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One of the racial features of lizardfolk is the Cunning Artisan trait (Volo's Guide to Monsters, p. 113), which states:

As part of a short rest, you can harvest bone and hide from a slain beast, construct, dragon, monstrosity, or plant creature of size Small or larger to create one of the following items: a shield, a club, a javelin, or 1d4 darts or blowgun needles.

Druids can learn the shillelagh cantrip:

The wood of a club or quarterstaff you are holding is imbued with nature's power.

The lizardfolk skill specifically calls out bone and hide, and the spell specifically calls out wood. But both are labeled as "a club".

Could the hand crafted club from a lizardfolk work as the club for shillelagh? What if they included a couple twigs and branches from a nearby tree?

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The club has to be wood

Not every weapon is made of the same material. Since shillelagh specifically mentions a the wood of a weapon as the target, a club or quarterstaff made of a different material is not suitable and would not be affected by the spell.

Keep in mind, a lizardfolk can make clubs out of wood.

you can harvest bone and hide from a ... plant creature of size Small or larger.

One such plant creature's "hide" may be wooden (for example an Awakened Tree). In this case, a lizardfolk's club could be affected by shillelagh, but not if the club is made of bone or some other creature's hide.

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Sticking with RAW

RAW says the Shillelagh base needs to be made of wood (It is the wood itself that gets the buff), so going by the letter this will not work.

Who sticks so tightly with RAW?

I don't enjoy being a stickler for RAW, so I look at the spirit of the rules rather than the letter.

The spirit (imho) is that this spell needs natural components, so I can't see why anyone would have problems with what you are doing, and you are certainly not going to break anything from a balance perspective.

That said, as with anything deviating from RAW you will need to ask your DM before making plans around an interpretation such as this.

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    \$\begingroup\$ That might be your interpretation of the spirit of the spell, but others might see it as the traditional shillelagh (which was wood). I'd add an "ask your GM" clause. \$\endgroup\$
    – David Coffron
    Oct 5, 2018 at 15:28
  • \$\begingroup\$ @DavidCoffron I actually thought I had. Fixed. \$\endgroup\$
    – SeriousBri
    Oct 8, 2018 at 7:29
  • \$\begingroup\$ Imo, there is a huge difference in imbuing magic to wood and the bones of your slain enemies. I personally would only allow Shillelagh to affect a bone club if it fit the character casting the spell. I would not allow it for a run-of-the-mill hippie nature druid, but I would allow it for a death (not combat) focused druid. I'd also allow Cunning Artisan to be used to craft a wooden club from a tree branch. \$\endgroup\$
    – Joakim M. H.
    Dec 17, 2018 at 10:19

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