[NOTE: I previously described reptiles in general, here. Below applies specifically to crocodiles.]

Everyone will tell you crocodiles are brutes. The local bully is often a crocodile. Positive guidance at an early age can nurture this into useful careers as bodyguards, bouncers, wrestlers and bill collectors. However, when raised among their own kind they typically grow into the quintessential thug: burly, vicious and petty.

This is such common knowledge that the rare crocodile moved to more noble bearing finds it hard to excel in polite society. When most of your kind achieve through intimidation and violence, it can be difficult to convince others of your good intentions. A crocodile has trouble charming anybody; there are just too many teeth on display. And though they can manage bursts of athleticism, they are simply unfit for the graceful arts. The young crocodile that aspires to dancing for a career is laughed out of their first performance, and usually by other crocodiles.

However, the openly sensitive crocodile is exceedingly rare. Most hatchlings are hissing little hooligans, right from the start - and are rewarded as such by parents brought up the same way. They make excellent bandits and legendary buccaneers; long lived warlords that lead familial tribes to terrorize the outskirts of decent towns and river crossings. And so on, it’s not hard to imagine the rest. The crocodilian aptitude for misdeed is only matched by their inclination to do so.

Yet it is also true that each crocodile does have some private inner passion for beauty that they can’t express, and some can’t even even name, having never been taught subtle words to appreciate the sublime. And so it will sometimes rarely happen that a crocodile is found amid bizarre scandal: caught under a bridge practicing crude graffiti, graceless claws holding bits of chalk to capture the beauty of a sunset, or overheard weeping to poetry in abandoned ruins. There are even fantastic rumors that they dance in secret grand balls with hippos when the moon is full, by whispered agreement and arrangement. However crocs will tell you all this is impossible; they don’t cry, nor dance - it must have been alligators.

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Shown is a crocodile holy guard providing safe passage for an acolyte. Both are members in one of the few remaining sects that still adhere to the old traditions. In doing my research on ancient Egyptian costume, I remembered that this fantasy setting is specifically not ancient times but 17th-18th century. So I instead chose to reference the guards from the Hollywood film The Ten Commandments. This seems like appropriate commentary on appropriated traditions that aren’t historically accurate but still allow people to feel tied to a larger identity than themselves. It also is charming to think of a contemporary religious cult so convinced of its ways, but based on orientalism and fantasy.