Scaleback-oil
Shed your skin and bring forth the future
As ailbacks age and grow, they shed their scutes, allowing the expansion of their body. Beneath their scutes exists an oil that helps them keep mobile beneath their heavy plates, and the liquid they secrete into the gaps between skin and 'scale' helps them move with speed in great contrast to their usual bulk.
After shedding, the oil pools in the divets of the scutes, ready to be collected by enterprising individuals. Generally hydrophobic, this oil has several uses.
Firstly it acts as an easily collected medium for dissolving long chain hydrocarbons. Its ubiquitous nature allows for use when a plant oil or sap would just not do. Secondly its lack of significant viscosity allows it to act as a lubricant to many a moving mechanism. Scaleback oil also has use in Apothecary potions other than just a medium, reacting with demon, troll and nocturne physiologies in a moisturising capacity.The ailback are a clade of reptile with six limbs on an endoskeleton. They generally have rough scutes on a thin dermis, and it is beneath this layer that the scaleback-oil forms. Ailback are sextaped, although able to rest on their back four legs. They are egg layers, and cold blooded, like most reptiles, with generally a long tail.
Type
Biomaterial
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I'd love to know more about the potions it is used in. Well written!