I have a story arc in my series where some of the characters are humanoid dragons. Not for the purpose of making scalies, it's for other story purposes. I could explain if someone wants me to, but as of right now i just want an answer to this. One of my lizardmen characters has a unique tail that serves purposes in combat. Her tail starts off thin from the base, then extends for a bit before widening to incredible thickness. She can move her tail in all directions, and it has such great muscle power that she can hold a large sword's sheath in its coil with ease. Now, disregarding whether any of this is possible (magic will explain it at a later date), let's get into the meat of the matter. The sheath I mentioned earlier belongs to a long curved sword, about the length of her legs. The sheath itself has a spiral patterned gap in it, which serves as a divet for the tail to rest in as it curves around the sheath. You might be thinking, "but when she sheathes the sword, it's gonna cut her." That's the point of the sheath though, as when the blade draws blood, she can use it as a catalyst to imbue the blade with magic. All characters in this story have regenerative powers, to the extent that moments after drawing blood, her wounds have healed. At least that's the idea. If anyone knows what the ramifications are of constantly cutting scales and/or the healing process of scales, please let me know. Any other thoughts you have on the concept or process I described would be welcome too.
Well ... I know from having had a pet snake that when scales get damaged, a reptile will typically go into the process of shedding that layer to get rid of them. A particularly deep level of damage might take a few sheds to fade, or might never completely be right again. If you're doing consistent damage to your scales, then, you're probably going to be shedding a lot as your body tries to take care of the problem. And sheds do take a lot of energy and render the shed-ee partially blind when they're in the blue -- at least, the latter is the case for lidless reptiles, if that's applicable to your lizardfolk. So that whole process is something to take into account.
You're writing a fantasy. You can have whatever you want to happen, happen. I don't really understand what you are looking for.
I too am befuddled. It’s instant magic healing. I would assume restoration as if the wound had never happened. Now, if you had a specific mechanism for the healing—for example, maybe she’s dumped into an alternative dimension where she spends six months healing and is then dumped out in the place and time where she started—that would be different.
It's rapid regeneration. The process is simple for humans, just clot and rebuild the skin really fast. But for lizards i don't know where to start.
Would giving these lizardmen (why lizardmen if they're dragonmen?) thick, leather-like hides instead of scaled skin be possible? For the dragons in my story I just pretend they shed the damaged scales and grow new ones, though not as quickly as your lizardmen do. At any rate I don't think anyone cares about real-life ramifications of constantly damaged scales in a fantasy story, and if they do they probably aren't your target audience.
Why not just have them use a normal sword with the same powers? It can be done, I have read of similar things. In the real world, you could get light headed, grow cold from mass blood loss, and that ever unfixable pesky symptom: death. So while there are 1 mil and 1 healing spells, I don't think any of them actually replace blood. Not that I have ever looked into the rules and laws that govern such powers, but no one ever says they are going to go off and perform the 'More Blood' spell. Would be ideal since they wouldn't have a way to perform transfusions anyway. Would make for a good joke in a Fantasy Hospital setting. "And over there that intern has not quite figured out how to prevent the patient from bleeding profusely while using the blood rejuvenation spell. Better go and fix this before the Vampires in phlebotomy catch whiff of all that blood. " ETA: Here is a study/article on scale regeneration in lizards. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/reg2.9/pdf
