Back at it with another piece featuring a character from another DnD campaign I'm in (currently on hiatus at that!)

This here is Cualli, originally a design I got from  TeaEel back in July, repurposing him for use in said campaign, and just now getting around to drawing him myself! He's a tall lizardfolk with a very simple personality, and a walking ray of sunshine.

...And, yeah - not much else to say really! Figure I could afford to shove the backstory I'd written up for him down below, for anyone interested in learning more about him.

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A lizardfolk ranger hailing from a jungle tribe known as the Yaocui, Cualli is a jovial soul with an affinity toward battle in spite of his kind nature. His father, Tizoc, was an esteemed warrior, while his mother, Eleuia, was a healer; both held to high esteem in the clan.

With the males of the tribe harboring a notable penchant for aggression, a young Cualli was indicted in the ways of a warrior under his father's instruction; weapons forged of fang, bone, and claw were the few objects that gave his hands comfort; whilst the hides of the beasts he felled were harbored as trophies and later used for clothing. A life as this was well-lived for Yaocui's warriors, keen on striking down the beasts entering their domain, all while hosting the occasional festivities which offered outsiders a chance to indulge in their cultural practices.

Yet a life as this, was doomed to end someday. Perhaps, even the most optimistic of the tribe knew that inevitably, the days they were blessed by light would dim and fade to a distant memory. Soothsayers of the tribe and neighboring clans foretold of a day the moon would one day blot out the sun and bring ruin to them all.

The sun, ever the pride of the tribe, who they all but revered as a deity among the stars—such a tale inspired fear in even the most hardened of Yaocui warriors. What were they to do? What prophecy could let the sun continue to shine? Would they try to strike the stars down, that the sun may continue to shine?

Cualli knew not what to think, only an adolescent, bowing to the whims of his superiors. Many who feared for the end, sealed themselves beneath the earth in the ruins their ancestors once called home; clinging to the desperate hope their guardian deity would bring them salvation in their darkest hour.

...Others simply went mad. The day of the eclipse drew closer, and when the moon blotted out the sun's dying rays, the slaughter incurred was beyond imagining. Mother, father, family, friends—all, once his kin whom he danced and celebrated with, the grass and trees alike were indiscriminately stained a foul crimson come the moon's passage, and as Cualli soon awakened from what felt like an eternal dream, his scales too, were stained with the same color.

And in his hand, the fang of a beast he could not recall felling, lay clutched tight in his claws.

The Yaocui rebuilt, survivors of the surface and those who hid beneath the earth came as one and made a vow then to never let such a tragedy take place again. They began to fear the moon, seeing it as a harbinger of the eclipse and world's demise.

Yet, on the nights when the rest of the clan shuttered inside worn temples and dens, Cualli looked to the moon and her children for guidance. Perhaps, atonement even. The fang he'd held upon his regaining consciousness—it was a reminder of that day, yet a hope for redemption.

...Redemption, for a crime his people had committed? For centuries of bloodshed for a night of jovial celebration?

No sooner branded a pariah, Cualli would leave his clan many years later, harboring hope that one day, he would find an answer to the tragedy that had occurred, answers to the origin of the fang he carried, and why it was they could not coexist with the night.