Well, bleeding the Sal raises the question, "What do they eat in the desert that helps them live, let alone survive regular blood harvesting?"

Quote from: Opaopajr;790265Well, bleeding the Sal raises the question, "What do they eat in the desert that helps them live, let alone survive regular blood harvesting?"

Agreed.

Now my thought process was that Graal would live like other desert nomads moving between small oases with a small group of animals.
I see Sals as being a bit like lizard camels

No groups anywhere actually live out in the wastes permanently. The Map scale won't show these places obviously and knowledge of them is a closely guarded secret.

So the Graal Pride brings their animals to the oasis stays there for a handful of days making sure the place isn't overgrazed then move on across the dessert for a few days to next place. They would bleed their animals for food on the way and hunt small game like ibex, dessert fox etc. Would be cool to give then hawks but that might be too much of a cultural copy

So they're big, migrating iguanas? Or just like another ruminant (which would be a mere skin swap)? So where's the Sahel?

Also: Why bipedal? Why rideable? Why not camels and be done with it? What does reptile provide that mammal doesn't?

Note: "Flavor" is the cop out answer. Follow through decisions to its logical conclusion and seize the creative opportunity.

(I'm demanding because I care.)

Quote from: Opaopajr;790273So they're big, migrating iguanas? Or just like another ruminant (which would be a mere skin swap)? So where's the Sahel?

Also: Why bipedal? Why rideable? Why not camels and be done with it? What does reptile provide that mammal doesn't?

Note: "Flavor" is the cop out answer. Follow through decisions to its logical conclusion and seize the creative opportunity.

(I'm demanding because I care.)

It is all flavour.

Like I said the process here is randomise a coast develop a reasonable map off it whilst in the back f your mind you have a Trope. It has to be a big trope and this time it was sword and sandals/sorcery.

Why not camels... because the idea of the PCs gettign involved with a breeder or battle camels and ending up being in some gladitorial battle between them and a bunch of camels doesn;t work as well as them fighting bipedal lizards with talon blades and sharpened teeth

Because meh ...

So we assue there are these lizards and they have been domesticated because they cope really well with the environment. That is like a precursor. They aren't camels because well they aren't camels. I didn't imagine a cat nomad in a turban riding a camel he was riding a mini T-rex

So digging into the why .....

Sals are dinosaur survivors this world didn't have major extinction event. The  extreme stuff was worn away overtime and the sal were the evolutionary line that survived. The cats evolved next to them the humans are all late arrivals in the last 1000 years or so.
The area used to be wetter but has dried out over the last couple of thousand years pushing the Graal from the northern grasslands towards the slightly wetter coast as the desert advanced. The sal whom the Graal have been hunting for thousands of years out there on the grass used to number herds of tens of thousands but now they have have been al but obliterated int eh wild and now only exist as domesticated beasts.

Humans migrating to the coast in small groups from the East. They were able to exploit the rich mineral reserves far more easily than the Graal who had never developed metal working and quickly established cities on the coast and penetrated inland introducing irrigation and agriculture where it was possible the area has dried more since but  the humans have a firm hold on the area now.

Something like that.

Now that is interesting. These creatures, and the Graal, are evolutionary remnants pushed to the margins in a last stand. Humans came in and colonized, brought more tech for reliable metal tools, & way more plant food. However, this is both creatures' last stand, agriculture & animal husbandry will likely compete with Sal, and thus Graal livelihood, culture, way of life.

The Graal are positioned, due to survival and possibly resentful of colonizers, to be ambivalent allies to Humans. Given the coming of the Bullywugs/Slaad, the Graal might actually find common cause, as they remove colonizers, slow agricultural expansion, and might be a food source (amphibians taste like chicken, & lizards!).

Even if the removal of the rivers does make for better anthropology / sociology of the current power structure, it unfortunately channels the threat of waterborne invaders - with the previous geography you could look forward to a mid-apocalypse with different degrees of ruin on different rivers; possibly a city barricading a river only due to tribute from upstream / failing because of lack of tribute from upstream, etc.