Discussion Lets Talk Lizardmen and the Honored Dead

[Slanputin]

I think skinks used to (pre-end-times) cast a plaque in the honour of the dead skink, and leave it like a kind of gravestone/memorial.
Then wait a few thousand years and skink language has changed, so these plaques get dug up - "we cant understand this... It must be the work of the OLD ONES!" - and so they got taken into the temple-city to be worshipped.
Every so often a slann will be woken to translate it - "Uurgh, what? So tired... 5 more minutes... Go kill some Orcs.....*snore*"
And thats why gold tablets were found every where in the old world, and also why the Lizardmen/Seraphon have such an anti-other-races thing

This is such a good basis for a story. I demand one be written.
Please.

 

[Otzi'mandias]

Can't guarantee it will done soon, but I will try!

This is such a good basis for a story. I demand one be written.
Please.

 

[Warden]

Wow this is a great thread. Lizardmen honoring dead is a fantastic topic, there is some really great stuff here (and it probably should be indexed so I can find it later for reference…). It took me a while to find time to come up with a response for how to commemorate the fallen, so since I am a big fan of mayan history…

The Mayan’s used stone stelae to glorify the king and record his deeds, normally with a depiction of the king in warrior ceremonial guard, often with enemies trampled or tied up underfoot ready to be sacrificed. These stelae would often be grouped in front of pyramids, near plazas, or in large “forests” of stone columns, where each of the individual stone stelae commemorating kings were considered the “trees.” They also often had small altars built in front of the stone stelae, making it a stelae-altar combinations in many city-states.

Some examples of stone stelae:

Stelae from Copan, Honduras (most of the best Mayan stelae come from this city)

Stelae and Altar at Copan (drawing by Frederick Catherwood)

Stelae at Quirigua, Honduras


Stelae at Copan

Temple of Warriors at Chichen Itza, Mexico



Drawing of Stelae 31 from Tikal

Truly rich and influential kings would just build massive temple-tombs for themselves (or a previous really great ruler). The best example of this is probably the temple built for King Pacal the Great of Palenque:



This is his tomb:



And here is some artwork of the lid to his sarcophagus, pretty impressive piece of stonework (and definitely not a space bike, sorry guys):



So onto the Lizardmen

Slann- since the Slann are on the top of Lizardmen society they would probably skip the stone stelae and just have massive temples built for when the die, like the greatest kings of all the ancient Mayan temple cities. In fact, each Slann probably already has a gigantic temple built for it to use in life, so after it dies it can just be turned into one massive temple-tomb complex. I am sure Kroak’s temple is one of the biggest ones in Itza. For those Slann that continue to survive to the present, I wouldn’t be surprised if the skink priests and attendants who run the daily affairs of their temple continuously “update” the temple’s many vaults, ornate murals, and other recording works of art to dutifully record every second of the Slann’s pronouncements. Also the Lizardmen take the time to mummify the slann’s remains so they can remain intact, which is quite a feat considering how much a jungle climate will decay bodily remains over the centuries. I agree with @Scalenex and doubt the Lizardmen would try to mummify anybody else (they would have to be an exception of epic proportions).

Skink Priests- I don’t see why skink priests wouldn’t have either a stone stelae or a minor temple built to them when they die, but then again their lives would be much shorter than a saurus, so maybe they just get a relief carving when they die? More famous priests could have a stone column or stelae constructed upon their death, with only the most powerful priests receiving an entire minor temple dedicated upon their deaths. I see most skink priests nominally serving under one of the Slann ruling in a temple city, or dedicated to a specific Old One, so when the skink priest’s die they could possibly be buried in either the Slann’s or the Old One’s temple complex.

Saurus Heroes- I could see saurus oldbloods or scar veterans being honored by the skink artisans of a temple city upon their final heroic death in some way, either with an epic mural, stone stelae, or some other artistic work that will last for future generations to remember their exploits. Due to their vast and bloody contribution in their service of the Great Plan, I see saurus heroes having a stone stelae or carving commemorating their spawning date, wars, battles, enemies defeated, monstors slain, skaven eaten, and other heroic actions preserved in stone. I also like the idea that @Essmir mentioned about story telling, I could see the saurus and skinks preserving an oral tradition about truly famous saurus warriors who died fighting for the Lizardmen armies.

Regular Saurus Warriors, Skinks, and Kroxigors- I don’t really know how they would be remembered upon death except by their immediate spawn-kin. @Slanputin's idea of a Lizardmen acropolis is a great idea. I know the Maya who weren’t part of the nobility often buried their family members near their home centers, so I could see the remains of departed skinks being buried near their barrio homes and commemorated by a household artisan with some simple stone edifice, or the saurus warriors bringing back the remains of their fallen comrades in a great procession after a war to bury them alongside centuries of their fallen spawn-kin. Of course if the battlefield is too far away some sort of monument or burial site could be constructed to commemorate their fallen comrades. I really like the “returning to water” idea from @Scalenex though, that has a lot of potential for Lizardmen funerary rites. Since the Lizardmen of my temple city have such a strong connection to Tzunki I will probably borrow this idea.


Hope this helps. Thanks @spawning of Bob and @Scalenex for covering so many literary universes on this site, I have more research to do now.

 

[Warden]

Looking at @mousekiller 's thread with his epic bone giant made me think about the tomb kings and their ancient relationship with the Lizardmen.

SUPERFICIALLY, the art/architecture of the tomb kings could be argued to be similar to that of the art/architecture of the Lizardmen. Is there a chance that the ancient peoples of Nehekhara conducted trade with the ancient Lizardmen of the Southlands, and took up many aspects of the Lizardmen culture?

In fact, WHAT IF the tomb kings got the whole idea for embalming from the Lizardmen embalming their dead Slann Mage Priests? The humans, short lived in comparison to the Lizardmen, especially the ancient saurus warriors and the verenable Slann, would probably have been jealous of these ancient beings and desired to learn ways to emulate their long life spans. Even if it was a hopeless case they would have still conducted many studies on how to extend their lives, giving birth to the mortuary cult.

I am not sure if this is backed up in the fluff of the Tomb kings or not. Would be cool if the ancient inhabitants of the desert got some of their respect for the departed from their scaly neighbors to the south.

EDIT: I was reminded just now that Mr. Arch Warhammer posits this idea in his Southlands video, good stuff.

 

[Scalenex]

The Tomb Kings book does not mention anything like this. However the 5th edition Lizardmen book has a good fluff piece about an Araby explorer attempting to locate a safe trade route through the Southlands. The Skinks addressed him in Nehekharan. The explorer balked, worried that this meant the Al Saurim were in league with the tainted ones. Then he realized that this was a dialect of Nehekharan from an era that predated the whole Nagash disaster. Not that it helped much because the scholar who understood the language refused to speak it out of superstition. Eventually the Lizardmen and Araby traders resorted to charades plus some Skinks picked up Arabyan words.

The Slann refused to allow a human trade route through his jungle, but the Lizardmen and humans reached a short term accord. The humans had maps of where many oases were and the Lizardmen needed access to water to march across the desert and reclaim a stolen Slann mummy from a Tomb King. In exchange for their help, the humans got to keep all the treasure that wasn't Lizardmen in origin.

Anyway, the fact that thousands of years later, the city of Zlatan had trained scribes who could more or less fluently speak Nehekharan suggested that they used to interact. To say that the Tomb Kings got their first kickstarter from the Lizardmen sort of cheapens the Tomb Kings innate awesomeness, but so what? We know Lizardmen are the best, and GW was the ones that discontinued the Tomb Kings, not us.

If anyone wanted to write about early Lizardmen-Nehekharan relations, I'd be interested in reading about it. I may even steal it. At some point I want to write more about Belrikt and his Southlands Lizardmen cohorts but I'm running out of fresh ideas. I figure I need to work the Tomb Kings in there somewhere.

 

[Warden]

Anyway, the fact that thousands of years later, the city of Zlatan had trained scribes who could more or less fluently speak Nehekharan suggested that they used to interact. To say that the Tomb Kings got their first kickstarter from the Lizardmen sort of cheapens the Tomb Kings innate awesomeness, but so what. We know Lizardmen are the best, and GW was the ones that discontinued the Tomb Kings, not us.

If anyone wanted to write about early Lizardmen-Nehekharan relations, I'd be interested in reading about it. I may even steal it. At some point I want to write more about Belrikt and his Southlands Lizardmen cohorts but I'm running out of fresh ideas. I figure I need to work the Tomb Kings in there somewhere.

Well elves got their kickstarter from the Lizards too, doesn't cheapen them too much... They even claim credit for beating chaos completely by themselves

I would love to see fluff concerning lizard-tomb kings relations, maybe a future writing contest about the Southlands.

 

[Xholankha the lost one]

What you guys said, just with cartoons.

OK that was a lie. There is such a healthy divergence in interpretation of LM culture on this site that I think a hard and fast answer is unwise. So here it is. LM honour their dead and build memorials to and idealised memories of those deemed to be heroes of the Great Plan.

As a generalisation, LM would claim to be forward lookers, striving to the Great Plans objectives, but in truth they are compelled to live in the past, sifting through ambiguous plaques and records of events to find hints of where they should go next. For this reason alone, they would remember their heroes, analyse their deeds and attempt to model themselves on the most successful / ferocious proponents of cold blooded progress. This of course, is a giant trap which mostly serves to distort the LM view of history and their place in it, and it stifles innovation (effective use of allies) and invention (the wheel).

It's worth noting, that with the longevity of Slann and Oldbloods, many of the heroes of the past remain so in the present - which makes taking a progressive view of their achievements even harder. Also, I think Slann would be above / not engaged enough with normal passage of time to engage in remembrance of the dead for its own sake, but, man, I bet they wished they had practised when AoS came around.





In WHFB tradition, notable individuals are returned to the spawn pool of origin to nourish and hopefully influence future spawnings Therefore there must be a notion of venerating exceptional individuals. That new spawnlings could be deemed to have "the sacred markings attributed to Tzunki / Kroq-gar etc" indicates that an oral or written tradition must exist and that great individuals with particular physical attributes are noted in histories. This may not be to the point of building a flashy statue, but to reasonably utilitarian lizards, to be remembered and revered is significant.

In the Bobiverse, there must necessarily be a veneration of past glories and heroes. Bob requires all other LM protagonists to be longing for the good old days in order to give his main characters meaning as agents of change. In Blood Dish, in the Temple City of Tlanxla, there is a Plaza of Heroes, Shrine of the Mighty, Hall of Fame which are beside the Pantheon of the Lost. No one complained at the time, and no they did not appear solely as a vehicle to propel the blink and you'll miss it "Hall of Fame" gag. Castes in the city had a robust view of their superiority to other castes. Given that all factions were adherents to the Great Plan, the only grounds for assigning oneself superiority on the basis of "species" would have been past glories by members of one's own caste.

In the Observance of @Tlac'Natai the Observer , individuals (Ahtunowhiho) revere and try to emulate fallen heroes and they despise weaklings. There is a concept of ownership, and I can imagine the messed up general keeping hold of a weapon once used by the saurus whose name I can't remember. In addition, my take on the place has brothers-of-the-same-water (spawnkin) collecting battle trophies to decorate their barracks. Their spawning accrues honour in this way - here they are seeking future reverence of the whole spawning rather than an individual.

In the sstrange but cosy world of @Essmir , the old chameleon skink (in Essmir's avatar and story - Around the Fire) remembers his fallen spawn brothers and their deeds rather than obsessing about what General Tot'al'pwnaj might have been doing at the same time. This suits my world view about everyday heroes.

Sla Sla @Slanputin , Lustria's slowest story machine, has a pretty nasty hand pulling the strings which is happy to use personality cults to progress its own ends. For this to work, the twin concepts of "gods / heroes are better than us" and "absent gods / heroes can say whatever we want them to" need to be in the psyche of the reptilian sheep who occupy the Golden City. Wake up people!

I can't really place other notable authors such as @Kcibrihp-Esurc and @Xholankha the lost one because they both write forwards so quickly, that it is hard to work out the background of their societies. @RoseThorn is disqualified because there are No Spawning Lizards in his story yet.

Which brings me to the cuddly world of @Scalenex of Malodorex (His characters live in the imaginary city of Klodorex, but the real half rotted, half crisped undead skink lives in his own smelly realm.) My knee jerk response is to say that if the citizens of Klodorex celebrated the glorious dead, they wouldn't have any time for anything else. In the spirit of saying something useful for once, his society has a very good sense of history and the place of heroes in it. Six feet under. No! I must resist my cruel impulses!

His lizards sometimes triumph, sometimes fail. In this they are painfully human. Named characters have the insight to interpret the spin of the historians but don't get to smugly enjoy their superior reasoning for long and judge the heroes / villains by their deeds. They can ignore the cult of Kaitar around them and say, "he was a big goof whose main asset was that the people followed him. He would have served his lords better by showing restraint and discretion." or "Zat-kai could have sold his daemon insight as an asset." This makes me equivalent to a named character. I am so screwed.


So what about AoS? Do you remember how it made no sense that you could build an army with Kroq-gar, Tehenhuan and Tetto-eko because they occupied different times in history? AoS has fixed that by allowing dead lizards to return from memory and then wiping them from history anyway! Why aren't you grateful?

Assuming actual sentience and autonomy, I think celebration of the past and of fallen heroes would be MORE important to Seraphon. My preferred mechanic would be that the Slann calls the actual individual back (complete with their foibles and regrets) rather than (potentially) imperfectly remembers them. However, I write Seraphon stories the other way around because a poorly thought out existential crisis is better than no existential crisis at all.

@Bowser 's take in The Constellation almost had me in tears again (hope overcomes despair - it's like reading @Slanputin backwards). Death has little meaning in Bowser's AoS, but triumph and heroism have value - because being forgotten is worse than dying. The terrifying alternative in Extermination is that true death leads to the death of memory. This is about as opposite to what Scalenex is asking about as it is possible to get.

We'll for a start the name of myself is one shrouded in mystery and legend for those who know their lore, I will release a short description of my origins.
Ituzkn wsa a rebohtr ot em, het sols redvo me to xilee
-aprt fo ym tsyro

 

[spawning of Bob]

Dude! Proof read your posts!

Temple of Warriors at Chichen Itza, Mexico

Bonus points to anyone who writes a story based on the temple city of Chicken Itza.

 

[mousekiller]

@Warden This is exactly the type of conversation that gets me excited for painting and truly upset that GW through all that history to the wayside for AoS. Anyway, enough of the past. You jumped into my head on this! The Magog story was going along the same line of thought, that the first Chaos incursion came with the coming of the Slann, and thus caused the first major destruction of the world and the definitive destruction of the Old Ones, the Giants.

 

[Warden]

wait, are you suggesting that the giants could be the descendants of the Old Ones??? I have never heard this before, if this is something from the old lore I must have missed this!! I know there was a race of storm-giants living up in the not-Himalayas in warhammer that were eaten to death by the ogres, but aside from that, this is an interesting theory if that is what you are suggesting?!

 

[Otzi'mandias]

Old Ones = Literal Giants?

This is a good concept. Hey, @Spawningofbob, @thedarkfourth, @Bowser, anyone feel like "borrowing" this idea?
I would, but of my two stories, one has already had an old one in it, and the other is an exploration of how I want the Aos fluff to work.

Wait, 'storm giants' sound a fair bit like how the dragon ogres got their thing for lightening.

I always have good ideas when I cant use them. Humph.

 

[Bowser]

Old Ones = Literal Giants?

This is a good concept. Hey, @Spawningofbob, @thedarkfourth, @Bowser, anyone feel like "borrowing" this idea?
I would, but of my two stories, one has already had an old one in it, and the other is an exploration of how I want the Aos fluff to work.

Wait, 'storm giants' sound a fair bit like how the dragon ogres got their thing for lightening.

I always have good ideas when I cant use them. Humph.

I won't be writing for the old ones anytime soon. I don’t see a need for them. If I do write them they will be more like the Irkens from invader Zim. Complete fools with technology too advanced for them to do anything with. The leader is the tallest, and the slann were given a fake mission just to get rid of them and or toy with them.

That being said it is a great concept for anyone who does want to write for the old ones. It would make for a fantastic story arc.

 

[spawning of Bob]

The Old Ones came and terraformed the mahrlect out of the world when it was an ice world dominated by dragons, fimir and shaggoths (I think). The Old Ones spawned the First (us - yay!) then the other "orderly" races (up to ogres and halflings) and everything was sweet with a multi race society until the coming of Chaos (unless you read @Otzi'mandias's stuff and I suggest you do).

Then a bunch of stuff happened for eight thousand years and the world blew up. Nothing important happens after that

 

[Scalenex]

That's a very interesting idea. Connecting the Old Oes and the Sky Titans is worthy of it's own thread.

 

[pendrake]

Acropolis .....?..... Necropolis


I just skimmed back through the thread. Result: I got to wondering if the correct word is being used.

 

[pendrake]

Necro-polis ...dead portion of the city.
Acro—polis ...highest point of the city.

Not sure which @Scalenex is really thinking.

 

[Warden]

Necro-polis ...dead portion of the city.
Acro—polis ...highest point of the city.

Not sure which @Scalenex is really thinking.

Necropolis would make sense if there were dead people buried (or "living") there.

Acropolis could represent where the ceremonies took place?

Would a Metropolis work better? Does that mean a place where people live in the city or a city as a whole?

 

[pendrake]

Well, we all know Metropolis is where Clark Kent lives....

But, the internet says metropolis literally means mother+city. So it descibes the city that founded the lesser, newer, younger cities.

 

[Scalenex]

Necro-polis ...dead portion of the city.
Acro—polis ...highest point of the city.

I am referring to the "Acropolis of Heroes" on page 130 of the 8th edition Big Red Book. I'm sure the Lizardmen call it something different, but I was using the standard term from the rulebook. (It bestows Stubborn and +1 to hit on units within 6 inches).

It's part of my scheme to make Lizardmen themed versions of the named terrain pieces.

My list of goals includes Wizards Tower, Acropolis of Heroes, Banestone, Sinister Statue, and Charnel Pit. It just so happens that the Acropolis of Heroes is the one piece I don't have a solid idea for, so I thought I'd mine the fluff forum for ideas.

It could be a temple, a cairn of stones, a holy body of water, a sacred grove, a commiserative statue, a stone pylon, almost anything. I was hoping something in this thread would inspire me to make up my mind.

 

[gb2098]

i'd say that an Acropolis of Heroes for lizardmen would probably be a monument of some kind. perhaps a Stele or whole line of them bearing the history of a particular temple, or perhaps just one Slann written out in (tiny) glyphs. the Mayans had a few sites with similar arrangements of Stele.

Charnel pit.. well, cross posting from the "Lizardman Afterlife" thread. first part is related to the afterlife, 2nd part is how that might translate to funeral rites. which includes a site that could count as a Charnel pit.

ok building on the idea of a reincarnation system, and what seems to fit the lizardmen..


so when you die, you go to the Abode of the Old Ones (which if asked where that is, skinks will tell you "the otherside of the stars". saurus and slann will ignore you) where your spirit is refreshed and can give them your memories of your small part of the Great Plan, before they send your spirit back to be reborn in a new spawning. however since you gave them your memories, you do not remember your previous life, though previous spawning s might recognize the spirit within you through various personality traits shared with previous lives. As there are far fewer spawnings and cities now than there once were in ages past, it is believed that some spirits are kept with the Old Ones until the time is right for them to return, and it is these ancient spirits that become the great heroes, as part of the Great Plan.

Since Slann do not spawn however, their spirits are believed to stay within the geomantic web, but without a bodily vessel to inhabit their memories will be gradually lost completely. thus the Slann are mummified and entombed within the temples, so that their knowledge will be preserved until the day the Old Ones return to the world.


as far as death rites go, i could see Saurus, Skinks, and kroxigors being given a brief period of lying in state, before being left for Excarnation, that is, left out for animals and bugs and such to consume the flesh. odds are that the cities would have dedicated sites in the jungle for this, with something akin to the Dahkma of the Zoroastrians, where the bodies can be placed for animals to reach them but still watched. odds are that insects would deflesh the bodies quite rapidly even before large animals would get to them. on campaign i suspect they'd do like the Plains Nations of North America did in older times and place the dead on scaffolds or in trees. Which would amount to much the same thing functionally. i do not think they would retain the bones of their own kind, so i suspect they would only watch the sites to ensure that no one disturbs the bodies before they are consumed by nature (preventing large carnivores from getting to them, or necromancers raising them as zombies, etc) but otherwise would not intervene.
Tying into the Slann thing above, you could easily have it that they believe that the spirit remains tied to the body, and for the spirit to go to the old ones the body must be no more. thus the excarnation. they have to ensure that the body is gone so that the dead can fulfill their cycle of life and rebirth.