11 Nightal

Something I don't think I really internalized is how negative the general population of Waterdeep's opinion was on Lizardfolk. For me, Howldown was a weird mix of people dressing up like it was Halloween, and children running around doing mock quests to be adventurers. It was probably Pelsot's favourite day of the year.

For Durah and Laraek, they had to hide in the workshop all day. If they were inclined to do it during the winter I doubt the lizardfolk trading party would have made the journey around now either. It was something I hadn't really understood, that to most people Lizardfolk were these mysterious murderous creatures that would ambush and murder people trying to travel in swampier areas.

Meanwhile, I had gone out on a limb reaching out to them, something most would likely consider me crazy for, and it had paid off well both metaphorically and literally. They were willing to work with me as a relative equal to them, perhaps slightly apprehensive of my age but far less than most. That was an advantage to working with them I suppose, that they tended to value things quite literally and frankly.

The realization was a bit of a downer for me, with as much fun as I had last year. How many other species were painted with so broad a brush when they were hardly monolithic? Something to talk to Orsik about perhaps. A study on the civilizations of those that aren't of the more typical civilized category.

Otherwise though, the day was relatively enjoyable. I left Pelsot to take Jespa to go on their various "adventures" around the city, citing sore ankles making walking very far unpleasant. I spent some of the day instead at the workshop, putting effort into the weaving with what spiders I had collected with decent quality silk.

My power… I've started to realize just how the changes have impacted my capabilities. I can't set the bugs to weaving in the same way I did before, not automatically. I basically have to be there, mentally or physically, concentrating a lot more on the handful I can have working at a time. The pace is slower, and I can't really do other things while focusing on them.

23 Nightal

The days of winter tend to be pretty dull, in all honesty. It's either spending much of the day in our home with Tulgor watching over us, making the trek across the city to spend time studying with Orsik, or on more pleasant days going out to the park for the scant daylight hours to play in the snowy parks and open areas with the other kids.

Well, that's what my family thinks. I've actually been spending a lot of time at the workshop with Durah and Laraek. A large portion of that has been spent mostly on being actually productive in the silk weaving and feeding of the various spiders.

The spare time though where I don't need to put much focus on my bugs is dedicated to language lessons. Typically lizardfolk speak their own variant of Draconic and don't really bother with anything else. They tend to be insular within their tribes and don't interact enough with outsiders for there to be much need for other languages. Persvek Casein is special in that regard, and is part of why they were comfortable settling so near Waterdeep. They had a handful of members who had learned common… somehow. I can't exactly place the accent so it isn't Waterdavian, so maybe from a trader from one of the other city-states?

We've been going back and forth on it over the last tendays. I help them work on pronunciation and understanding words they are likely to deal with during bartering, and they've been helping me learn a bit about the structure of the Draconic language and some of the words. The language seems to have symbols that generally correspond to similar languages in common, which was interesting to learn.

I probably won't be very confident in my ability to speak it well. I never learned a second language back on Bet. The written portion though is likely to be more useful, from what scraps I was able to understand from Orsik. A lot of wizard magic tends to link back to Draconic lettering and symbols. Not universally, but it's often enough that a lot of wizards put in the work to learn it.

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14 Hammer

According to Orsik, my Draconic was "barely better than an orc speaking Elvish". Considering how much orcs tend to abhor anything elvish, that's quite the judgement. Admittedly, also unsurprising given how I haven't exactly been learning it for very long and from a group that probably had a strange accent. I have to wonder if it's the equivalent to speaking in heavy Scottish or something.

Other than that disappointing revelation, studying has certainly been productive, and enlightening in an even more disappointing way. Orsik was… is very frank on a lot of topics and the pitfalls to watch out for during research, and the entire topic on the more barbaric and monstrous races developing civilizations is full of them.

Inconsistent date-keeping, obviously biassed scholars certainly muddying the facts, contradictory stories from various groups, and second or even third-hand sources. The list goes on and on. Naturally more "cultured" learned people tend to not want to risk their lives and livelihood on interacting with what would be considered dangerous creatures, and it isn't helped that oftentimes what does develop tends to not last all that long. You get a good leader or two but when they die it tends to all fall apart.

They tend to come in two categories. A few individuals bucking the standards and doing their best to revolutionize and beat sense into their fellows, or those who create structured societies that seem closer to a warped mockery of more sane civilizations. The latter, or the structures the former are bucking, tend to be created and reinforced via divine influence.

Take the Drow, for example, an underground cave-dwelling variant of the Elves. Accepted lore is that they were originally the followers of the once-elven goddess Lolth, who was cast out of the Elven pantheon after a failed rebellion against their progenitor. She built up a civilized empire underground that can generously be described as "Lawful Evil". Ruled over by a noble Matriarchy, where men have basically no rights at all, nor do most of the women barring them having significant personal or political power. The noble houses are constantly backstabbing the others and themselves, full of assassination attempts and power struggles.

It's also basically powered via slave labour from what reports come out of it. Being captured and brought into the depths of the earth, forced to work to death under motivation to avoid torture or simple execution. Escape rendered implausible for most due to the significant danger of the denizens of the Underdark beyond the drow parties that would be sent out to hunt them down. Such a scenario is hard to believe that it would actually exist for generations, let alone centuries. Lolth is a controlling goddess, causing strife among her people while guiding them just enough to continue in their twisted ways.

Generations ago there were other Drow gods and goddesses that lived, but Lolth managed a plot that allowed for the death of the vast majority of them. Where once there were possibilities for rivals and escape from her grasp, she was thorough in her dissuading of such rebellion.

There are also examples in the opposite direction, of the races that are otherwise under the cruel thumb of whatever gods created and manipulated them that managed to break their chains and build something better. They run into many problems with their population constantly struggling to go back to the old bad habits, the leadership needing a firm hand to maintain a semblance of order and discipline.

Such fledgling attempts and civilization are also rarely actually supported by their neighbours, whether they are barbaric raiders or long-developed city-states. Few are truly pleased to see powerful rivals attempting to rise in the vicinity.

image [https://www.dndbeyond.com/attachments/0/662/c4draconicalphabet.jpg]