Is there any fluff of backstory or something that could indicate that lizardmen could betray each other or work against each other? I have an idea for by backstory for my lizardmen army and my other armies and thought of maybe including some lizzies who have betrayed thier kin and fight with the enemy, maybe for gold, land, thier own means. Does this sound too far fetched? Would they do this?
The only fluff I read about lizardmen civil wars is that disagreements between Slann may lead to "feather wars" between the denizens of their respective cities, I.e. Non-fatal conflicts.
(I hope you have read some of the Fanfiction in the Lustriapedia Official GW fluff seems to portray LM as Automatons - striving together towards the Great Plan. BUT also that the Great Plan is either broken or the instruction manual is written in Chinesalustrian. I think the GW Fluff would portray an outsider's view of LM - and if the lizard killing you has a minor (or major) difference with any other lizard, you are every bit as dead anyway, so why would you care. Both of the points above, taken together make LM a very exciting fluff culture for me. They are all equally committed to their understanding of a thing which cannot be fully known. Strongly committed people with differences disagree, and disagreements can get messy. Add an obsidian blade and they get very messy - even though every party is doing what is right and honourable. LM even when they mess up, do it nobly. They are the anti-skaven. So, reasons for LM to be in conflict: different interpretations of the Great plan (All of Scalenex's stuff, and I believe about half of the other authors here are influenced by his portrayal of the conflict - some to the extent that they write their pieces into Scalenex's world) Lizardmen somehow corrupted by Chaos (Can Lizardmen go Bad? discussion, New Nature - Story Six here) Lizardmen can be deceived (I suspect Slanputin is going that way with Lord Xhaltan) A Spawning pool could be corrupted to produce anti-thematic lizards (Scalenex did it here, skaven might have done it sometime.) Perceived conflict between followers of the Old Ones and the Newcomer - Sotek. (I haven't read this, but I can't see how you can drop a new god into a pantheon without raising a few scaly eyebrows. I plan to exploit this difference in future fiction. Here is some forum discussion of the nature of how LM might "follow" their different gods) Just following orders. Personality / power politics gone out of hand A lizard gets cabin fever (Rogue Skink by Pendrake - here) and he might have some followers Anything else you can think of. LM are such committed followers - you could choose any reason at all for your army's Slann to take a different path (or be asleep at the wheel while the Old Blood goes in a goofy direction). Your army will follow them off a cliff, or into Itza with flaming torches if they believe in the rightness of the cause. Just make the reason seem like it would be logical to a giant space frog (bonus points if the conflict has its roots in the time before the great catastrophe) If it is any help, here is a discussion about why members of other factions might defect from their own kind.
Cool, thank you all for your help. Will be reading through all this. So could a lizzie live amongst people? I've been reading up and what i get is that lizardmen spwan out fully matured, they don't grow. Is this correct? Or could I have a young skink being caught and taken back to humans were it grows up? Too far-fetched?
Bob covered some examples but he was not exhaustive. Roughly half of our fan-fiction pieces involve internal conflicts within Lizardmen society (though it's usually a subplot to external conflicts). My fluff pieces have a backstory of the Slann falling into two philosophical camps. This divide is largely split between the large cities and the small cities. The idea of Slann killing other Slann is unthinkable. They have yet to make an ultimatum because if an elder Slann makes a demand and a younger Slann refuses, their millennia old system of order will collapse. The elder Slann are instead trying to tie the hands of their dissenters by requisitioning their soldiers and resources and keep their minions occupied with busywork. @Fhanados' fluff piece has a similar conflict in the backstory between Mazdamundi of Hexoatl and the Slann of Itzl though the conflict is mainly occurring via their top level Saurus and Skink aids. His protagonist has even shed blood over disagreements. A lot of pieces have Saurus and Skinks get in relatively mild disagreements over how to accomplish their goals. My piece The Orphaned Temple City relies heavily on the Skink Priests being condescending jerks to the other servants of the Old Ones. @spawning of Bob's work on comedy/dramas relies on this extensively. His first novel dealt heavily with a group of Lizardmen traveling with a crew of seafaring Ogres. Now they are stuck in the Old World. His current novel deals with their travels through a wide variety of Human lands. I also lampooned Lizardmen living with humans in story seven of our first short story contest. Bob lampooned my lampooning in story one of our second short story contest. We have agreed to a ceasefire for our third contest but you should still check out contest number three. Voting is open for a little over nine more days. I am not aware of a fluff writer writing about a Lizardman living amongst Humans in a non-comedic piece, but I did write a short piece about Humans living among Lizardmen from the Slann's point of view. @discomute wrote two stories from the human's point of view. One from a luckless rebel and one from a luckless loyalist. While we all seem to agree on the basics there is wiggle room. Whether Lizardmen emerge from spawning pools mostly full grown or completely full grown. Each writer can draw the line wherever they want to decide how much knowledge and how many skills a Skink, Saurus, or Kroxigor is born with and what knowledge or skills they have to learn. Not just life skills, but this includes knowledge of Lizardmen society, reverence for the Old Ones, and the vocabulary of the Saurian language You basically are free to make these decisions yourself for your own fluff pieces, and no one can tell you are "wrong." Your Lizardmen emerge from their spawning pools with exactly the size and mental aptitude your stories require. BUT if you write multiple pieces in the same literary "world" or one really long piece you need to stay consistent. If one Skink emerges from a spawning pool with the mind of an infant early on and pages later another emerges as an eloquent speaker and master hunter you need a good explanation or the inconsistently will pull readers out of the immersive narrative you are trying to create.
I don't need to decide which way to go yet, but my story characters will eventually make it back to Lustria. Therefore the characteristics of new spawnlings will matter to me one day. Spawned for greatness characters could come out however you want them to be, but that is pretty boring from a story arc point of view. I prefer the idea of general spawnlings being physically mature, but naive. Experience makes them less so. Kroxigor never really grow up in that sense. Another possible view is that LM come out like human spawnlings - believing they know everything. The grumpy old survivors try to keep them alive for long enough for them to discover reality doesn't meet their ideals. I think a captured skink would make an effort to escape and rejoin his kin, but if that was impossible he would do whatever was needed to get by - including joining a pirate crew / circus troop (while there is life, there is hope = while I live I can still serve the Great Plan, I will wait with my new spawn brothers until my purpose becomes clear). However friendly he might be, If he interprets the plan to be to stick a blade into all of his friends, he might regret having to do it but wouldn't hesitate. There would be a wealth of story writing material in warmblood customs he finds strange, and his own physiological / cultural idiosyncrasies. BTW - there are some very loud and opinionated people on this site (me mainly) who you might think are saying "Don't do it this way" when they are really saying "I wouldn't do it this way" They generally don't want to crush your creativity and will enjoy your ideas even if they are left field. As long as it doesn't involve the misuse of apostrophes. You have been warned. Scalenex beat me to it, but I should have mentioned Fhanados' The Beginning where lizards are killing lizards all over the place - in brawls, pitched battles and ritual combat.
I think THE main argument for some Lizard vs Lizard action is disagreement with the higher-ups. It's actually the only reason Lizardmen have fought (so far) in my background. As united as the Lizardmen are as a faction compared to other races, with a history as long as theirs (particularly given that their current rulers are the same rulers that have been there since the beginning) there are going to be divergent factions. While Saurus warriors won't turn against each other for their own reasons, they would definitely fight (and to the death) if commanded by someone of higher rank. It's what they exist to do - fight and obey orders. The followers of Sotek are violent and fanatic, and strictly speaking Sotek isn't an Old One but rather a new god. This didn't sit well with the Slann to begin with, and if memory serves me right the Prophet of Sotek was banished from polite society and Sotek only acknowledged after the war against the Skaven. I imagine that many Skinks, who are far more "human" than Saurus, would be sore about this. Did I mention Sotek worshipers are violent and fanatical? More conservative Slann might still reject the idea that Sotek is a god to be venerated as equal to the Old Ones. This could lead to a huge civil conflict and definitely bloodshed. Another example could be two Slann interpret the same plaque in wildly different ways. Slann Uno reads it and concludes all of Bretonnia needs to be destroyed and every human killed. Slan Duo reads it and thinks that the humans NEED to be in Bretonnia or else the Great Plan will fail. Uno sends his legions of doom to wipe Bretonnia off the face of the earth, and Duo sends in his crew to defend the humans. Both factions are completely dedicated to their interpretations and genuinely believe that their actions are furthering the Great Plan, but the situation sees one side allying themselves with Humans in order to fight off the attack from the other. It doesn't have to be disagreeing Slann either. Skink Priests are the highest ranking individuals in Lizardmen society, and outrank Saurus who may be hundreds of years their senior. The only individuals with more power than the Priests are the Slann, and most Slann are too busy napping to take an active role in the governance of their civilisation. Like I said earlier, Skinks are the most human like of all the Lizardmen. Although they're not prone to the same pitfalls as humans (ie absolute selfish greed and power lust) they will still be subject to pride, manipulation, politicking, fanaticism, etc. By their nature some will be conservative, some will be more flexible. Some will unwaveringly worship the earth their Slann floats over as holy ground unworthy of being trodden upon, while others will scrutinise and analyse their master's words to determine the "true meaning", rather than take it at face value. Skinks are the ultimate middle-management type. Think of office politics, add in some religious devotion and a superpowered magic frog CEO. Everyone's following orders, but nobody marches to the same beat.