Discussion how the hell do spawning pools make lizarmem???!!!!!

[Ra’tok]

So welp time to look like an idiot.....
So ive been wandering for quite a while now how do the lizardmen spawning pools work exactly do they just magically create lizardmen or something and also could there be way to destroy the spawning pools and also could there be a way to make them as well

 

[Aginor]

I don't think there is much info about them except that the Old Ones created them, and they presumably work magically or at least are controlled magically.

I believe they work like this:

- Spawning pools contain something like "Bathybius haeckelii" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bathybius_haeckelii (only it is real), so some kind of primordial matter, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primordial_soup
- given enough time, life spontaneously develops from that matter
- Since that would take WAY too long (millenia) and produce something very simple, and even worse, random, the Old Ones created either machinery or magic (Clarke's Law #3 says "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic") below or around it that manipulates the matter. That manipulation uses the primordial matter to form genes, and cells are built. Within the Spawning pool there is a rapid development of individual lifeforms, which results in adult Lizardmen being born from it.
- Spawning pools need tending, which probably means putting material in there, and also controlling the mixture to a certain degree, along with the temperature, the pH-Value, and other parameters. That is done by specially trained Skinks. It is also possbile that the Skinks really only put all the stuff in there and the machinery/magic does all the adjustments but I like the idea that the frequency of spawns and other parameters for the spawning pools can be adjusted a little bit by the Skinks or Slann.
Such as increasing the temperature a bit to get smaller Skinks to ride beasts, or making more Kroxigor by lowering it a bit. (in real life Crocodiles instinctively adjust their eggs' temperature to control the sex of their offspring so that isn't too deep into the realm of science fiction or fantasy.)
- The Lizardmen don't fully understand them, and they fear breaking them so much that are not willing to make dangerous experiments with them. Everythign they know about them are minor tweaks that were discovered accidentally or after long and careful contemplation and discussion among Slann.
- Demons (especially Nurgle and Tzeentch) probably know how to corrupt them in order to corrupt them. So of course they are guarded as well as possible.

 

[Irish Lizarman]

i always thought they were tadpoles and they popped out when needed

 

[Slannta's Little Helper]

One of my concepts on this was attached to their spaceships where a grid of tubes they are grown in link beneath the water and spawn them once they have developed

 

[Axquirix]

I believe the Skaven worked out a methods of tainting them such that they'd no longer produce viable Lizards, which was just more fuel for the race wars between them really.

 

[Aginor]

Damn rotten rats, nothing is holy to them...

 

[Scalenex]

i always thought they were tadpoles and they popped out when needed

My original non-canon interpretation is that ponds are inhabited with millions of microscopic potential Lizardmen and that shortly before a spawning (a week or two) then they grow fast and emerge.

Now I like the idea of it just being magic. Just like medieval "scholars" believed that if you leave cheese out, worms can be created in it. In my opinion, since diseases come from demons and witches, not microbes, spontaneous creation of life can come from supernatural sources too.

I'm still not 100% sold on that. That's why I don't dive too deep into it in my fluff pieces. From the Lizardmen's prospective, spawning pools simply are. I welcome other people going deep into the metaphysics though.

 

[Aginor]

Now I like the idea of it just being magic. Just like medieval "scholars" believed that if you leave cheese out, worms can be created in it. In my opinion, since diseases come from demons and witches, not microbes, spontaneous creation of life can come from supernatural sources too.

Good point!

 

[Zen Shrugs]

This is older fluff I'm talking here, so you may or may not consider it worthwhile, but:

According to the original 5th ed Lizardmen army book from the 90s, it's possible to destroy a spawning pool. Somehow.

The section on the special character Oxayotl the Chameleon Skink says that his kind only spawned at the temple-city of Pahuax. It was ruined long ago and most of the spawning pools destroyed, which is why Chameleon Skinks became rare.*

It doesn't say how the pools were destroyed, though. And that section of the book is a bit wonky for other reasons. (Apparently Chameleon Skinks 'breed'...hmm...)

The 6th ed book says Chaos trashed the city during the great incursion, so presumably the daemons did something nasty.

However, the older 5th ed book says Pahuax was ruined just before the collapse of the polar warp gate during the last-ditch efforts to stop the disaster. Maybe the Slann had to drain the life-magic out of the pools to power their final desperate spells?

*Later army books say that Chameleon Skinks have started to spawn elsewhere too, for unknown reasons. (In 5th ed, Oxayotl was the only Chameleon model available, but from 6th ed onward they became a troop type.)

 

[Freddy25]

So ive been wandering for quite a while now how do the lizardmen spawning pools work exactly do they just magically create lizardmen or something

The answer is simple.

RAPID PROTOTYPING!

 

[Scalenex]

*Later army books say that Chameleon Skinks have started to spawn elsewhere too, for unknown reasons. (In 5th ed, Oxayotl was the only Chameleon model available, but from 6th ed onward they became a troop type.)

I can not find an official so it's possible my own imagination filled in the blanks, but I believe fluff gradually changed from one Chameleon Skink left to only one spawning pool (in Pahaux) occasionally spawns Chameleon Skinks. Before Lizardmen went from Ravening Hordes to a 6th edition army book there was a White Dwarf with interim army rules. I'm pretty sure that was the first time you could take Chameleon Skinks as a unit. If memory serves me they were Special with a 0-1 army limit, so you couldn't take a lot of Chameleon Skinks. 0-1 units were all the rage in 6th edition. As Lizardmen got a 6th edition book and slid into seventh edition it became possible to take more Chameleon Skinks and they evolved from "only one spawning in one distant city" to "infrequent spawnings in several pools in several cities."

 

[Infinity Turtle]

Now that i give it some thought, it's interesting to consider spawning pools as a sort of bridge between Lustria and an 'endless' supply of Lizardmen and the Old Ones just bring them through.

Another view could be that they form from the contents of the spawning pool, perhaps in a similar fashion to how Biblically "man was created from dust and life was breathed into him,"

do they just magically create lizardmen or something

Though all of these would explain why random creatures keep appearing in my pool as well... some of them look like they're from another dimension or look like sentient pieces of... "dirt"...

Then you just need a few skinks to keep the chlorine level right, test the pH and let the Old Ones get on with it

 

[Scalenex]

Another view could be that they form from the contents of the spawning pool, perhaps in a similar fashion to how Biblically "man was created from dust and life was breathed into him,"

Along those lines, I really like Lizardmen funerals being based on water. Either returned to their original spawning pool, given a Viking funeral in a river or at sea, or at least a brief anointing of water onto decease before burial (or leaving them to the scavengers). "From water you are born and to water you return."

 

[pendrake]

I did a little sketch awhile back. Originally it was placed in one of Scalenexes threads about Cities or Temples:

Note the scale. Each square is at least 528 feet.

This shows a buried, but still functional, space ship. The hundreds of feet of Earth and rock piled on top of it is what a Lizardman city consists of. This includes spawning pools. If this is the case: Picture conduits, flexible tendrils of starmetal, that extend upward from the spaceship to deep pools which are scattered all about the fringe of the city.

There are genetic labs...running on autopilot...down in the ship. Every few years a stream of tadpole like creatures is sent to an auspicious Spawning Pool. All monitoring and checking of Ph levels and such is done from below. The tiny creatures mature in the pool, eventually awaken, and swim up and out. They step forth nearly grown...

...but I always figured they spent a year as savage hunters, braving the jungle, living off of the land, bulking up a bit, proving themselves, before they returned to the city to assume a proper task.

That’s my 2¢

 

[pendrake]

”From water you are born and to water you return."

I like ^ this notion.

Not sure about Viking Funerals. (I am not sure that Swede or Danish Vikings did ‘Viking Funerals’ for that matter.) Now funeral pyres on foreign soil if the LM won and controlled the battlefield all armies except Nurglish-things would do that.

 

[Warden]

"From water you are born and to water you return."

I like ^ this notion.

Not sure about Viking Funerals. (I am not sure that Swede or Danish Vikings did ‘Viking Funerals’ for that matter.) Now funeral pyres on foreign soil if the LM won and controlled the battlefield all armies except Nurglish-things would do that.

Agreed that is an awesome line