Besides manual labour, a community must hand in a large portion of their crops and goods every year, with every tribute collection also serving as a sermon about the blessings of the Lady, who saved their kind. Communities are also gifted food, spices, clothes and medicine by the empire; this has the sinister purpose of making the gilje feel even more indebted towards the empire, as well as creating tensions between the mammal lower classes and the gilje, as the mammals do not get this aid as often.
Since the Gilje are not allowed to live in cities, small ghettos are often form in the outskirts, especially near docs, as younger lizards are used dockhands
The military service of the lizards is compulsory from the age of 16, and must serve 2 years minimum, women can take the places of male family members of said relative. Most serving gilje are assigned as town watch, with the rest used as frontline cannon fodder.
Gilje in the town watch have a difficult life; they are disrespected by every class for different reasons; the lower class dislikes them for being "barking watchdogs" and getting gifts from the empire; the middle class dislikes them because the lizards are often indifferent to petty thefts and harmless crimes - such as stealing food - and the upper class dislikes them tainting the streets with their presence.
Nobles are legally allowed to kill a gilje watchmen if one offended them.
However, even with these massive shortcomings, the gilje are still considered useful for the empire's cities; there is a massive supply recruits, are loyal, hard to bribe given gilje don't use money, can stay posted or be sent on longer patrols as they require less sleep, eat and drink less and their good night vision and smell has also proven useful. They also much more likely to throw themselves into a violent mugging to save the victim, often getting themselves killed.
The town watch lizards live in separate barracks as the mammal ones; there is a home flame, looked after by the barrack keeper and a repository for the personal family totems during sleep.
Young mammal watchmen often harass, bully the lizards, but this is frowned upon by the watch commander/guard captain and is punishable; as many older mammal guards grow respect for the gilje.
Watchmen are allowed to go on a leave - usually for a week every two months - to visit their families
While uncommon, lizards also serve as the royal guard - something the mammal guard loathe - and is considered to be the highest honour for a gijle. A community where a son is among the royal guard is considerably better off, as the extra pay they receive is sent home for the commune coffers.
However, the true cause for recruiting lizards as royal guard is to remove charismatic, brave, strong reptiles from communities, further lessening a chance of a gilje uprising.
Fun illustration I did while world building my ill-fated Gilje/Esrian setting.
More world building sketches n lore from my ill-fated Gilje/Esrian setting.
Since the Gilje are not allowed to live in cities, small ghettos are often form in the outskirts, especially near docs, as younger lizards are used dockhands
The military service of the lizards is compulsory from the age of 16, and must serve 2 years minimum, women can take the places of male family members of said relative. Most serving gilje are assigned as town watch, with the rest used as frontline cannon fodder.
Gilje in the town watch have a difficult life; they are disrespected by every class for different reasons; the lower class dislikes them for being "barking watchdogs" and getting gifts from the empire; the middle class dislikes them because the lizards are often indifferent to petty thefts and harmless crimes - such as stealing food - and the upper class dislikes them tainting the streets with their presence.
Nobles are legally allowed to kill a gilje watchmen if one offended them.
However, even with these massive shortcomings, the gilje are still considered useful for the empire's cities; there is a massive supply recruits, are loyal, hard to bribe given gilje don't use money, can stay posted or be sent on longer patrols as they require less sleep, eat and drink less and their good night vision and smell has also proven useful. They also much more likely to throw themselves into a violent mugging to save the victim, often getting themselves killed.
The town watch lizards live in separate barracks as the mammal ones; there is a home flame, looked after by the barrack keeper and a repository for the personal family totems during sleep.
Young mammal watchmen often harass, bully the lizards, but this is frowned upon by the watch commander/guard captain and is punishable; as many older mammal guards grow respect for the gilje.
Watchmen are allowed to go on a leave - usually for a week every two months - to visit their families
While uncommon, lizards also serve as the royal guard - something the mammal guard loathe - and is considered to be the highest honour for a gijle. A community where a son is among the royal guard is considerably better off, as the extra pay they receive is sent home for the commune coffers.
However, the true cause for recruiting lizards as royal guard is to remove charismatic, brave, strong reptiles from communities, further lessening a chance of a gilje uprising.
Fun illustration I did while world building my ill-fated Gilje/Esrian setting.
More world building sketches n lore from my ill-fated Gilje/Esrian setting.
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Category Artwork (Digital) / Fantasy
Species Lizard
Gender Multiple characters
Size 2811 x 1311px
The more pale elder is really nice.
And that scheme of hiring lizards who could potentially sway the populace out of a place where they could talk with them is so devious. But really helps expand the world some more. Really well done with the text and picture for this setting.
And that scheme of hiring lizards who could potentially sway the populace out of a place where they could talk with them is so devious. But really helps expand the world some more. Really well done with the text and picture for this setting.
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