I noticed a while back that I gave the First Empire from this post its own cultural profile, but not the lizard folk who have been in the Sea of Treasure for much longer, so I have taken some time to rectify that.
Introduction: 5,000 years ago when the first lizard folk arrived in the region, they were part of an influential seafaring culture which established colonies on every habitable island and shoreline of the Sea of Treasure millennia before any other civilization was known in the area. This culture spoke and wrote volumes in its own language and was capable of producing magic items that no one has been able to replicate since. The ancient lizard folk spread across the planet for nearly 1,000 years before some magical catastrophe caused a technological and geographical decline. This civilization was apparently anarcho-communist and stateless in nature, with ancient lizard folk working together more or less of their own free will to build the coral and obsidian cities whose ruins now dot most islands in the Sea of Treasure. The cities themselves acted as centers of trade and production before the mysterious disaster struck the ancient lizard folk. In the 4,000 years between then and now, they have retracted to only a small population spread across the islands of the Sea of Treasure.
Magic and Technology: In the around 4,000 years since the collapse, all knowledge of how their magical items, grand cities, and spectacular boats were built and maintained was lost. How quickly the lizard folk regressed from advanced seafaring culture to unsophisticated hunter-gatherers is unknown. What is known is that lizard folk today, even those living on islands, are incapable of making or utilizing most technologies or any forms of magic. Oddly, the ancient lizard folk did not, apparently, domesticate any plants or animals, or if they did they did not bring them to the Sea of Treasure. This is shown by the lack of any kind of domestic species being kept by or found near any modern lizard folk village. This means that the ancient lizard folk were able to support relatively complex societies with high population densities on either hunting and gathering or some other, unknown method of acquiring food and supplies. In the 4,000 years since their civilization fell, lizard folk in the Sea of Treasure have had no political structure more complex than the simple tribes centered around a few villages that exist today. Of note is that all lizard folk to this day speak their ancient language and even use the old script for some rituals and art.
What the modern lizard folk do have is the ability to create basic tools out of wood, bone, and stone, although they do not seem to modify their stones too much before using them. With natural inks, leathers, and other canvases, they are able to create paintings and calligraphy, although they can no longer make paper, so the mediums for their writing are somewhat limited. This art, their oral traditions, and their prodigious skill in the technologies they can still manage to produce mean that the lizard folk manage to have diverse and vibrant cultural traditions despite their species-wide curse. Due to their relative isolation and minimal trade, modern lizard folk tribes are wildly divergent from each other, each one producing unique styles and practices.
Society: Modern lizard folk society is dominated by individual tribes and their unique practices. Tribes are frequently led by a single chief, but methods of selecting chiefs and maintaining power vary wildly, like many things with the lizard folk. Most lizard folk live a semi-nomadic lifestyle, cycling between various seasonal camps and the tribal village throughout the year. Because of this, chiefs and their retinues are usually the only members of a given tribe who can be found in their tribe’s village at all times of year. These tribal nobles are also usually the only members of a given tribe who have the time to learn how to read and write their ancient language, and they are seen as important protectors of their tribal culture and practices. These lizard folk also usually have the duty of greeting and assessing visitors, usually deciding to send them away unless the visitors can think of a very good reason to let them stay among the lizard folk. There is not much that can really be said about the lizard folk as a whole because each tribe has had 4,000 years to develop distinct practices, cultures, traditions, and norms that are now almost wholly removed from each other. For every patriarchal tribe, there is a matriarchy. For every individualistic warrior tribe there is a communally-driven pacifist tribe. In the end, all that can truly be said is that each tribe is fiercely unique and idiosyncratic, even in the face of outside influence.
Religion: Much like their cultures and practices, lizard folk practice a diverse number of religions, seemingly one for every tribe. This happened for similar reasons to the fracturing of lizard folk society, the isolation and lack of contact between villages over the course of 4,000 years. This relative isolation has actually made lizard folk tribes somewhat vulnerable to forming extreme and harmful cults. Intelligent and powerful beings seem to be innately aware of the fact that modern lizard folk are easy to manipulate into worshiping just about anything if it helps them survive their harsh environments. Many other tribes seem to worship their sources of food, but just as many seem to worship an item, a pantheon, or even nothing. Methods of worship vary quite a bit, from regular sermons to blood sacrifice, although the sacrifices seem to be on the rarer side.
Villages: Each village belongs to a single tribe and its chief. While the majority of the village is often camped elsewhere for the season, it is tradition for most to return to their tribe’s village at various times of year to provide labor for the chief and participate in various ceremonies. Although it is not ever-present in a lizard person’s life, the village is still central. Very rarely is the entire tribe in the village at the same time, but when it is, there is usually a large celebration at hand. Friends that haven’t seen each other for a while can catch up, young people can meet and form friendships they will follow up on later, and everyone can party with all of their friends and family. Overall, the village is a key part of lizard folk life without dominating it, a balance which many lizard folk seem to enjoy.
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