Copying or using the Aztec as inspiration is the same. You want to use something already existing. Note that if Aztec sacrified many people (mostly captured warriors) they weren't really cannibals.
What is dislike more is the fact that Lizardmen are also seen as "evil". Can't they be like any race ? Sometimes evil, sometimes good, happy to live and to grow with their own ways of living, etc. Whereas Elves are mostly seen as a "good" race, Lizardmen are often evil. I disagree there. Making them a bloody race is to common.
IMO, they should be the race of Erebus the best adapted to live in swampy lands and jungles.
Hian the frog.
The way things are going at the moment, they're going to be both. One side reflects the "good" lizardmen, the other the "evil" lizardmen. Rather than represent the ambivalence of the race by making them neutral, I decided to show examples of the two extremes. Of course, as with everything in Fall from Heaven, "Good and Evil" are relative to their contributions to Armageddon.
The Evil Civ - Cualli - are the ones who are drawing inspiration from the Aztec theme. I'm not too concerned about drawing from an unoriginal source, so long as it *is* original to Erebus. As it stands, there is nothing quite like that in FfH and whilst I don't want to follow the Aztec history as gospel, I'm quite happy to take some aspects of their society and invent others. Besides which, I must admit I don't really know enough about them to do a very good job of copying it - so whatever I come up with will be at least partially a work of fiction. So far as the building styles go however, I would like some partially ruined, Meso-American style Pyramids, alongside towers etc.
The Good Civ - Mazatl - are the ones who know about the Godswar and are opposed to Armageddon (the Cualli know about the war, but don't care). I'm open to suggestions for how their society is organized, though they'll eventually be bringing in their "Wyvern" hero (inspired by "The Worm" - though it is still partially Draconic - though with 4 limbs not 6 as Wyverns have no fore-limbs). I've actually adapted the model for that already, and it turned out quite well. As the great beasts of the Age of Dragons served specific gods, I decided to make the Wyvern a servant of one too (a lesser servant than the great-dragons though) and for the moment that is Kilmorph. The Mazatl don't worship Kilmorph as such, they've got their own name for what she represents and a religion based around that. Their "god" doesn't really exist (as Kael once said - many tribes/cults worship things that don't exist/aren't gods) but is close enough to Kilmorph that she guides them to an extent. The same is true for the lizard-god version of Oghma.
There are a couple of things that I've dropped from the initial storylines however. For the Cualli - the "spectre-angel-of-aeron" would break the compact unless he was willing to give up his power as Cassiel did. I can't see an evil-angel being willing to do that. Also, I like to keep the changes to the major-storyline of FfH as minor as I can, so mortal servants of a "lizard-god similar to Aeron" (albeit mortals of great power) were chosen for the leader and the hero.
The other main thing I haven't included are the references to "The Egg". I like the idea of having a hero unit from ages past returning to take part in the battle against Armageddon, but the mechanic of "defending the egg" doesn't really seem necessary to tell that part of the story.
In any case - whilst I've tried to draw on as many of the ideas here as possible whilst working on them, I can guarantee that neither race will turn out quite how either of you had in mind at the start. Hopefully they'll be recognizable as something you help to shape though - and will be fun to play in their own right.
EDIT: And after reading back over that, I've come to the conclusion that I *really* need to sort out names for the "Lizard gods". I'm getting mighty tired of saying "Lizard-version-of-Kilmorph"
