Galapo the Recluse

"The hot-bloods will not listen to me, but perhaps they will heed you. Tell them this: that their quest for vengeance is righteous. But what is righteous is not always what is best. War can have no good outcome: either your newborn empire will die in its cradle, drowned in blood, or that shed blood will water the flowers of hate, and perpetuate a cycle of revenge that will never end." – Galapo, to Rhazin Scarhide Galapo the Recluse is one of the rare Lizardmen born with hard shells upon their backs and the endurance to withstand countless years of life's vagaries. They do not age, but can perish through violence and disaster, and are slow to breed. Therefore, despite their seeming immortality, there are only ever a few living on Teleria. Galapo, like his clutch-brother Krisk the Ageless, has watched for centuries as the triumphs and tragedies of Teleria's history have played out. As immortals, they tend to be deliberate and reserved, but Galapo is especially quiet and reclusive by nature. Few things are drastic enough to compel Galapo to act, for he has seen time and again the consequences of hasty action. Even the Great Wars were not enough to provoke Galapo to take up arms. He accepted that if it was Telera's fate to fall, he would fall with it, without resistance. What Galapo does, and has always done since the days of the Dragonkin, is advise. He has been renowned for his wisdom since the world was young. He lived as a hermit outside the city-state of Velyzar, and the great and the good of Dragonkin society considered it highly prestigious and fashionable to journey to his cave and sit at his feet. When the Dragonkin Empire fell, Ramantu Drakesblood sought his aid. He recognized Galapo's great wisdom and humility, and his practical knowledge of wilderness survival gleaned from his long hermitage. Ramantu wanted Galapo to share these virtues with the people so that they could recover and rebuild. Galapo too wanted his people to gain more of his knowledge, and out of compassion wished to help them — he saw in the catastrophe a chance for his people to learn and grow. But as soon as they had settled in the Sorrowlakes, he faded into seclusion once again. Generations later, another famous Lizardman sought Galapo's precious guidance: Rhazin Scarhide, a founder of the Gaellen Pact. Scarhide wanted to know how best to persuade the other leaders of the nascent Gaellen Warclave, who longed for war against the Telerian League, to seek a path of peace. Galapo concurred, but the words of both Lizardmen went unheeded. As Galapo had feared and warned, great disaster befell the Gaellens after a long, brutal conflict. Thereafter Galapo vowed to withhold even the merest whisper of his counsel to the young-folk who failed to utilize it. Centuries later, in the modern day, Galapo's famed neutrality is being tested once again. Ambitious souls such as the gutter-prince Chaagur and the Demonspawn-Lizardman Sulfuryion openly strive to restore the Dragonkin Empire, which Galapo foresaw ushering in an era of strife among Lizardmen as claimants for Emperor battled each other. He has begun a search for his nest-mate Krisk the Ageless, wishing to consult with a fellow immortal, to decide together if they should at last risk intervening in Telerian affairs one more time.