Homebrew Blackscale Lizardfolk Species Details
Blackscale Lizardfolk
Only a fool looks at the lizardfolk and sees nothing more than scaly humanoids. Their physical shape notwithstanding, Lizardfolk have more in common with iguanas or dragons than they do with humans, dwarves, or elves. Lizardfolk possess an alien and inscrutable mindset, their desires and thoughts driven by a different set of basic principles than those of warm-blooded creatures. Their dismal swamp homes might lie hundreds of miles from the nearest human settlement, but the gap between their way of thinking and that of the smooth-skins is far greater. For some tribes, however, one other aspect further defines their difference from humanity - and that is their dreams.
Humans have no memory of the Age of Demons. Even the ancient elves were born long after the overlords were bound in the Outside. But the Lizardfolk were there when fiends sacrificed couatl on obsidian altars. Their race is as ancient as the giants or the dragons themselves. During the long uprising, the Lizardfolk of ancient times aided the dragons in their struggle. Toward the end of that war, the dragons planted a seed in the collective unconscious of their Lizardfolk allies to ensure that they would always remember the horrors of the past. To this day, when those lizardfolk touched by the Shared Dream sleep, they dream of the Age of Demons. They dream of the battles their ancestors fought. They dream of dragonfire, radiant serpents, and demonic hordes that blotted the horizons. And always, they dream of the demon overlord known to them as the Cold Sun. Their shared dreams define their culture, and they stand ready to face the overlord should he rise again.
Noted even among the Lizardfolk, the proud warriors of the Blackscales take this difference in basic mindset to a violent extreme, reacting with brutal savagery to any perceived threat. Every Blackscale has been touched by The Dreams, and they possess a surprising talent for battle derived from endless visions of ancient war, tragedy and glory. Primal and strong, Blackscale Lizardfolk are at the top of the food chain wherever they roam. Preferring to inhabit desolate bogs and deadly jungles in tropical climates, or the icy wastelands of arctic regions, these dark-scaled Lizardfolk are well adapted to their semi aquatic or frozen waste homes. What little they have, they cherish, and they are notorious for fiercely guarding their territories, swiftly waging war on anyone or anything that dare tamper with their hunting grounds. The Blackscales have little patience for tricks and traps, considering such tools to be the trade of lesser Lizardfolk. Trade with non-Lizardfolk is rare, and normally initiated by the Blackscale tribes only when the need is great.
Despite their alien outlook, some Lizardfolk make an effort to understand and, in their own manner, befriend people of other races. Such Lizardfolk make faithful and skilled allies.
Predatory Mindset
The Lizardfolk’s reptilian nature comes through not only in their appearance, but also in how they think and act. Lizardfolk experience a more limited emotional life than other humanoids. Like most reptiles, their feelings largely revolve around fear, aggression, and pleasure.
The Blackscales share the reptilian, detached nature of their kin, with a few distinct differences. Along with their enlarged, powerful frames, they are possessed of a more impulsive and violent mindset.
This is not to say that they are purely animalistic brutes, however. Indeed, they share the same cognitive ability as their green fellows, but will generally act more aggressively and instinctively.
Lizardfolk experience most feelings as detached descriptions of creatures and situations. For example, humans confronted by an angry troll experience fear on a basic level. Their limbs shake, their thinking becomes panicked and jumbled, and they react by instinct. The emotion of fear takes hold and controls their actions. In contrast, Lizardfolk see emotions as traits assigned to other creatures, objects, and situations. A Lizardfolk doesn’t think, “I’m scared.” Instead, aggressive, stronger creatures register to the Lizardfolk as beings to be avoided if possible. If such creatures attack, Lizardfolk flee, fighting only if cornered. Lizardfolk aren’t scared of a troll; instead, they understand that a troll is a dangerous creature and react accordingly. The Blackscale, however, does not initially consider flight at all, instead immediately focusing on how to defeat or dominate it. It possesses the same level of reasoning, but that reasoning is in service to its instinctive, aggressive nature.
Unlike their kin, Blackscales are far more likely to act with belligerence toward any creatures that presents itself as an adversary, regardless of whether they could resolve the encounter in some other manner. They are aggressive toward prey they want to eat, creatures that want to harm them, as well as creatures that they judge to be any threat at all.
Pleasurable people and things make life easier for Lizardfolk. Pleasurable things should be preserved and protected, sometimes at the cost of the Lizardfolk’s own safety. The most pleasurable creatures and things are ones that allow Lizardfolk to assess more situations as benign rather than fearsome.
Tribal Loyalty
Lizardfolk assess everyone and everything in terms of utility. Art and beauty have little meaning for them. A sharp sword serves a useful and good purpose, while a dull sword is a dead weight without a whetstone.
Lizardfolk see little need to plan more than a season or so into the future. This approach allows them to maintain their current level of influence in the world, but it limits their growth. Lizardfolk have no interest in developing writing, making long-term plans, or cultivating other methods to progress beyond their simple existence as hunters and gatherers.
Most humanoids describe cold-blooded people as lacking in emotion and empathy. The same label serves as an apt depiction of Lizardfolk.
Lacking any internal emotional reactions, Lizardfolk behave in a distant manner. They don’t mourn fallen comrades or rage against their enemies. They simply observe and react as a situation warrants.
Lizardfolk lack meaningful emotional ties to the past. They assess situations based on their current and future utility and importance. Nowhere does this come through as strongly as when Lizardfolk deal with the dead. To a Lizardfolk, a comrade who dies becomes a potential source of food. That companion might have once been a warrior or hunter, but now the body is just freshly killed meat.
The Lizardfolk mindset might seem unnecessarily cruel, but it helps them survive in a hostile environment. The swamps they inhabit are filled with a staggering variety of threats. Lizardfolk focus on survival above all, without sentiment.
A Lizardfolk who lives among other humanoids can, over time, learn to respect other creatures’ emotions. The lizardfolk doesn’t share those feelings, but instead assesses them in the same clinical manner. Yes, the fallen dwarf might be most useful as a meal, but hacking the body into steaks provokes aggression in the other humanoids and makes them less helpful in battle.
At their core, however, Blackscales are social predators in their natural environment. In the jungles and swamps of Chult and comparable areas, cooperation is a necessity to survive at all. To this end, Blackscales are fiercely protective of those whom they are allied with, and unflinchingly loyal to those they trust.
Hapless Soft Skins
Lizardfolk view other humanoids with an indifference verging on pity. Born into the world lacking stout scales and sharp teeth, it’s a wonder they have managed to survive for so long. The typical human would barely make it through a day in the swamps.
Still, if other creatures prove useful to Lizardfolk, those creatures can trigger a protective response made all the stronger by their apparent weakness. The Lizardfolk assess such beings as hatchlings, young ones incapable of protecting themselves but who might prove useful in the future if they receive care.
Blackscale Culture
Shared dreams define the culture of the Blackscale Lizardfolk. The dreams bind the tribes and clans together, but they have also kept their culture stagnant - they live the same lives as their ancestors and model their actions on dreams. The Blackscale have no written language. Their most important stories and teachings come to them every night. The language of the tribes is an unusual form of Draconic, and they are irritatingly concise in conversation. This is because of the shared dreams. Every Blackscale has the same cultural references, and it is impossible for them to understand how an intelligent creature could fail to grasp these things. Thus, a Blackscale Warlock will say “that one is Kurall’s Claw” when he means “that one is a traitor who will kill you in your sleep.” The Warlock doesn’t know how to say it another way, and he doesn’t understand why he’d need to—everyone knows the tale of Kurall’s Claw. Effects such as comprehend languages are of limited use; the communication gap is not a question of translation, but of context. This has defined interaction with the Blackscale ever since humanity arrived in the region. It has led to many misunderstandings, so that both Lizardfolk and settlers consider the others to be simpletons.
Player characters have an opportunity to be the first explorers to bridge this gap and establish a new bond between Lizardfolk and Soft Skin.
Another aspect of the shared dreams can impact players: the Draconic Prophecy. The dreams are records of events, but they also hold messages from the Dragons, who mastered the lore of the Prophecy long ago. If the player characters have a role in the Prophecy, the lizardfolk may know of it. Depending on the characters’ destiny, the Lizardfolk may welcome them as heroes or greet them with inexplicable hostility. Though the Prophecy is never certain, this is an opportunity to set adventurers on a particular path. The Blackscale Priestess may know that the Stormchild with the Sixfold Scar must find the crystal sword and face the Black Death in the Obsidian Tower. They don’t know for certain that the outsider will triumph in this battle with the demon.
Leadership and Religion
The Blackscale Lizardfolk Clans are each a loose alliance of small tribes. They are hunters and gatherers who split to form new tribes any time their population grows to a level that cannot be supported by local resources. Many tribes are nomadic, but those that live in the areas rich in natural resources have established permanent villages.
The majority of the Blackscale Clans are (somewhat loosely) led by a War Chief and their Council, made up of the War Chiefs of each individual Clan or Tribe. These are the most cunning and powerful warriors, subject to ruthless culling, and are rarely underestimated by a foe more than once. The real power among the Clans, however, lies among its religious leaders, made up primarily of Warlocks, and an occasional Cleric or Sorcerer. The Warlocks are believed to be truly ancient, their souls returning after death to be reborn among the Clan, sometimes whole, sometimes fragmented among siblings or clutch mates for the span of a lifetime, only to rejoin in the next generation.
The Blackscales venerate the awakened shadow of a mythic primordial Black Dragon who ascended to godhood, an unnamed being who is seemingly one with the Shadowfell, and who has achieved some level of divinity in its own right. While it prefers forging direct compacts with its followers (empowering Warlocks), it occasionally bestows divine gifts directly, allowing Clerics or even Paladins to rise among its chosen people. Ancient association between its Draconic servants and the tribes result in the rise of those with Draconic bloodlines, and Sorcerers of power are not unknown among the Council. Its motivations, thoughts and desires are alien and inscrutable even by the standards of Dragons and Gods, and it communicates through half glimpsed intrusions into dreams, cryptic omens, and flickering shadow.
(Reskin Warlocks as the Great Old One or Lurker in the Deep Patron, Sorcerous Origins are either Draconic Bloodline or Shadow Magic, and available Cleric Domains are Death, Grave, Twilight (Shadow) or War)
Blackscale Lizardfolk Personality
Use the same quirk table as the Lizardfolk to determine a personality quirk for a Blackscale character or to inspire a unique mannerism.
Blackscale Lizardfolk Names
Blackscale Lizardfolk take their names from the Draconic language, like their green cousins. They use simple descriptives granted by the tribe based on an individual’s notable deeds or actions. Blackscales, however, due to their more combative lifestyle, are more likely to be named after a particular victory, beast, or favored weapon. Lizardfolk make no distinction between male and female in their naming conventions. Each example name includes its translation in parenthesis.
Lizardfolk Names: Aryte (war), Baeshra (animal), Darastrix (dragon), Garurt (axe), Jhank (hammer), Kepesk (storm), Kethend (gem), Korth (danger), Kothar (demon), Litrix (armor), Mirik (song), Othokent (smart), Sauriv (eye), Throden (many), Thurkear (night), Usk (iron), Valignat (burn), Vargach (battle), Verthica (mountain), Vutha (black), Vyth (steel)
Blackscale Lizardfolk Traits
Your draconic heritage manifests in a variety of traits you share with other dragonborn.Ability Score Increase
Your Strength score increases by 2, and your Charisma score increases by 1.
Age
Young dragonborn grow quickly. They walk hours after hatching, attain the size and development of a 10-year-old human child by the age of 3, and reach adulthood by 15. They live to be around 80.
Breath Weapon
You can use your action to exhale destructive energy. Your draconic ancestry determines the size, shape, and damage type of the exhalation. When you use your breath weapon, each creature in the area of the exhalation must make a saving throw, the type of which is determined by your draconic ancestry. The DC for this saving throw equals 8 + your Constitution modifier + your proficiency bonus. A creature takes 2d6 damage on a failed save, and half as much damage on a successful one. The damage increases to 3d6 at 6th level, 4d6 at 11th level, and 5d6 at 16th level. After you use your breath weapon, you can’t use it again until you complete a short or long rest.
Damage Resistance
You have resistance to the damage type associated with your draconic ancestry.
Languages
You can speak, read, and write Common and Draconic. Draconic is thought to be one of the oldest languages and is often used in the study of magic. The language sounds harsh to most other creatures and includes numerous hard consonants and sibilants.