Lizardfolk & Lizardfolk McGuffin

[HoboKnight]

Hey guys, two questions.

I am setting up an encounter for my group that will need to help defend a small city against lizardfolk invasion. This is rather high level campaign and story behind is: a powerful lizardfolk shaman has been building and gathering his forces in a large moor for past months and has now launched a major invasion with a goal of taking the region. His first target is a walled human settlement with a few thousand souls. Unbeknownst to the to the settlement, there is a McGuffin entombed under the city that shaman wants to get his hands on. What would this McGuffin be?

Second question is: I do not want just to spam dozens of lizardfolk in meat waves, but I want to make more interesting roster of enemies. So far I have:
- Lizardfolk warriors
- Lizardfolk casters (refluffed mages)
- Flying snakes (large, refluffed green dragons)
- Ram-lizards with a purpose of breaking down city gates (refluffed Goristos)
- Giant constrictor snakes

What other monsters could I use in order to reflect the lizardfolk-ness of the attack?

Thanks!

[LibraryOgre]

Consider undead spirit allies, conjured by the lizardfolk shamans.

For the McGuffin? Do you want it to be magical, or just symbolic?

I'd lean towards "symbol of ancient times" or "long dead demigod", myself.

[HoboKnight]

Thinking of it, it should be something, residents will not allow digging up from under a city. Perhaps an underground temple, dedicates to a snake god is a good idea IMO. And a bunch of sacrifices (city population) is always a bonus for a shaman.

[Bohandas]

My thought is that the "lizardfolk" shaman is actually a human politician who's merely disguised as a lizard for sinister purposes. And the troops could be backed up and supplemented by this person's other allies

[Psyren]

I would go for a reptilian progenitor race (the Sarrukhs are always a good go-to for things like this, or you can call them something else like Ophidians or Orochi or Silurians if you want to distance your game from FR stuff.) They had an ancient temple or ruin under the town that contains a WMD they were working on, but never got to use, that would have eliminated all those filthy monkey upstart mammals before they could spread and dominate the surface - your shaman learned of its existence and wants to finish the job his ancestors started. Doubly fun if there are stasis traps under there containing dinosaurs and the like from the setting's antediluvian era, whose seals are also starting to erode right as the lizardfolk attack, resulting in dinosaurs busting out in the middle of town - this could be the first clue to the PCs that there's something down there that they need to investigate.

Regarding the invaders, you can mix things up with them by throwing in some other reptilian and amphibian races like Grung scouts and Yuan-Ti mages.

[Morphic tide]

My own thought for adding enemy variety would be something like 3.5's Skin Kites from Libris Mortis, Undead made from parts of skin that could be made from the shed patches of the Lizardfolk's with limited issue but cause horrifying damage to humans.

Could be mixed with Bohandas's idea to complete the inversion of the old conspiracy with the human politician's disguise relying on a suit of them.

[Tiktakkat]

For lizards, there are poison dusk and blackscales, troglodytes and tren, firenewts, asabi, stingtails, and khaasta as basic variants, and of course some lizard kings.
Upscaling, you can do some refluffing on various Spawn of Tiamat, as well as throwing abishai in for good measure.
Wyverns and possibly dragonnels are a possibility.
Somewhat more obscure off are babblers and bonesnappers.

For a macguffin, how macguffin-y versus how direct power are you looking for? Possibilities:
An orb of dragonkind
Something to summon an avatar of tiamat or a demonic lizard
A crest of lizardly might to give a boost to ruling lizard men
The Maltese Lizard, covered in gems and bestowing great glory and status to whoever owns it
The Last Molting of Semuanya worth nothing but giving even more lizardy status than all of the above combined

[Bohandas]

100 years supply of non-dairy milk substitute

[Beelzebub1111]

An Egg Sandwich /joke

Serious answer:
The Lizards may just want food and since their land isn't suitable for farming, nor do they have the technology for it and they subsist by raiding from others. It could be that they refer to this practice of sieging and raiding as "hunting" seeing the settled human farmers as we would see a herd of grazing deer. And with all the usual rules of hunting like "don't take so much that they can't repopulate or recover, we need a sustainable foodsource"

If you want a true and blue MacGuffin then it doesn't really matter what the lizards want, it's just something that is important to them. But if you don't want to resolve it by just finding the thing and giving them the thing you have 1 of 2 options

1)The thing is also important to the settlement. For example: A decanter of endless water that is the town's only source of clean water. if the lizards take it then the town dies.

2)The thing is dangerous for the lizards to have. For Example: The sarcophagus of a Staked vampire lizardman that will usher in a new age of darkness if he is revived.

Hope this advice helps. Sieges are fun but It's a good idea if the enemy has a goal to finish the siege.

[Leon]

The mummified remains of a large amphibian on a palanquin

[Unoriginal]

What if the city was built on the back of an absolutely enormous undead Dragon-Turtle, and the dungeon is just the skull/piloting seat?

[Bohandas]

Second question is: I do not want just to spam dozens of lizardfolk in meat waves, but I want to make more interesting roster of enemies. So far I have:
- Lizardfolk warriors
- Lizardfolk casters (refluffed mages)
- Flying snakes (large, refluffed green dragons)
- Ram-lizards with a purpose of breaking down city gates (refluffed Goristos)
- Giant constrictor snakes

What other monsters could I use in order to reflect the lizardfolk-ness of the attack?

Thanks!

Nagas and Yuan-Ti

[Mastikator]

Second question is: I do not want just to spam dozens of lizardfolk in meat waves, but I want to make more interesting roster of enemies. So far I have:
- Lizardfolk warriors
- Lizardfolk casters (refluffed mages)
- Flying snakes (large, refluffed green dragons)
- Ram-lizards with a purpose of breaking down city gates (refluffed Goristos)
- Giant constrictor snakes

What other monsters could I use in order to reflect the lizardfolk-ness of the attack?

Thanks!

You could have some constructs that have been McGuiver'd from animal parts by some ingenious lizardfolk. Siege equipment I'm thinking.

Also: dinosaurs.

[MrZJunior]

You could have the lizardmen use their flying snakes to bypass the walls.

Dropping some bezerker types in the middle of town during an assault would be very disruptive.

Dropping a bunch of dudes on the top of an isolated wall tower might get them a foothold. Also, it forces the humans to man more of their defenses more fully, wearing them down.

Finally, if the lizardmen can see better in the dark than the humans, getting a bunch dropped on the gate house at night would be a good way to take it.

[JellyPooga]

The Baron's Hat (legendary, requires attunement): This fashionable, if now tattered, black top hat is decorated with a rooster feather and an ominous looking tarot card tucked into its purple hat-band. It once belonged to the Baron that founded [the city] and is currently buried with its owner in the catacombs below it. Unbeknownst to most of the residents, The Baron was a powerful necromancer and this hat was instrumental in his rise to power and the foundling success of the settlement he established. The wearer of this hat may cast augury, divination and speak with dead at-will. Using the Barons Hat to cast augury and divination in this way will always contact dark gods and loa of death and undeath, giving appropriate responses. In addition, the hat has 3 charges. The wearer may expend one charge to cast Animate Dead (5th level), Summon Undead (5th level) or Danse Macabre. The wearer may also expend three charges to cast Create Undead (8th level) or Magic Jar. One charge is gained each midnight. One additional charge is gained on each of the three nights of a full moon. The Barons Hat gains 6 charges on the night of a blood moon. These charge gains are cumulative (i.e. at midnight of a full blood moon, the hat will gain 8 charges). The Barons Hat loses all of its charges in excess of 3 at dawn each day. Any use of Animate Dead, Danse Macabre and Create Undead while using the hat may target Beasts, Giants and Monstrosities in addition to Humanoids; your GM should create statblocks of appropriate Challenge, as required. The Hat does not function in daylight.

If your lizardfolk shaman isn't after a snazzy voodoo-hat to help it raise the swamp as it's zombie legion of the dead to swallow the world, then you need to rethink your apocalypse IMO :smallbiggrin: