Grippli: Lizardfolk cooperate and trade with nearby grippli settlements, since they fill an important ecological niche: grippli eat dangerous pests that bring disease to lizardfolk tribes and hunt creatures like spiders, snakes, giant insects, and worse monsters that feed on the eggs and young of both races. However, grippli also hunt the same prey and forage the same plants as lizardfolk. In an environment where these resources are particularly scarce, a lizardfolk tribe will not hesitate to exterminate a competitor race—and this pragmatic outlook is well-known and feared among the grippli.
• Dwarves: Curt, insular, and resistant to sudden change— these descriptors apply as well to lizardfolk as they do to dwarves. Lizardfolk get on oddly well with dwarves in the few regions where these races happen to cross paths, primarily because they are both doers rather than talkers. Neighboring lizardfolk tribes and dwarven clans tend to broker land disputes and trade agreements quickly, simply, and amicably, and generally stick to their word once any formal pacts have been forged. Although substantial interaction between the two people is rare, their dealings are usually cordial.
• Adventurers: Adventurers are less common among lizardfolk than other player races on average. Tribes need their best soldiers, mages, and priests to remain among their people in order to ensure their survival, and to leave one’s duties for such base desires as glory or greed is to dishonor oneself in the eyes of the tribe. However, some lizardfolk defy tradition or receive permission from their leaders in order to pursue an end greater than the welfare of the individual tribe, such as preserving the regional ecology or serving their tribe’s deity. Lizardfolk who are enslaved or press-ganged into service by outsiders may resort to the adventuring lifestyle if freed, especially if their servitude has carried them far away from their tribe.
• Barbarian: The most common class among lizardfolk communities, barbarians are prized as fierce defenders of tribal lands. Lizardfolk tribes who are allied with or worship an evil dragon patron boast higher numbers of barbarians among their ranks, since these dragons usually prefer unthinking brutes who follow orders without question.
• Druid: Second only to barbarians in number, lizardfolk druids play many roles in the existence of a tribe. They are healers, nurses, religious leaders, and protectors of the natural equilibrium that sustains a tribe’s ecological niche.
• Hunter: Occupying a solid middle ground between the role of druid and ranger, lizardfolk hunters often bond with reptilian or dinosaur companions native to the areas in which they live. They typically fall into the role of providing food for their tribe rather than defending borders or offering magical support, although their versatility allows them to do either when necessary.
• Magus: True magi are rare among lizardfolk compared to sorcerers and witches, but are not unheard of. However, most lizardfolk who pursue this class take up a path of magical discipline which refocuses their talents on their inborn magical aptitude rather than the study of written magic (such as the eldritch scion or hexcrafter archetypes).
• Ranger: Lizardfolk tribes that seek to expand or relocate due to encroachments by other races or changes in the local ecology prize rangers for their ability to handle field reconnaissance and lead other tribal soldiers through rough terrain. Lizardfolk rangers typically eschew animal companions, preferring to focus their talents on enhancing their allies’ acumen in combat and scouting.