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Description
(Fig. 1) Anatomy

The Lizard Folk are a species of sapient beings who somewhat resemble terrestrial birds and some long-extinct clades of theropod dinosaurs. These similarities are, however, entirely superficial. The Lizard Folk are actually an alien species transplanted from some distant star to this current world which they now share along with humanity and several other intelligent non-human sapients. The Lizard Folk predominantly live on the western reaches of the continent, but some rare individuals have ventured east to the lands of the Mai and other human polities.

Pictured above is a fairly typical example of this species off to fetch some water from the local river. This individual stands around 1.7 meters tall (i.e., about as tall as an average human male) and weighs around 85 kilograms. All Lizard Folk are effectively hermaphrodites (i.e., able to bear young and sire offspring), but can still be divided up into three distinct sexes that vary somewhat in coloring, size, and disposition. This particular Lizard Folk belongs to Sex 'Y' (as opposed to X or Z), which is the most populous of the three in the Southlands. All of these sexes are capable of breeding together and creating viable infants, or 'pips.'

Lizard Folk have exceptional vision, aided by their large highly developed eyes, but are incapable of moving their eyes inside of their sockets. They seem to compensate for this by being able to rotate their heads around nearly 270 degrees. Their airways are localized around four cartilaginous apertures spanning the length of their neck, while their actual olfactory faculties are situated in the pyramidal knobs and long feelers that rest just above their mouths. They hear the world around them through two 'auditory blossoms' that they can open and close as they wish. Their beaked mouths give way to two tongues that help to convey their meal down their spike-lined gullets.

The Lizard Folk are hexapods, like many of the vertebrates analogues from their world, but only use two of them for locomotion. The first and second pair of limbs both display an unguligrade structure, each bearing four hooved extremities. Their frontal limbs are designed for fine manipulation, with two long fingers and two thumbs to either side of them. Their hind legs are greatly reduced and serve to help them clasp onto their mate during reproduction as well as to facilitate communication.

As it were, they do not have any vocal cords. The Lizard Folk have no voice. They instead communicate by way of their two hind limbs which they can scrape together and beat against their posterior to make various noises. The skin around this area forms a kind of percussive instrument, as it is highly pliable and can be made taut or loose to vary the pitch of each limb-stroke. They use all of these features to fashion an odd, musical language that is very hard for humans to properly replicate. Some, unsurprisingly, find it rather humorous that these creatures "talk" by slapping their rear-ends, but they find our incessant squawking speech to be similarly amusing.

(Fig. 2) A Sculpture

This statue was created by a Mayic sculptor and is meant to depict a Lizard Folk. It seems readily apparent that she probably never saw a Lizard Folk in her life. The Mai, and other eastern human cultures often depict their alien neighbors in highly anthropomorphized styles, and this likely influenced the artist as she combined what little she knew of this mysterious species with her idea of what a 'person' would look like.

Description
(Fig. 1) Anatomy

The Lizard Folk are a species of sapient beings who somewhat resemble terrestrial birds and some long-extinct clades of theropod dinosaurs. These similarities are, however, entirely superficial. The Lizard Folk are actually an alien species transplanted from some distant star to this current world which they now share along with humanity and several other intelligent non-human sapients. The Lizard Folk predominantly live on the western reaches of the continent, but some rare individuals have ventured east to the lands of the Mai and other human polities.

Pictured above is a fairly typical example of this species off to fetch some water from the local river. This individual stands around 1.7 meters tall (i.e., about as tall as an average human male) and weighs around 85 kilograms. All Lizard Folk are effectively hermaphrodites (i.e., able to bear young and sire offspring), but can still be divided up into three distinct sexes that vary somewhat in coloring, size, and disposition. This particular Lizard Folk belongs to Sex 'Y' (as opposed to X or Z), which is the most populous of the three in the Southlands. All of these sexes are capable of breeding together and creating viable infants, or 'pips.'

Lizard Folk have exceptional vision, aided by their large highly developed eyes, but are incapable of moving their eyes inside of their sockets. They seem to compensate for this by being able to rotate their heads around nearly 270 degrees. Their airways are localized around four cartilaginous apertures spanning the length of their neck, while their actual olfactory faculties are situated in the pyramidal knobs and long feelers that rest just above their mouths. They hear the world around them through two 'auditory blossoms' that they can open and close as they wish. Their beaked mouths give way to two tongues that help to convey their meal down their spike-lined gullets.

The Lizard Folk are hexapods, like many of the vertebrates analogues from their world, but only use two of them for locomotion. The first and second pair of limbs both display an unguligrade structure, each bearing four hooved extremities. Their frontal limbs are designed for fine manipulation, with two long fingers and two thumbs to either side of them. Their hind legs are greatly reduced and serve to help them clasp onto their mate during reproduction as well as to facilitate communication.

As it were, they do not have any vocal cords. The Lizard Folk have no voice. They instead communicate by way of their two hind limbs which they can scrape together and beat against their posterior to make various noises. The skin around this area forms a kind of percussive instrument, as it is highly pliable and can be made taut or loose to vary the pitch of each limb-stroke. They use all of these features to fashion an odd, musical language that is very hard for humans to properly replicate. Some, unsurprisingly, find it rather humorous that these creatures "talk" by slapping their rear-ends, but they find our incessant squawking speech to be similarly amusing.

(Fig. 2) A Sculpture

This statue was created by a Mayic sculptor and is meant to depict a Lizard Folk. It seems readily apparent that she probably never saw a Lizard Folk in her life. The Mai, and other eastern human cultures often depict their alien neighbors in highly anthropomorphized styles, and this likely influenced the artist as she combined what little she knew of this mysterious species with her idea of what a 'person' would look like.