Homme-serpent
Before the rise of Azlant, before the coming of the Starstone and the salvati on of man from the children of the cold-hearted, shifting Lord of Coiling-Poison, before the continents we know had taken shape, when the mountains and waters had names long forgotten, the masters ruled empires outside the wildest imaginings of humble, frail humanity. In the dark below the earth, they sleep in dreamless holds. Waiting. They were once the undisputed masters of Golarion... and in the coming of unknown epochs, they will rule again.
—from the unexpurgated journals of Darklands explorer Krimaldi Blake The ancient creatures called "serpentfolk" by modern scholars are among the eldest of all sentient beings, and their vast empire held total dominance across continents, far-f lung planetoids, and even the realms beyond in the days before Azlant’s late awakening. Records of their grim exploits and grotesque experiments are carved in coiled temples sunk beneath the waves in the time before Earthfall, and recounted in hushed whispers by morlock tribes huddled in remote reaches of the Darklands. The glory of their power echoes still: eerily smooth obelisks raised by their many slave-races can be found dotted across the globe from the frozen Crown of the World to sweltering Sarusan in the southern oceans. Practitioners of eldritch magics, inventors of the precursor alchemies, worshipers of a potent god, and emperors of ages long since past, these timeworn creatures lurk still below the surface of the world, asleep in mystic chambers forged to withstand the onrush of eons and crush of falling heavens. The broods of their aberrant keepers grow, there in the shadows under the earth, while pacts and plots set into motion in the ancient past come slowly to fruition.
history Few solid facts are known about the reign of the serpentfolk in the lost ages before the ascendancy of the Azlanti, yet what little can be said with certainty is enough to chill the hearts of modern mortals, and takes on deeply nightmarish aspects upon deeper introspection and calculation.
It is accepted by those knowledgeable about such things that the serpentfolk once ruled Sekamina in the Darklands, as well as large reaches of the surface world, during an age before the first appearance of humanity. How long this domination might have lasted is subject to heavy debate in scholarly circles, but even the most conservative estimations tentatively place the length of their reign in the thousands or perhaps tens of thousands of years, while high-ranking archivists within the Aspis Consortium quietly hint that their organization is in possession of serpentfolk records dating back several ages before Earthfall. What other creatures and cultures may have been crushed within their coils in those incomprehensible days cannot even be guessed, although serpentfolk art shows entire sentient races hunted to extinction for sheer pleasure.
Serpentfolk were early adopters of the Aklo language, still spoken in many places throughout the Darklands and even in secret places upon the surface world, and in this ancient tongue they are known to have altered the courses of rivers and raised mountains into the sky for their own inscrutable reasons. Regardless, their mastery of the planet seems to have gone into a sharp decline with the arrival of an epoch and ice age concurrent with the establishment of the earliest Azlanti citadels; some records surviving from that ancient era describe entire cities, universities, and more mysterious structures simply abandoned by the serpents as their population receded. With the coming of further centuries, the growing Azlanti kingdoms came into violent conf lict with the fading serpentfolk, and bitter wars waged; a partially-translated treatise from that time, entitled The Alaberos Analects, makes mention of the “abundant slavemen shoeshod/chainhanded rising in breakingwave-ever-breaking against [we]. Deprivation abound/shall abound.” The text goes further, making a philosophical point apparently in argument against the premise of a still-lost text referred to as The Typhonian Proposals: “In victory, great-loss. In retreat, proposed, perhaps... less-loss. Query: Better to burnsphere sunworld with plague/storm, or to sleep-and-in-sleep-replenish while poor masters of slaves these slaves foresee making, and falter? The stars [shall turn] right again.” It is believed that, in the end, a war raged between the races, escalating for more than a century as the serpentfolk committed more and more resources to the task. That the war finally came to an end with a serpentfolk loss is apparent today by their scarcity, yet details of how this conf lict resolved remain obscure. Legend holds that an Azlanti hero decapitated the serpentfolk god, Ydersius, and in so doing cast the serpent empire into a lasting chaos. It may seem curious that so few records from this conf lict have been found and that the hero’s identity has remained a mystery, but Earthfall shattered entire civilizations, so perhaps the loss of a single champion’s name is not so surprising after all. In short, by means not fully understood, this Azlanti hero successfully defeated Ydersius, severing the epic serpent-god’s power and spelling the beginning of the end for the serpentfolk empire. Though headless and reduced to the status of mere demigod, Ydersius still lives on and grants the fulfillment of some prayers, yet the mighty miracles and divinations ascribed to him in the days before this severing have all but vanished.
Though crippled by the sudden silence of their patron deity, the serpentfolk were far from destroyed. Further bloody struggles against their enemies are well recorded by the ascendant Azlanti, wherein nations clashed with weapons of divine fire and incomprehensible spell-engines, including one improbable account of a single desperate serpent-mage laying waste to himself and an area “greater than two hundred and thirty leagues across.” Finally outnumbered, survivors among the serpentfolk abandoned the last of their holdings and took refuge underneath the earth in the Darklands, in bunkers veiled from the sight of magic and unassailable by humanity.
For the space of a hundred centuries, in the wake of the armageddon that wiped the Azlanti from the world, the great mass of the serpentfolk lay dormant.
ecology It is vitally important, in discussing the biology and ecology of the serpentfolk, to note the sharp distinction between the “purecaste” bloodline and the much more base, bestial creatures commonly called “degenerate” serpentfolk. In the muttering tongue of the ghouls, the former are universally defined as noble, in the same sense that a high lord of ghouls might define himself, while the latter are often referred to as aapoph, meaning “chaos made f lesh.” These two lines of the species cross, intertwine, and intersect: elegant and cunning wizards of the race, born with neither deformity nor derangement, have spawned from a pairing of thrashing, barely sentient snake-hulks. Without question, however, the two sub-races are heavily divergent in morphology, development, psychology, and physiological properties. Yet, within the individualized ranks of these two separate biological strata, further divergences from so-called physical norms are still abundant; appearance, comportment, function of preternatural abilities, and other measurable characteristics vary wildly from individual to individual.
In general terms, the average purecaste serpentfolk stands between 5 and 7 feet in height, weighing between 100 and 140 pounds. Their scales are marked in an intense variety of colors and patterns, and the cold delicacy of their features has been noted by many races, especially the drow. Vastly more supple and exact in build than the rude designs that mark younger races, the serpentfolk possess extraordinary command over their bodies; this includes most especially their mouths and dual larynxes, as members of the species are frequently able to converse in several languages which their biology would seem, from the outside, to make impossible. This often comes as quite a shock to humans unused to dealings with serpentfolk: younger races expecting to identify a disguised member of the race by listening for hisses or other subvocal, subconscious sibilance are often taken aback by the ease with which serpentfolk adopt complex accents and inf lections. At the other end of the spectrum, the thick-built degenerate serpentfolk are little better than brute animals, marked primarily by severe devolution of higher brain functions regarding language, craftsmanship, magical ability, and basic hygiene. Still, some remarkable attribute, universal to even the most savage members of the species, prevents the loss of their racial telepathy, and these creatures retain a glimmer of subhuman intellect even in the most extreme of mutations. Hunched and powerfully built, degenerate serpentfolk demonstrate far greater deviation from a common form than their ancestors, though the “average” member of the caste stands 4 to 6 feet in height and weighs between 180 to 220 pounds. Heavily armored, these freakish monstrosities have also been observed with more or lesser limbs, including vestigial heads, dual tails, and other abnormalities. These beasts are often trained by their betters in the arts of war.
As has been noted by many unfortunate adventurers, serpentfolk are remarkably hardy, with lightweight but iron-hard bone structures and a plethora of redundant organs. Serpentfolk have keen senses, particularly their sense of smell. While their darkvision does not match the potency of their modern drow or duergar neighbors, they are unaffected by the curse of light-sensitivity. Utterly immune to poisons either natural or alchemical in nature, gifted with exceptional resistances to extremes in environment, and wrapped in scales incongruously more elastic than human skin yet more resilient than that of a pseudodragon, even the most refined and sedentary wizard of the race is more than a match physically for the average human.
In terms of reproduction and population growth, serpentfolk are hampered by—and some might say cursed with—several limiting factors which all but ensure that their numbers will not soon reach anything approaching the massive human population of the surface world or the race’s own long-ago apex. Serpentfolk procreation is extremely slow, and in human terms, inefficient: while females of the species give birth to squirming masses of children in broods up to and including a dozen young, birthrates for purecaste serpentfolk are low. Gestation periods last nearly a decade, and few members of the species breed more than once or twice during their lifetimes. Heavy use of mind-controlled slaves to wage war or to handle dangerous tasks such as mining or defending remote fortifications helps the serpents to avoid death by accident or misadventure—a necessary step to prevent their already slim numbers from dipping even more dangerously low.
Most members of the species are interested in procreation only after heavily gorging on f lesh. Combined with a slow maturation process—a full 50 years is required for serpentfolk to reach adulthood—plus a societal stigma against large families and the dangers of the hostile Darklands, serpentfolk population growth proceeds at a truly glacial pace. Conservative estimates hold that fewer than a thousand purecaste serpentfolk remain active on or beneath the surface of Golarion, while even the most outrageous claims of conspiracy enthusiasts estimate no more than 10,000 members currently awake. Of course, many times that number may still dreamlessly sleep in yet-undiscovered vaults hidden in black corners of the Darklands, and untold numbers of aapoph-caste serpentfolk writhe and hunt just within the ruins of Sverenagati, beneath the Kodar Mountains.
society A race of megalomaniacal, cold-hearted geniuses, some born in blackness and some emerging only now from a sleep which began in an age long predating Absalom's rise, purecast serpentfolk are doted upon by the f lapping, inbred results of a civilization's 10-millennium-long withdrawal beneath the world. Every purecaste serpentfolk is an island unto itself, a singular creature of unique abilities, affinities, and power; a noble without a court except the one it builds. Each exalts in a different set of arts, from music and poetry to sorcery and warfare, living a solitary existence of research and acquisition, with only the telepathic company of their meals, prisoners paralyzed by toxins or even rendered into consensual, living feasts via potent compulsion magic.
According to the serpentfolk themselves, the mark of their "ascendancy" over other creatures is their innate telepathy. Beings not possessed of this gift are lesser and thus defined as property. A hallmark of serpentfolk society is the near-silence between members, broken only to make exceptionally emphatic statements or quote speech from others.
Familial units and lines of pedigree within serpentfolk culture are fundamentally and radically different from those of their mammalian counterparts: serpentfolk do not organize into pairs except to breed, and even then only brief ly. They feel no love or other attachment to their kin except something akin to muted pride, envy, admiration, or disappointment. Likewise, they form no bonds with the animals and slaves they keep, except as brute instruments or expensive, beautiful playthings.
Highly sensual creatures, serpentfolk are happiest when surrounded by sycophants bearing gifts of sweet incense, live meals, and massage; an appreciation of complex rhythm and high-frequency sounds adds deeply to a species-wide love of music. Draped in silks and carried on a palanquin while digesting a favored and intelligent servant which once belonged to a rival, serpentfolk can achieve a sort of quiet joy all but incomprehensible to humans.
The social life of the serpent can perhaps best be understood within the context of their feeding habits. Serpentfolk gorge when they feed, and more than 80% of the food consumed by serpentfolk is comprised of meat, sinew, and bone, supplemented primarily with strange fruits from subterranean plants. Their jaws are designed with elastic ligaments in such a way that most adult members of the species can successfully swallow a creature the size of a cat or monkey in a single gulp, or larger creatures if given time. The average serpentfolk eats once a month, gorging on 80 to 100 pounds of food and then taking 24 to 48 hours of rest to digest the meal. However, serpentfolk can go as long as 4 months without eating. Given the resources to feed at their pleasure, many serpentfolk gorge more often, sometimes going so far as to consume a meal as large as themselves every 4 to 5 days.
Serpentfolk generally eat alone. Consumption of a meal is considered a private affair, although the taboo of breaking this restriction and eating in front of others is apparently also quite thrilling, and the rare communal meals carry the same debauched air of an orgy. Often hosted by a particularly powerful priest or wizard, these gatherings are hedonistic affairs in celebration of the f lesh and its delights. In such situations, a form of crazed bloodlust is common, and any creature without innate telepathy is in danger of being immediately devoured.
This aversion to public meals is perhaps best summarized within the serpentfolk dialect of Aklo, wherein the greatest of insults might be translated as “that which bothers me while I am trying to eat.” Perhaps as a natural outgrowth of this devotion to privacy, serpentfolk also tend to drink, sleep, and live alone. To enter the home of another serpentfolk without an invitation is grounds for immediate execution.
Of course, none of these rules apply to the degenerate serpentfolk except a bare, borderline-instinctual understanding that creatures without telepathy are food. Sleeping while curled in huge, writhing pits of cold and slithering f lesh, feeding when and where they are able, the savage ones are crude, lumbering parodies of the refined and revered purecaste which bring order to their lives. Anything approaching a society among these creatures could only be compared to the worst excesses of ogres, gugs, and Rovagug-worshiping orcs—among them, strength and violence are the rule.
religion It is a common oversimplification for outsiders to interpret the religious mindset of the serpentfolk as monolithic and universal. In truth, their faith is a mutable, complex, and ever-evolving belief system fractured and fraught with innumerable heresies, splinter sects, and cults of personality. Their supreme deity, the serpentine and now-beheaded demigod Ydersius, is venerated in many ways, some of them quite contradictory. To some, he is a brutal god of thunder and blood, unrestrained by thought. To others, he is a calculating creature of guile, charm, and subtlety cut free from the needs of the f lesh. Still others see him as a master of the occult, or a typhoon of rage. All that can be said with certainty is that all serpentfolk bow before him—and him alone—as their progenitor and lord. From him came the great civilization of the snake, and through him will it return to power.
Ydersius does not speak to his faithful, but rather prefers to send—or is only capable of sending—strange dreams. Those among his people blessed to receive these incoherent visions act on them in a variety of ways, many of them at odds with one another. Some adherents to his faith search after his ashen, broken skull, seeking to reunite it with the f lailing, still-spurting titan-form of his body, wandering mindlessly somehwere in the Darklands. Others perform esoteric rituals designed to conjure forth the memories held within that bone-cage and then to regenerate their god a dozen new heads, hydra-like, each one a new aspect of horror. Still others despise the broken body and severed mind of their progenitor, worshiping their deity in a new aspect as an emerging god-lich: only when the thrashing body has finally exhausted itself, they say, will the phylactery of Ydersius’s Fang be filled with his undead spirit and the Material Plane be made his throne.
A further distinction must be made, within the orders of the Headless King, to differentiate between the faithful who see their god as master of the bestial and those who define him as a master over beasts. This is not merely an academic query, but a point of great contention. In all ways, the ancient faith of Ydersius is exalted as the catalyst which brought forth the serpentfolk from barbarism and into magical supremacy over all others, yet their god is also one of chaos, wrath, and unprovoked assaults against the unwary. As such, it is hotly debated between surviving adherents as to what form the violent celebrations of his power should take: elegant, debased, or some combination thereof ? Among many priests, the truest sign of favor from the Headless King is the appearance of two great, venomous snakes sent to do the bidding of the cleric, yet others within the faith preach that mastery of more intelligent creatures, including legions of willing slaves, demonstrates greater power. Ohers contend that Ydersius wishes for his servants to learn mastery over the undead or demonic legions.
Whatever the case, some accounts of the Azlanti speak of a "highest-caste" of the serpentfolk, which has not been seen by modern eyes: beings with blood intermingled between the mortal and immortal. These mythical beings, which are never depicted but are most terribly suggested within the serpentfolk art, are said to have been geniuses even by the standards of their purecaste kin, gifted with supernatural quickness, skin like steel, and terrible innate magics capable of poisoning the very earth. It is hoped by sages that these creatures are merely myth, or were perhaps driven extinct by the slaying of their god or the racial exodus beneath the earth. Yet more horrible scenarios suggest that these beasts might sleep in chambers below the deepest cities occupied by their subjects, to be awakened only when the new empire of Ydersius has begun to blossom.
remAins of emPire Few places known to scholars are still marked as serpentfolk ruins. The majority of their most famous holdings upon the surface were sacked and destroyed by the victorious Azlanti in the wake of the final war, or were toppled in Earthfall's aftermath, and those cities still standing in remote places like the Mwangi Expanse have been slowly adapted for human use or overtaken with other life, monstrous creatures turning once mighty temples and castles into lairs and dens. However, the serpentfolk are best known for their skill in subterfuge, and many of their greatest constructs are still hidden from humanity, waiting beneath Golarion's surface to be discovered by foolhardy explorers, perhaps, or already stirring to life in the dark as ancient clocks begin to turn with the wheel of ages, jaws opening to bring forth the old emperors of the world once more.
The cities of the serpentfolk are elaborate, sprawling affairs. One Pathfinder described them thus: "Conical buildings encircled snake-headed central chimneys, spiked ziggurats and arches twisted toward the ceiling, and every surface, street, wall, roof, was covered in swirling designs and serpentine pictograms." Regarding the few surviving ruins positively identified as having belonged to the serpentfolk in pre-human days, many questions abound, primarily regarding their leisure activities and the scope of such acts. It is known that the empire delighted in pitting slaves against slaves for entertainment, but what is to be made of the complex, roofed, maze-like structures designed without room for spectators? Some sages theorize that these were the equivalent of human taverns: dark, private places established for meals, the prey still on the run, to be hunted and subsequently devoured by wealthy, idle serpentfolk yearning for some small physical challenge.
More curious still are the great, elevated public and private lenses established in parts of old cities, in many cases now little more than crumbling piles of well-worn stone. It is thought that these might once have been communication devices between distant serpentfolk enclaves, used to tremendously focus their telepathic ability for broadcast over great distances between the various holds. If this is the case, such magic is beyond modern scholars to replicate or refine. Few of the intact lenses have been discovered, but these are generally between 10 and 15 feet in diameter and composed of a strangely transparent alloy of mithral and glass.
And then, of course, there are the sealed, obsidian standing-circles that abound in places abandoned by the serpentfolk, seemingly plugged with brick. Were these once gates to distant places, perhaps even beyond Golarion? The world may not know until it is too late, ignoring the warnings until that black day when the most revered elders of the serpentfolk, those survivors in the deepest tombs beneath the earth, are brought forth by their progeny or some twist of fate, and the second million-year Age of Serpents begins.
Scalykind Domain The following section details the Scalykind domain, updating it for the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game in accordance with other domains in the Core Rulebook. More details on the domains and deities of Golarion can be found in Gods and Magic.
Deities: Dahak, Ydersius Granted Powers: You are a true lord of reptiles, able to induce pain, panic, and confusion with a mere glance, and your mesmerizing eyes can even drive weak creatures into unconsciousness.
Venomous Stare (Sp): As a standard action, you can activate a gaze attack with a 30-foot range (Pathfinder RPG Bestiary 300). This is an active gaze attack that can target a single creature within range. The target must make a Will save (DC = 10 + 1/2 your cleric level + your Wisdom modifier). Those who fail take 1d6 points of nonlethal damage + 1 point for every two cleric levels you possess and are fascinated until the beginning of your next turn. You can use this ability a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Wisdom modifier. This is a mind-affecting effect.
Serpent Companion (Ex): At 4th level, you gain the service of an animal companion. Your effective druid level for this animal companion is equal to your cleric level –2. You may choose either a viper or a constrictor snake (Pathfinder RPG Core Rulebook 54) as your companion.
Domain Spells: 1st, magic fang, 2nd, animal trance, 3rd, greater magic fang, 4th, poison, 5th, animal growth*, 6th, eyebite, 7th, creeping doom (takes the form of Diminutive-sized snakes), 8th, animal shapes*, 9th, shapechange.
- Includes only viper and constrictor snakes.