Connects to: 16.23, 17.16, 20.32, 29.24 and 50.26.
The tall razorgrass (34.25) that grows here almost obscures the thousands of lizardman bones that cover this stretch of the Burning Lands. Among the bones can be found several snakes that have escaped from their libraries. If read properly, among the various snakes whose scales contain cookbooks and caravan accounts, lie more valuable books. Some of them are low level spell books and one of the snakes a descendant of Sorlak the Gelderer’s essay on the races of the Shrouded Lands whose title is usually translated as “The Flesh Golems that Live as Easily as They Die.” It describes how men, dwarves and all the rest are fleshy automatons driven by their nature and the impulses of their environment and how lizardmen can take advantage of this. Sorlak helpfully recommends that eating the flesh of most races within the sight of other members of that race often results in adverse reactions and should be avoided. It is a classic work and Sorlak’s logic has only been sharpened by the generations that have passed since he inscribed it on a young cobra.
This bone field was created when two lizardmen caravans clashed, as they always do when they meet. Lizardmen are too rare this far north for these conflicts to happen often but every so often one of their caravans lumbers slowly out of the utter south with sailbeasts struggling under their heavy loads, outriders patrolling on their great fanged lizards and the great bloated forms of lizardman elders carried on the backs of the young.
Members of other races flock to lizardman caravans for their goods are exotic and, while lizardmen are even more possessive than dwarves, they are poor hagglers and offer excellent prices for slaves that they can lay their eggs in. However, the lizardmen have difficulty understanding what sort of goods are be in demand where, which has resulted in their trying to sell several loads of Ungolathan orgy masks to the dour dwarves of Nororak (29.24) and other tragedies.
Connections:
- Isane the Beauty (20.32) maintains a large collection of lizardman literature that slithers about her garden.
- The whistling speech of lizardmen is too high-pitched for adult humans to hear or for most races to speak, at least without the proper fluts (50.26).
- The ruins of another lizardman caravan (and its escaped snake books) can be found to the west (16.23).
- A lizardman caravan has occupied Smuggler’s Isle and is at odds with the Duke of Thring (17.16).
Hooks:
- What other books are written on snakes? How does the whole snakes are books things work exactly?
- Tell me more about Sorlak the Gelderer! How did he get that nickname? What are his other teachings?
- What are sailbeasts? What are the fanged lizards that the lizardmen ride? What other domestic animals do they keep?
- Lizardmen are more possessive than dwarves, how does that work?
- Lizardmen lay their eggs in slaves of other races. What’s up with that?
- How did the dwarves of Nororak react to the lizardmen trying to sell them orgy masks?
- How did Isane the Beauty get so many snakes that are books?
- Are there any lizardmen about that aren’t part of these caravans? Are any lizardman caravans travelling through the Shrouded Lands at the moment?
- Why are lizardmen elders so fat? Why do the young have to carry them? Can’t they just ride something?
- Where’s Ungolath?
