What is a "Temple City" and What is a Kahoun?
A temple city, at least in the verancular of the First Children of the Old Ones refers to a large settlement including stepped pyramid temples, spawning pools, and many support buildings, built along mystic ley lines per the Great Plan of the Old Ones.
Most Temple Cities are in Lustria, but some are in the jungles of the Southlands (though GW more or less abandoned Southlands Lizardmen as a concept after 6th edition), but I never liked that change, so I refuse to accept it.
The temple cities are officially listed in Games Workshop's out of print Lizardmen book. Most of them are presented as "______ city of _____".
Most Temple Cities are in some state of ruin, but even ruined temple cities tend to have at least a small permanent garrison of Lizardmen defending them, at least if they still have unlooted vaults and/or functioning spawning pools.
Roster of Temple Cities
There are five Temple Cities that never fell to invaders and are still occupied by a very large contingent of Lizardmen. These include. Hexoatl, the City of the Sun Itza, the First City. Tlaxtlan, the City of the Moon Xlanhuapec, the City of Mists Zlatan, the City of being swept under the rug by GW fluff writers. Zlatan is in the Southlands, the other four are in Lustria. These four temple cities are sometimes irreverently called "The Big Four" by Skinks in smaller Lizardmen settlements and the Skinks from the Big Four, hate the nickname, so the others keep using it. Ruined temple cities include the following. Axlotl, the City of Hermits Chaqua, the City of Gold Huatl, the City of Reawakening Hualotal, the City of Masks Oxyl, the Eternal City Pahaux, the City of Ash Karax, the Lost City Subatunn, the City Below Spektazuma, the City of Lenses Tlanxa the City of the Sky Tlax, the City of Ghosts Quetza the Defiled Qu'ittax, the City of Scales Xohtl, the City of Vegeance Xahutec, the City of Echoes Some of the aforementioned have a paragraph or more talking about in Lizardmen army books but apart from Quetza, none of them have deep official lore dives on them and some of them have nothing more than a name and a location. Collectively we have worked at developing some of these places on Lustria-Online. I myself have fleshed out Tlanxla a little bit.History
Before the Great Cataclysm, the Old Ones directed the Slann who directed their own minions to erect mighty Temple Cities throughout Lustria and the Southlands (which were at one point one super continent)
These cities were built along major magic ley lines, so the Slann could better harness the world's ambient mystic power to fulfil the will of the Old Ones.
Over the millienia most Temple Cities fell into ruins. Some were abandoned and left in ruins by the Slann themselves, often the being wrecked by the continental shift that the Slann precipiated.
Most ruined Temple Cities were wrecked by Daemons during the Great Cataclysm, a few were wrecked by other enemies of the Lizardmen.
Some ruined temple cities have a small contingent of Lizardmen occupying them, and some have a large contingent. Others are completely empty of Lizardmen.
What about Kahoun?
A Kahoun is essentially a Temple City but much smaller. A Temple City is (or at least was) a large metropolis of the First, ruled by the Slann, occupied by a hundred thousand Skinks or more and guarded by thousands of Sauri. Most Kahoun have less than a half dozen Slann, maybe only one. They rarely have more than ten thousand Skinks or more than a thousand Sauri. Every Temple city has temples, spawning pools and support buildings, and Kahoun have them too. While most temple cities have (or at least had) dozens or maybe hundreds of spawning pools, most Kahoun have between two and ten Spawning pools, enough to sustain their modest population. On Lustria-Online the vast majority of forumites who opted to write fluff for their Lizardmen stared "My Lizardmen are from a smaller Temple City." so I thought, why not make a formalized term for "smaller Temple City." Hence Kahoun.
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