After two days of mop-up operations, the Gnoll tribes in Hulek Forest had been slaughtered one after another. Aaron had no fondness whatsoever for these famous "beginner monsters," the very embodiment of chaotic evil creatures. He ordered that every Gnoll they encountered be killed on sight, with no survivors.
"Trying to communicate with Gnolls is the fastest way into their stomachs."
-Varo's adventure report
But when the troops at the front reported encountering clusters of Lizardfolk settlements, Aaron had to give the matter some thought.
Should I spare these Lizardfolk?
The Lizardfolk of the Realms were different from those of Warhammer. In theory, Warhammer's Lizardfolk consisted of the Slann, servants of the Old Ones, and the guardian lizards the Old Ones had created for them. These guardians were further divided into intelligent Skinks and powerful Saurus. They were true inheritors of an advanced civilization, somewhat like the Serpentfolk Empire that had succeeded the Sarrukh Empire. Although the Serpentfolk lacked the Wuhai's staggering magical abilities and understood much of their technology only superficially, that had still been enough for the Serpentfolk Empire to dominate an era.
Anything the Lizardfolk casually dug out of an Old Ones pyramid was more advanced than what most civilizations in the Warhammer World possessed.
The Lizardfolk of the Realms were different. They were scaled humanoids, though their appearance was closer to lizards or dragons than to humans, Dwarves, or Elves.
Lizardfolk possessed an enigmatic mindset unlike that of humans. Their desires and thoughts were driven by a set of fundamental principles different from those of warm-blooded creatures.
Their gloomy swamp homes might lie hundreds of miles from the nearest human settlement, but their way of thinking was far more distant from that of the smooth-skinned folk.
As cold-blooded creatures, the Lizardfolk of the Realms struggled to