Lustria - Rumble In the Jungle
An Army of Desert Lizards on Lustria's Western Shore
The Sandmaw are generally colored in browns and tans, with brilliant red scales along their backs.
Kai-Gor, Saurus Oldblood, Army General w/Carnosaur, Spear, Shield, Light Armor, Venom of the Firefly
Qua-Tli, Saurus Scar-Veteran, Army Standard Bearer, Great Weapon, Shield, Light Armor
Qori (Gold), Skink Priest, Level 2 Wizard
Qolle (Silver), Skink Priest, Level 2 Wizard
24x Saurus Warriors w/Hand Weapon and shield, Champion, Musician, Standard Bearer
16x Saurus Warriors w/Spear and shield, Champion, Musician, Standard Bearer
12x Skink Skirmishers w/Blowpipes
11x Skink Skirmishers w/Javelins and Shields
11x Skink Skirmishers w/Javelins and Shields
3x Terradon Riders w/Javelins
1x Triceradon Patriarch w/5 riders and Giant Bow
1x Triceradon Matriarch w/5 riders and Giant Bow
2x Razordon Hunting Packs w/6 handlers
Army Total: 2199 pts
Fortress (+100 pts)
Town (+100 pts)
Temple (+1 die to casting/dispel pools when risked)
The Origin of the Sandmaw Tribe
The history of the Sandmaw extends back thousands of years, to times before human history and into the events at the dawning of the world. In this time the Sandmaw were one of the many tribes of the greater lizardman race, and as such labored and toiled in accordance with the unfathomable designs of the great Old Ones. Their home was centered around the coastal city of Itlcouzal on the western shore of the continent of Lustria. In this time their home was a temperate paradise, washed with gentle rains from across the great sea and warmed by brilliant rays of a loving sun. It was for these gifts that Itlcouzal earned its name, meaning ‘Most Blessed’ in the lizardmen tongue.
But with the departure of the Old Ones, the world began to change, as did the fate of the lizardmen tribes. Saurus and skinks rose from Itlcouzal to fight alongside their fellows in the wars against chaos and the Skaven, and paid an equal price in blood and hardship. But even with these losses, Itlcouzal still shone as a diamond against lesser gems, for food in Itlcouzal was abundant, the wind was always warm, and the dangers of war remained distant and safe. While the other cities of the lizardmen struggled with pestilence and chaos, Itlcouzal thrived untouched.
So perhaps it was the cosmic balance that turned the winds of fate against Itlcouzal, perhaps it was cruel chance, or perhaps it was something else, something more terrible and deliberate. But whatever the reason, when the Slann Lords chose to reshape the world, it was revealed through ancient prophecy that Itlcouzal would be among the sacrifices in the name of the greater good. The winds would shift with the continents’ realignment, and shielding volcanic islands far out to sea would dip again beneath the waves. As consequence, the rains that fed Itlcouzal’s fertile streams and ponds and streams would move elsewhere, and the black soil that rooted their forests would turn to sand and ash. There was no debate on this topic, as the Slann Lords knew it was what had to be. There could be no argument with the Old Ones’ unfathomable plans.
Yet there was a single act of dissent from within Itlcouzal itself, from the Slann Mage-Priest called Zhallax. Zhallax meditated on the fate of his fair city, and found that only drastic, heretic action could save the saurus and skinks that dwelled in Itlcouzal. And so, as the other Slann focused their minds and shifted the continental plates against one another, Zhallax put his great powers to a different use. He changed the lizardmen of Itlcouzal to become something else, something that would survive the cruel new world that awaited them. He created the Sandmaw.
Zhallax hardened his followers’ scales, sealed their skin, and changed their bodies to accommodate arid, moisture-poor environments. The sun became a source of life to them, such that they could drink it up and find sustenance for years without other food or water. Gone were the webbings between the skink laborer’s feet, gone were the spawning pools that had given them their births. What came instead were steps too quick to burn on the sands’ shifting faces, and eggs that would hatch in buried nests or beneath sheltering rocks. Zhallax’s followers became something different from their brethren, different from anything the Old Ones had foreseen. They became the lost tribe of the Copper deserts. They became a race apart from the lizardmen’s jungle empire, a corruption of the great plan that even the mage-priests of Lustria had no will to consider or combat.
Perhaps the reason the lizardmen armies did not march on the Sandmaw’s apostasy was because they knew Zhallax’s tribe were doomed already. They had foreseen the rigors of Zhallax’s spell, and knew the strain of the transformative magic would be too much for him. Even as his people changed to embrace the desert’s trials, Zhallax weakened in body and spirit. On the day he finally slumped forward into death, his great plan for the Sandmaw was only steps away from completion. But Zhallax died too soon, and in so doing, he doomed the Sandmaw to a slow and torturous downfall.
For there was a flaw in Zhallax’s spell, a tiny crack that ate at its foundation. To survive the deserts, the Sandmaw had to change more than just their bodies, more than how they ate and slept and bred. Zhallax had to change their spirits as well. They had to come to know that they were to forever be apart from the other world, forever separate, forever different. They were to become as living ghosts, remnants of Itlcouzal’s former glory, and shadows of a paradise that was. Without this change of mind, they would always look back with bitter nostalgia and slow-burning remorse. They would always be reminded of what they once were, and never appreciate what they had become. It was this piece of the spell that went missing at the end, and it was this mistake that meant the Sandmaw would never know peace.
Itlcouzal’s emerald boughs were already wilting and falling away as the skink priests wrapped venerable Zhallax in funeral bandages and sealed his body away beneath their greatest pyramid. Here they asked him to watch over their tribe even in death, and to grant them the strength to persevere through the challenges to come. The Saurus Oldblood Kai-Gor took leadership in the wake of Zhallax’s passing, and directed his people to become guardians of the desert. Kai-Gor did not know of prophecy, he did not know what was to come. And so, unburdened of such worrisome things as fate, he bid his people to wait until paradise was to come again. Surely Itlcouzal would be blessed again someday. Surely the gods had not abandoned them entirely.
But centuries passed, and no relief came. The sands of the copper desert ate in from the coast until there was nothing but bleached earth and baked stone all the way to the Spine of Sotek. The city of Itlcouzal withered and cracked in the heat of an unforgiving sun, and eventually was abandoned by all but a handful of the Sandmaw. The tribe scattered to the corners and crevices wind-washed desert, and survived in any way they could. They waited together for a time when fate would reverse itself…when they would be favored again.
It has been a millennia since Itlcouzal was last spoken of. The lost tribe do not use the name anymore—it has no meaning to them. They are now only what they have become, a race of nomads and ghosts, a tribe forgotten by their gods and lost in their fate.
They are the Sandmaw…and they are alone.