Naga

Nagas are an intelligent species with both mammalian and reptilian characteristics. Found throughout the south, they are most common in Selatra, and the largely-naga Kingdom of Selatra is one of the oldest geopolitical powers known; while it has gone through several radical shifts, the Kingdom has continued to exist for a few thousand years. Naga ancestry is also nearly ubiquitous amoung the Koris, though they are generally counted as humans.

Basic Information

Anatomy

In overall outline, nagas resemble humans from the hips up, with a similar shaped torso, two arms, and a similar type of head. From below the hips is a more complicated story, nagas are born with a serpentine tail for a lower half, but can develop the ability to switch between that and human-like legs over the course of their lifetime. However any degree of internal or external inspection would show clear differences between a naga, even one with legs, and a human. Nagas are completely hairless, their skin covered in tiny, smooth, flexible scales, cycloid in shape like those of many fish. Their scales are thicker around the top of the head, forming ridges that vary slightly in pattern among individuals. Nagas are generally soft brown with light grey patches along their front, though there is some variation. Nagas have a hood like a cobra, two flaps of intricately patterned tissue generally folded into the side of their neck, but that can be expanded outwards into an oval around their face. Nagas have flat teeth like humans, but a slightly forked tongue. Their eyes are typically green, but may be other colors, and have thin vertical pupils.

Genetics and Reproduction

Nagas are viviparous, fertalizing internally and gestating embryos internally, their overall reproductive cycle only differing from humans in a slightly shorter pregnancy averaging at 8 months. Indeed, despite their visible dissimilarity, nagas and humans are capable of interbreeding, likely due to their common creation by Alati. These hybrids, known as Inoye, are fertile and capable of breeding with either parent species or each other.

Growth Rate & Stages

Newborn naga are slightly smaller than humans, but slightly more precocious- they aren't especially self-sufficient, but they can slither on their own from the moment of birth. They grow at a slow and steady rate until around the age of fifteen, where they quickly grow to their full size over the next two to four years. At the start of this accelerated stage, nagas instinctively gain a subtle shapeshifting ability, letting them switch between their serpentine trunk and a pair of legs. It takes some time to get used to walking on these legs, and adolescent nagas are famously clumsy. While growing, nagas will periodically moult, patches of skin becoming hard, itchy, and pale, until they eventually fall off revealing fresher scales underneath. This happens reasonably frequently, but stops entirely when they reach their full size. Nagas age quite slowly after this, and can often expect to live to 200. Older nagas may begin to gain an even stronger control of their inate transformation magic, allowing them to briefly turn into giant full-snakes.

Additional Information

Perception and Sensory Capabilities

Nagas have a well developed sense of sight, taste, and hearing comparable to that of most other intelligent species, though their sense of touch is slightly less accute. Their most atypical sense is that of smell. Nagas have a vomeronasal organ, a structure built into the roof of their mouth giving them an accute sense of smell. They are able to further enhance their smell by sticking their tongue out for a few moments then tapping it to the roof of their mouth, allowing them to accurately track scents, though this can be unpleasent and most avoid it when not actively tracking something.

Civilization and Culture

Major Organizations

Politically, the majority of nagas live within the Kingdom of Selatra, though there are signifigant populations of them in Kijar Sate and Palosvana (the Moorkhan), and a more minor presence in other areas. The Olokushi theoretically has absolute power, but is constrained by tradition and the famously dense court politics. Important factions in politics include the Palace of Memories (the Olokushi's personal staff), The Five Zone Council, and the Mesha Dun (the meshaist priestly class led by the Ajanma, though the power of the last of these is largely unofficial.

Major Language Groups and Dialects

The primary language among the naga is Saeluva, known to most non-selatrans simply as 'naga'. Each of the five regions of Selatra-- Lenzha, the Isle of Mist, Antarhala, Makarahala, and Selatrahala, has a distinct dialect, though Middle Saeluva from the time of Mesha is common as a liturgical tongue. The Moorkhan of Anibat also have their own distinct branch of Saeluva. Koris, Palosi, and Muhara are all also common languages, the former two because of being the tongues of Selatra's neighbors, the latter due to being a ubiquitous lingua franca.

History

The nagas were first created along the bank of the Taka River in Selatra by the goddess Alati in the early days of the world. Though they established state civilization far earlier than any other species save the asuras, the nagas were initially fractious and disunified. However, the small naga states increasingly began uniting thanks to the efforts of a woman named Olokushi. A masterful diplomat and a briliant scholar, she banded the nagas together in response to external threats from the Asuras, but she feared that once she died the people she had rallied would return to fighting each other. One night, Olokushi found a way to speak to Alati, and begged to have a way to ensure her people and homeland continued. Alati offered Olokushi a pact- Olokushi would forever be suspended somewhere between mortality and divinity, forgoing the chance to gain enlightenment and divinity for as long as there were Selatrans in need. In exchange, Olokushi would keep being reincarnated within Selatra, and Alati would send signs guiding the people to her new incarnation, letting her continue her rule through her reincarnations, losing her personal memories of all but her original life, but keeping small amounts of whatever skills she accumulated. When Olokushi died, cosmic signs led Selatra to a newborn child who, as they grew up, began showing aspects of the skills and personality of Olokushi. And so it continued for generations, with Selatra, and thus the vast majority of the nagas, led by a string of rulers whose birth names were quickly near-forgotten under the title of 'The Olokushi'. Though there have been many challenges and shifts faced by the nagas since, the only one to leave an especially strong impact on their culture and rule was Mesha. Born in southern Selatra, Mesha was an itinerant philosopher and guru who taught on the nature of divinity, and the path of spiritual growth needed to attain it. The ambivalance his ways had for the gods displaced the dominant Alati-worship structure, and when Mesha negotiated with the Ajanma, a powerful hereditary noble from a pre-Olokushi royal family, giving them a spiritual leadership role, the Olokushi was convinced (or pressured by some accounts) to adopt Mesha's ways as the official practice of the state. Some nagas still hold on to the old ways, though these are increasingly mostly among the populations of naga outside Selatra itself, while Meshaism dominates the ancient kingdom, the Olokushi still in charge but the Ajanma holding great spiritual and unofficial political influence.

Genetic Descendants