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Tuatara Lord
Seyhrain Hatteria. Planar animal lord [he/him] N
Symbol: A spiked lizard head crowned with a third eye, often rendered in amber
The Tuatara Lord appears as a short, slender human with an infectious grin and a wistful look in his eyes, that gives him an aura of ancient wisdom but also unexpected approachability. His most distinctive feature is the bald spot crowning his otherwise wild, unruly hair—a deliberate manifestation of his parietal eye, the mystical third eye that grants him, and according to the chant all tuatara, temporal sight beyond mortal ken. This circular patch of exposed scalp gleams with an opalescent sheen.
His preferred attire when in humanoid form consists of a supple leather jerkin adorned with spikes. The decorative spines along his shoulders and spine echo the spinal ridges that have protected tuataras for aeons. His skin has a subtle scaled texture that becomes more pronounced when he is basking in sunlight.
Tuatara’s deep amber-brown eyes suggest incredible patience. When he speaks, his voice carries the slow cadence of one who has watched continents drift and species rise and fall, yet maintains the enthusiasm of someone who is still genuinely delighted by unexpected visitors.
Survival isn’t about being the fastest or strongest, cutter—
—the Tuatara Lord
it’s about finding your perfect spot and never giving it up.
The Tuatara Lord espouses a philosophy of Geological Patience—the understanding that true success comes not from rapid adaptation, but from achieving perfect equilibrium with one’s environment and then doggedly maintaining it against all the odds. He views extinction not as failure, but as a natural consequence for species that don’t find their niche or defend it properly.
His worldview is shaped by his consciousness of deep time, for Tuatara has the ability to perceive events across geological scales rather than the brief flickers that most beings call lifetimes. This grants him remarkable equanimity about day-to-day setbacks, while making him fiercely protective of long-term survival strategies. Tuatara sees slow patterns where others see chaos, and he understand that what might appears to be stagnation to impatient eyes is often the most sophisticated form of success.
The Lord believed that extinction teaches more useful lessons than evolution, and studying what failed reveals more about survival than celebrating what succeeded. This perspective makes him invaluable as a counselor to other endangered species, though his advice requires patience that mortal beings struggle to maintain. Yet despite this, the Lord’s greatest fear is an extinction event occurring on his watch. He monitors celestial activity on Pangaea, the volcanic shifts, and the comings and goings of visitors with obsessive precision, knowing that his species survived the extinctions which befell many other creatures only through careful preparation.
You want to know the secret of surviving extinction?
—the Tuatara Lord
Find something you do better than anyone else, find the perfect place to do it,
and never let anyone talk you into leaving.
The whole bloody multiverse can whirl around you,
but hold your ground, and you’ll still be there when the dust settles.
Relationships and Rivalries
The Lizard Lord: The complex relationship between these two reptilian lords stems from an ancient defeat—Tuatara lost an ancient shakista (blood-feud) with Lizard but bears no grudge, recognizing that lizards succeeded where rhynchocephalians failed through their diversity and adaptability. He maintains cordial relations with Lizard through Old Jaw, their shared messenger, and occasionally seeks the Lizard Lord’s advice on survival strategies—although Tuatara is usually too proud to put any of them into action.
Whiro, the Māori Power of Darkness: Chant goes the Māori power, who certainly isn’t known for his generosity or kindness, saved the tuatara from certain extinction many aeons ago. Superstitious mortals have associated tuatara with evil ever since. While the Tuatara Lord is certainly grateful, he is also concerned—what is it that wicked Whiro wants from him in return? These days Tuatara questions whether accepting Whiro’s dark aid to preserve his kind compromised the very qualities that made tuataras worth preserving. He suspects Whiro values tuataras partly for their connection to primordial wisdom and deep time, but how this will help the exiled power of wickedness to escape his Carcerian prison, well that’s still dark.
Other Lords of the Past: The Tuatara Lord serves as an informal chronicler and counselor for Pangaea’s extinct-species animal lords. His temporal observatory, and his connection to the deep memories of Pangaea makes Third Eye a natural gathering point for confabs on planar threats.
Source: SGreen, Jon Winter-Holt and Margarita, based on an idea by Greg Jensen. Canonwatch: Everything here is homebrew.