Lizardfolk
Lizardfolk legends claim their people were the first civilization, and that all mammalian peoples descended from shamans who communed with the spirits of apes and took on traits of those beasts.
Lizardfolk are cold-blooded creatures with slow metabolisms. They are economical in their movements and remain perfectly still when idle. To other folk, lizardfolk can appear inexpressive, even alien, but they feel emotion as much as other people. Lizardfolk distrust outsiders, but they are stalwart allies once their loyalty is earned.
Lizardfolk Traits
Lizardfolk gain the following traits.
Age. Lizardfolk reach adulthood at age 14 and live up to 70 years.
Size. Medium.
Bite. You can use your teeth as a natural weapon to make unarmed strikes. If you hit with it your bite, you deal piercing damage equal to 1d6 + your Strength modifier.
Coldly Calculating. You can resist unwise impulses. When you fail a Wisdom saving throw or would become frightened , you can delay that effect until the end of your next turn. You cannot use this trait again until you complete a short or long rest .
Speed. Your base Speed is 30 feet.
Lizardfolk Gifts
Lizardfolk have diverse combinations of abilities, so choose two of the following gifts.
Aquatic
You can hold your breath for up to 15 minutes at a time, and you have a swim speed of 30 feet.
Autotomous
As a reaction you can detach one of your limbs, typically a tail, to escape from a grab. At the Narrator’s discretion, this might also help you end other conditions as well. This detachment does no hit point damage to you. Without intervention, you can regrow a limb to full functionality after a week. However, if you receive 20 hit points worth of magical healing when you are already fully healed, your limb will regenerate during your next long rest .
Chameleon
You can change the patterns and colors on your scales, and with effort you can extend that ability to your equipment. You can spend an action to become invisible until the end of your next turn. This invisibility ends if you attack, cast a spell, or move more than 5 feet.
Climber
You have a climb speed of 30 feet.
Runner
You can Dash as a bonus action.
Spiky
When a creature grabs you it takes piercing damage equal to your proficiency bonus. Each turn it maintains the grab, it takes this damage again.
Tough-Scaled
When you aren’t wearing armor, your AC is 13 + your Dexterity modifier. A shield’s benefits apply as normal while you use your natural armor.
Venomous
When you deal damage with your bite, you can inject venom. The creature you bit takes poison damage equal to your proficiency bonus. At the end of each of that creature’s turns, it must make a Constitution saving throw (DC 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Constitution modifier) or else takes that poison damage again. If it succeeds its save, the effect ends.
After you use this ability, you cannot produce venom again until you complete a short or long rest .
You can alternately spend a bonus action to release venom onto a weapon you’re wielding, which will have the same effect when it damages a creature.
Your venom loses potency within an hour once it leaves your fangs, but someone proficiency with a poisoner’s kit can use it as one of the ingredients needed to create a vial of basic poison . This reduces the cost of the vial of poison from 100 gold to 90 gold.
Lizardfolk Paragon
When you reach 10th level, choose one of the following paragon gifts.
Metamorphosis
Whenever you complete a long rest , you may choose one of the lizardfolk gifts you don’t normally possess. Your body shifts to gain that gift until you use this ability again.
Torpor
Your metabolism can slow enough to put you into stasis. You can intentionally enter torpor as an action. You become incapacitated and appear dead, but remain conscious, and you do not need to eat, drink, or breathe until you emerge from torpor, which requires no action.
You may automatically enter torpor when reduced to 0 hit points. While in torpor and at 0 hit points, you do not normally need to make death saving throws on your turn. However, you still must make a death saving throw if you take damage while at 0 hit points.
Lizardfolk Culture
Most lizardfolk communities protected themselves from the old dragon tyrants by presenting themselves as methodical, quiet, and not driven by emotion - simultaneously not a threat to the dragons, but also an ineffective target of their oppression. After centuries, what was once an affectation became seen as a mark of distinction, and a restrained lizardfolk would be seen by their people as having the moral rectitude to resist temptation. Lizardfolk in Ber are often seen as trustworthy in matters of building effective bureaucracies.
Quiet doesn’t mean dull or heartless, though. Their art and culture are simply more focused on internal reactions, and their festivals focus on serenity or cooperation rather than celebratory outbursts.
There are a few exceptions to this trend, as some lizardfolk tribes allied closely with one dragon tyrant or other, or lived in remote swamps that seemingly offered little of value to exploit. These communities have reflexively begun to revel in raucous behaviors, and make some of the loudest and most experimental music on the continent.
Suggested Cultures. While you can choose any culture for your lizardfolk character, the following cultures are linked closely with this heritage: cosmopolitan , Pedresco , villager .