roguerouge said:
Not to poop the party here, but what, exactly, motivates a lizard? Cool as they may be in the board game functions of DnD I honestly have no idea what motivates them. Ever taken a look at the fluff for the Dragon Shaman? WotC has no idea what motivates dragon people either, as their description entirely boils down to the pursuit of power, whether you idealize a red dragon, a gold dragon, or a brass one.
Sell me on dragonborn having comprehensible motives and world view along with 1980s retro haircuts and you'll have me.
Perhaps it'll help if I give a little info on a desert-dwelling lizardfolk race I and a friend created for a campaign a while back. (They were originally a corrupt human empire that got transformed, but that's so many centuries in the past it makes no real difference.) I might use dragonborn for them, though the 'wings and breath weapon' feats won't make sense in that world.
They're oviparous, and the young aren't sapient until they hit puberty. Males and females can be told apart only by scent, and they're uninterested in sex when not in heat. When a female goes into heat, the locals select a male to be locked up with her until the deed is done; the female gets broody over the eggs at first, but loses interest when they hatch.
The young are trained (as in animals) to do useful work, not to pee on the rug, and so on. Around the age of 8 or 9, they start to babble and are taught to talk, then sent to school for a few years to learn the basics. After that, they are tested for intelligence and omens are cast; those who don't make the grade become slaves, others are assigned to jobs (the basic castes in order of esteem being roughly soldiers, farmers, artisans, scholars, ruler/commanders, and priests) based on their proclivities and the omens. One isn't fixed in a caste for life; if a farmer shows talent for writing he can be 'promoted' to scholar, for example; likewise rulers with antisocial tendencies can be 'demoted' to slaves. (It is assumed the omens were read improperly in such cases.)
The master/apprentice bond takes the place of family life for these guys; it is an intense and close relationship; the various castes are also organized into 'clans' based on schools of thought which also evoke intense loyalty.
They regard human creativity and versatility with a cool, aloof admiration they have no desire to really imitate; they think humans are crazy and sex-obsessed. (From their point of view, we're in heat *all the time*!) Their own culture tends toward valuing uniformity; innovation is slow and usually the work of a great master, typically the founder of a new clan/school of thought. (Nothing to say about other races, because we didn't use any of the D&D standard ones in that world, other than humans.)
Their justice is fair but very harsh. (This is due to historical and practical causes I needn't go into here. Suffice to say if it weren't harsh, things would get VERY BAD.) Being a foreign national, even an ambassador, does not exempt you - they'll sentence you to death for assault as readily as they would one of their own, and if it starts a war - well, humans are crazy anyway.
