Grippli
Cold-blooded butchers, dragonslayers in the ancient age, silver-tongued merchants who might strip you of every coin while you smile. If a Dycides man told a man of Ethium all those things were true of the small Grippli riverboat captain that brought him from place to place, he would laugh. The Dycides man would laugh. The Grippli would laugh, and watch. The Grippli would then tell the men about a restaurant his cousin owns down river and convince them to eat there, and only the Dycides man would be nervous.
The Grippli are often overlooked as a funny looking frog folk from the forest, and the Red Hand have taken advantage of that from the earliest ages. The inventors of one of the longest standing assassin organization in the Dycides, the Red Market, they enjoy their roles as both book keepers during the days and killers at night. They follow the laws of the warmfolk, but are always aware of their distance. Spending many generations of their relatively short lived people refining skills with shadow and blade, they are the assassin never looked for, the blade or the poison in your drink, that is why the Dycides man is nervous.
On the other hand this Grippli could be one of the Riverfolk, cunning amphibious riverboat frogs able to live above or below the water with ease. Working well within the systems of the warmfolk, they have navigated a niche out of the market as salvagers and salesmen, knowing most tongues and providing service with a smile. Their preternatural ability to put people at ease, which is why the food is good and the Ethium man is at his ease.
They both know this could not be one of the Tree Dwellers. Those ancient tribal folk usually stuck to their forest lands and used a variety of poisons to slay and camouflage to slay the giant prehistoric beasts of their homelands. Those stories that they slayed the first dragons that Tree Dwellers could practically fly from tree to tree, those are simply folk tales, it was probably the elves of old that did that. Though their bones are only found in their primordial forests, the elves probably just left the valuable dragon bones behind.
When the warmfolk find the Grippli waiting quietly in the boat they notice the skin on the grip if the oar, is that dragon skin? Are they feeling woozy from good drink? Poison? Was the Grippli smiling? Why was it smiling?
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