Among the alleys, balconies, and flooded underways of a great city, tideglass skinkfolk survive by speed, wit, and performance. They are the folk you hear before you see, singing from a roofline, bargaining in a market arch, or vanishing through a drainage grate with a stolen key and a perfect bow. A tideglass skinkfolk adventurer is a sharp-eyed survivor with a performer’s instinct for timing and a streetwise talent for turning narrow spaces into opportunities.

Tideglass skinkfolk are medium-sized reptilian beast-folk with smooth light blue skin, a sheen like river stone in moonlight, and a fin-tipped tail that helps them balance on narrow beams and slick roofs. Their faces are sharp and expressive, with bright eyes, fine ridges along the cheek and brow, and a flexible mouth that makes them excellent mimics and singers. They are commonly born without clothing customs of their own, relying instead on body paint, jewelry, wraps, harnesses, or performance adornment when the occasion calls for it. Their skin takes pigment well, so many mark themselves with dyes, glittering clay, or soot patterns that shift from practical camouflage to dramatic stage makeup.

Tideglass skinkfolk are a communal people whose lives revolve around shared routes, shared secrets, and shared performances. Even when dispersed through a city, they maintain a dense web of favors, coded gestures, and neighborhood patrons. Children are taught to listen from inside walls, read crowd movement, and clap in complex patterns before they are trusted with tools. Their entertainments are rarely separate from daily work. A market song may double as a warning signal, a dance may map safe stepping stones, and a joke may settle a dispute more effectively than a blade. They admire graceful competence, memorable entrances, and practical generosity. A good storyteller among them is expected to be useful, not merely entertaining.

Their faith tends toward practical reverence rather than grand doctrine. They honor river spirits, hearth guardians, dawn patrons, and any deity or ideal associated with safe passage, clever survival, and public joy. Most tideglass skinkfolk are not bound by any single alignment, but their culture prizes mutual aid, quick forgiveness, and an almost theatrical disdain for cruelty that serves no purpose.

Tideglass skinkfolk favor places where water, stone, and commerce meet. They build in layers rather than blocks, nesting in drain arches, bell towers, market rafters, and the dead spaces beneath bridges. Their homes are light on walls and heavy on platforms, hammocks, screen-curtains, and rope ladders, so that a dwelling can become a stage, a workshop, or a lookout in an instant. In older neighborhoods, they carve communal chambers into old cisterns and aqueducts, painting the stone with bright route marks known only to residents.

Tideglass skinkfolk are often underestimated, which suits them until it does not. They form strong bonds with laborers, entertainers, messengers, and anyone who lives by moving through a city rather than owning it. They are cautious around officials who confuse order with safety, but they admire artisans, dancers, cooks, and builders who understand that a good community is made from many small coordinated acts. Many feel a special kinship with other folk who live in close quarters, though they dislike being treated as mascots, thieves, or curiosities.