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Ancient lizard civilization in RPGs?

fantadomat

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I have noticed that quite a few games use that as a plot. A old lizard empire that got fucked up by the ice age and are returning to conquer the world. I am curious of which game is the progenitor of this kind of nerd lore. Is it come from D&D table top or was it firstly seen in pc games? Also do you thing that the whole "lizard people" conspiracy came from the game industry initially or there were insane people that believed it before that?
 

zaper

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IDK, my mIRC based group of Ultima Online roleplayers have been using lizard motiffs and aesthetics since early 2000~.

Lizardman.PNG


I always thought it was some kind of inside joke but I eventually realized that it was all over the virtual sphere of cultural reference, with reptilians owning the world and what not.
 

Raghar

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I have noticed that quite a few games use that as a plot. A old lizard empire that got fucked up by the ice age and are returning to conquer the world. I am curious of which game is the progenitor of this kind of nerd lore. Is it come from D&D table top or was it firstly seen in pc games? Also do you thing that the whole "lizard people" conspiracy came from the game industry initially or there were insane people that believed it before that?
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/325661.West_of_Eden
There, you can read some low quality book from famous SF author.

Or they could use Greek myths which had lizardmen.
 

oldmanpaco

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Weren't the Lizard Men in D&D some sort of remnant of a fallen civilization? That's the first time I can remeber lizard people being part of ancient lore in a game.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/325661.West_of_Eden
There, you can read some low quality book from famous SF author.

Or they could use Greek myths which had lizardmen.

This is more more Alt History than an old Lizard Empire. But the Lizard/Man sex gave 12 year old me the strangest boner.
 

Humanophage

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Reptile worship, and especially serpent worship, is strongly associated with ancient cults and the underworld. It's the pre-eminent chthonic creature. E.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_worship or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpent_(symbolism). It frequently represents something that a newer generation of gods defeated.

Robert E. Howard's works already featured reptilian empires in the 1920s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serpent_Men
The seat of the First Empire of the Serpent People, during the Paleozoic era, is Valusia. Valusia is a fictional country in the Kull stories of Robert E. Howard and his stories tell, among other things, of the Serpent Men trying to conquer the world once again, around 20,000 years ago, where Kull from Atlantis reigned over the Valusia Kingdom, located on the west coast of the main continent of Thuria. The ancient Serpent Empire was based on sorcery and alchemy, but collapsed with the rise of the dinosaurs about 225 million years ago during the Triassic era. The Serpent Men originally ruled over humans in Valusia, but were defeated and almost wiped out in humanity's battle for survival against the "elder things", which predated even them. Over time, humans dominated Valusia and the Serpent Men became a legend. The Serpent Men, one of the few surviving "elder things", infiltrated human society and ruled from behind the scenes for a time, but were again discovered, defeated, and cast out in a secret war. However, they later repeated this tactic. Soon, they added the front of a Snake Cult religion, which gained power and influence within Valusia while the Serpent Men used their abilities of disguise to murder or replace each reigning monarch. Their power is eventually broken by King Kull, formerly an Atlantean barbarian who had recently conquered Valusia, and the Pict Brule the Spear-Slayer, whose society was aware of the Serpent Men's infiltration.
Serpent Men are humanoids with scaled skin and snake-like heads. They possess magical abilities, the most common of which is the use of illusion to disguise themselves as a human. In some stories, the ghost of someone killed by a Serpent Man becomes the Serpent Man's slave. Due to the shape of their mouths, Serpent Men cannot utter the phrase "Ka nama kaa lajerama." Howard's character Kull uses the phrase as a shibboleth in the story The Shadow Kingdom.[1]
Seems largely indistinguishable from what we see nowadays, except now they occasionally add Mesoamerican motifs.

Then there is of course the role they played in Egypt - it's hard not to connect reptilians and ancient forgotten empires that practice slavery and sacrifice.
03087bf40ad162d93d831e691cdfa9ec8a13cd52.jpg
 
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fantadomat

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Seems largely indistinguishable from what we see nowadays, except now they occasionally add Mesoamerican motifs.

Then there is of course the role they played in Egypt - it's hard not to connect reptilians and ancient forgotten empires.
Yeah,i got thinking about it and remembered about Lovecraft's "The nameless city". From what i read on the wiki his inspirations about the lizard people came from some critique.
 

fantadomat

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Not much of lizard conspiracy fans on the codex,shame. So,anyone knows what the first game with lizard people empire is,NWN?
 

Funposter

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lizards are like dinosaurs, and dinosaurs are old

that's it. your brain associates old shit with lizards because you've been programmed by "scientific" propaganda, as have 99% of writers for nerd garbage.
 

Morkar Left

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Wasn't that coming from Conan? Together with Tolkien probably the most influencial Fantasy for p&p rpgs and from there influencing crpgs.
 

fantadomat

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lizards are like dinosaurs, and dinosaurs are old

that's it. your brain associates old shit with lizards because you've been programmed by "scientific" propaganda, as have 99% of writers for nerd garbage.
Nah,there are not old shit about lizard people. The fad came around 19 century.
 

fantadomat

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The earliest famous example seems to be the warhammer one.
Well there is an earlier examples like Lovecraft. Warhammer and D&D may have repopularised it in nerd culture,but i don't know if they had that effect outside of it. Also i believe that lizards were added in later expansions of the lore in both P&P games,but i could be mistaken,my P&P knowledge is limited.
 

mondblut

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Weren't the Lizard Men in D&D some sort of remnant of a fallen civilization? That's the first time I can remeber lizard people being part of ancient lore in a game.

In Forgotten Realms, the most ancient of "creator races" are the serpentine sarrukh, yes.
 

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