Carapace was invented by the House of Scales in 4,000 Bß (Before ßkaalth), and has been played ever since. The rules have remained largely the same since inception. In trying to explain the rules to humans, a professional referee from the House of Scales said the following:

“Oh god, it’s pretty hard to explain. You have 6 lizards per team on the field at a time. Two of them are considered, like, musical hecklers — there’s not really a good English word for it, but they make a lot of rhythmic insults. Three are, uh...‘temporary acting forwards on probation,’ is the best I can translate. Highly mercurial position, lots of mental flexibility required. The last player is called the ßkjjlth which roughly translates to “wretch.” The wretch’s job is to draw all the insults onto themself. There’s a big ball to toss in a net for points as well, round and red, but stitched in leather like an old school human medicine ball. And — again, there’s not really human words for it — but everybody on both sides has to have sorta tough skin, both literally and physically. And then each team is required to have a parrot with a vocabulary of no more than 150 words. That’s where a lot of strategy comes in. You have to get the words approved by the league at the beginning of each season, and there’s point penalties for illegal words. And every teammate has to have a favorite color. I forget why.”

Each of the 11 Great Lizard Houses has a team in the House League, and then there are 11 other teams in the Sauropsida League. The champions of each league play each other in the ßklllth Cup Finals.

Unlike many human sports, carapace does not have separate leagues for separate genders. All genders have always played together.