Yuan-ti
"They are always coldly, calmly calculating."
The serpent creatures known as yuan-ti are all that remains of an ancient, decadent human empire. Ages ago their dark gods taught them profane, cannibalistic rituals to mix their flesh with that of snakes, producing a caste-based society of hybrids in which the most snakelike are the leaders and the most humanlike are spies and agents in foreign lands.
The people who became yuan-ti were one of the original human civilizations. Their society built great temples of stone and forged metal into armor, tools, and weapons. In their ceremonies they paid homage to the snake as the embodiment of the qualities they most appreciated. They developed a philosophy of separating emotion from intellectual pursuits, allowing them to focus their energy on personal advancement and expanding their territory. They believed themselves to be the most enlightened mortals in the world, and in their hubris they sought to become ever greater. The serpent gods of the primordial world heeded the prayers of these people and hissed dark demands into their ears. The people tainted their souls by performing human sacrifices in the name of the gods, debased their flesh by cannibalizing their victims, and then performed a sorcerous ritual while writhing in pools filled with living snakes that enabled them to mix their flesh with that of serpents, becoming like the gods in body, thought, and emotion. Freed from the limitations of their human bodies, the yuan-ti used their new abilities to conquer new lands and expand their borders.
The bodies of all yuan-ti have a mix of humanlike and snakelike parts, but the proportion varies from individual to individual. After the initial metamorphosis of the humans, their society quickly coalesced into a caste system based on how complete a person’s transformation was. The vast majority of yuan-ti fall into three categories — abominations, malisons, and purebloods — while the mutated broodguards and exceedingly rare anathemas have their place in the hierarchy as well. All yuan-ti can interbreed. Females usually lay clutches of eggs, which are stored in a common hatchery, although live births aren’t uncommon. A mating between yuan-ti of different types almost always produces eggs that hatch into yuan-ti of the weaker parent, so most choose partners of the same type in the interest of maintaining the strength of their personal bloodline. The yuan-ti have abandoned their humanity and consider non-serpentine humanoids to be lesser creatures, barely more civilized than common apes. Although some purebloods are able to reproduce with humans, most are disgusted by the idea and would do so only if seduction is necessary for a pureblood to preserve a role as a confidant or advisor in human society. The very rare offspring of such a union are always purebloods, although they may appear fully human at birth and for several years afterward. The yuan-ti know rituals that can transform an individual into a more powerful type. The cost and time required to perform the ritual is prohibitive, and as a result most yuan-ti never get the opportunity to undergo such a transformation. Every use of the ritual must be modified to suit the individual undergoing transformation, and requires rare herbs, exotic magical substances, snakes, and one or more humans to be sacrificed and eaten as part of the procedure.
The human civilization that gave rise to the yuan-ti was among the richest in the mortal world. It rapidly progressed in metalworking, using keen intellect and magic to discover the secrets of making steel. Its military shattered rival tribes and developed advanced tactics for fighting in forests and open plains. The civilization grew into a cluster of allied city-states. Conquered neighbors were allowed to keep their leaders and culture so long as they paid tribute, swore allegiance to the victors, and incorporated their conquerors’ serpent gods into their religions. These victories sent a constant influx of food, ore, and slaves back to the home cities. The wealth of the empire allowed the ruling elite plenty of time to focus on intellectual pursuits. These nobles turned to philosophy and prayer, offering gifts of magic and animal sacrifices to their serpent gods, paying homage to the perfection of the ophidian form. The serpent gods taught the humans how to take on aspects of the snake, but the cost of the change was high, requiring many sacrifices for each person to be transformed. Entire households of slaves in one city-state were killed and eaten to create the first yuan-ti, and once the news of how to perform these rituals spread to other leaders, the call for slaves to fuel the process increased. As the serpent gods began to demand more and more sacrifices, the yuan-ti stepped up their raids on bordering settlements to meet this need. The physical and magical prowess of the yuan-ti empire allowed the former humans to retain their holdings for several hundred years, until a combination of drought, attacks by enemies (including dragons and nagas), civil war, torpor among the serpent gods, and the development of iron weapons by the some of their conquered enemies finally loosened the yuan-ti’s hold over nearby lands. The serpent people withdrew to their fortified cities and underground temples, ceding the rest of their territory to their former minions. The yuan-ti crawled away and hid in a matter of weeks, all but disappearing from the world. Yuan-ti structures throughout the land were torn down to celebrate liberation from the snake-bodied oppressors, and within a few generations the yuan-ti were all but forgotten by the new humanoid civilizations. For over a thousand years after their empire fell, the yuan-ti remained ensconced in their hidden strongholds, biding their time until they were ready to strike again. Today, with their numbers greatly depleted and their enemies much stronger than in ages past, the yuan-ti know they can’t resort to direct attacks in order to reclaim their rightful place in the world. Operating out of the subterranean ruins of their buildings in foreign lands, yuan-ti agents infiltrate enemy governments to discover weaknesses that their leaders can exploit. The yuan-ti look forward to the day when their empire rises again and spreads across the world like venom through the blood, as it once did.
During their ascension ages ago, the yuan-ti freed themselves from the yoke of their human emotions. Now they view the world from a pragmatic and dispassionate perspective. They understand emotional connections in a detached, intellectual way, and recognize that these feelings in others can be exploited through bribes, favors, or threats. As creatures devoid of emotion, yuan-ti exhibit behavior and use tactics that exemplify that outlook (or lack of one). Whether in combat or in daily life, the following principles guide the yuan-ti in all they do.
Yuan-ti put little value on humanoid lives, even those of their own slaves and cultists. They would poison children to carry out a threat against their parents, or turn one person into a broodguard in order to show her family the consequence of resistance. They might refrain from provoking others’ feelings if doing so could adversely affect the yuan-ti’s plans, but they understand humanoid psychology well enough to know that they can get away with this casual disregard for life almost anytime. Furthermore, in the yuan-ti caste system, a greater yuan-ti’s life is worth far more than a lesser one’s. Weaker citizens are expected to lay down their lives to protect their betters. Leaders rely on this zealotry in their plans, and although they don’t needlessly waste the lives of purebloods on futile actions, most strategies include a fallback option in which mobs of purebloods and slaves are thrown at opposing forces in the hope of allowing the malisons and abominations time to escape.
Yuan-ti are likely to retreat or flee from conflict if they don’t believe they have a reasonable chance of success. This reaction isn’t out of cowardice, but practicality—yuan-ti value their own lives much too highly to risk them when the odds aren’t in their favor. A short retreat might be just the thing to reach a better tactical position, find allies, or to allow the yuan-ti the opportunity to study their opponents and implement better tactics. Any enemy who chases a group of fleeing yuan-ti might be on the victorious side of a rout or could be heading into a trap; if the enemy has been encountered before, it is likely that the yuan-ti have prepared a special ambush at the end of the pursuit.
The objective of the yuan-ti as a race is to conquer and enslave others; they don’t espouse the sort of evil that calls for them to butcher or eradicate all who oppose them. In keeping with their goal of domination, the yuan-ti would rather capture potentially useful opponents than kill them. They use many methods for capturing enemies, such as poisoning, knocking out an opponent instead of making a killing blow, throwing nets, using magic such as suggestion, or restraining them in the coils of a giant snake. To force their compliance, enemies might be brainwashed, charmed, tortured, or transformed into broodguards. Those that prove intractable still have their uses, either as sacrifices to the gods or as food.
Yuan-ti have no sense of honorable combat. They are naturally stealthy, and if they can sneak up on enemies, either in an ambush or to murder them in their sleep, the yuan-ti will do so—and they actually prefer these tactics to open warfare. Because abominations and malisons can change into the shapes of snakes, they can keep their presence hidden and get into places their normal forms couldn’t enter. Their immunity to poison gives all yuan-ti a tactical advantage in dealing with other creatures. A pureblood serving as a food taster for a royal family could poison a meal and declare it “safe” after taking a bite.
Yuan-ti are emotionless, yet feel completely superior to humanoids, in the same way that a human can feel superior to chickens or rabbits — in a matter-of-fact, completely objective way that doesn’t brook any second-guessing. To a yuan-ti, there are only three categories of creature: threat, yuan-ti, or meat. Threats are powerful creatures such as demons, dragons, and genies. Yuan-ti are any of their own kind, regardless of caste; although a rival yuan-ti might be dangerous, and a weak or dead one might be potential food, it is first and foremost one of the true people and deserving of some respect. Meat includes any creature that is neither a threat nor a yuan-ti, possibly useful for a base purpose but not worthy of other consideration. Most yuan-ti consider it beneath themselves to speak to meat. Abominations and malisons rarely communicate directly with slaves except in emergencies (such as for giving battle orders at other times, slaves are expected to constantly be aware of the master’s mood, anticipate the master’s needs, and recognize subtle gestures of hands, head, and tail that indicate commands. Only purebloods — which walk among humanoids and therefore have to learn how to speak to them civilly — practice interacting with meat-creatures. Much of their training involves suppressing their innate annoyance at having to speak to lesser beings as though they were equals, or being obliged to kowtow to a humanoid ruler as if the pureblood were merely an advisor. Pureblood spies feel a sort of aloof contempt toward meat-creatures, but they can affect a pleasant tone, and speak to such creatures with a silver tongue that disguises their true feelings. Under normal circumstances, yuan-ti are always calmly deferential to those of higher rank. They tend to be curt and formal with those of lower rank, for the differences between them aren’t a source of anger or disgust (emotions that the yuan-ti don’t feel anyway), merely a fact of the natural order, and their culture long ago realized that treating the lower castes with a measure of detached respect prevents rebellion and advances the cause of the entire race.
Purebloods mature at the same rate as humans and have lifespans similar in length to theirs.
Purebloods are devoid of emotion and see others as tools to manipulate. They care little for law or chaos and are typically neutral evil.
Purebloods match humans in average size and weight. Your size is Medium.
Yuan-ti names have meanings that have been passed down through the generations, although spellings and inflections have changed over time. Some yuan-ti add more sibilants to their birth names to create an exaggerated hissing sound, based on one’s personal preference and whether an individual’s anatomy can more easily pronounce the name in this altered form. An adopted name of this sort is recognized as a variant of the birth name, rather than a unique name unto itself. A yuan-ti might refer to itself by its birth name, by its adopted name, or (especially among purebloods) by a name it borrows from the local populace.
Humans Transformed
The people who became yuan-ti were one of the original human civilizations. Their society built great temples of stone and forged metal into armor, tools, and weapons. In their ceremonies they paid homage to the snake as the embodiment of the qualities they most appreciated. They developed a philosophy of separating emotion from intellectual pursuits, allowing them to focus their energy on personal advancement and expanding their territory. They believed themselves to be the most enlightened mortals in the world, and in their hubris they sought to become ever greater. The serpent gods of the primordial world heeded the prayers of these people and hissed dark demands into their ears. The people tainted their souls by performing human sacrifices in the name of the gods, debased their flesh by cannibalizing their victims, and then performed a sorcerous ritual while writhing in pools filled with living snakes that enabled them to mix their flesh with that of serpents, becoming like the gods in body, thought, and emotion. Freed from the limitations of their human bodies, the yuan-ti used their new abilities to conquer new lands and expand their borders.
One Race, Many Forms
The bodies of all yuan-ti have a mix of humanlike and snakelike parts, but the proportion varies from individual to individual. After the initial metamorphosis of the humans, their society quickly coalesced into a caste system based on how complete a person’s transformation was. The vast majority of yuan-ti fall into three categories — abominations, malisons, and purebloods — while the mutated broodguards and exceedingly rare anathemas have their place in the hierarchy as well. All yuan-ti can interbreed. Females usually lay clutches of eggs, which are stored in a common hatchery, although live births aren’t uncommon. A mating between yuan-ti of different types almost always produces eggs that hatch into yuan-ti of the weaker parent, so most choose partners of the same type in the interest of maintaining the strength of their personal bloodline. The yuan-ti have abandoned their humanity and consider non-serpentine humanoids to be lesser creatures, barely more civilized than common apes. Although some purebloods are able to reproduce with humans, most are disgusted by the idea and would do so only if seduction is necessary for a pureblood to preserve a role as a confidant or advisor in human society. The very rare offspring of such a union are always purebloods, although they may appear fully human at birth and for several years afterward. The yuan-ti know rituals that can transform an individual into a more powerful type. The cost and time required to perform the ritual is prohibitive, and as a result most yuan-ti never get the opportunity to undergo such a transformation. Every use of the ritual must be modified to suit the individual undergoing transformation, and requires rare herbs, exotic magical substances, snakes, and one or more humans to be sacrificed and eaten as part of the procedure.
Undercover Empire
The human civilization that gave rise to the yuan-ti was among the richest in the mortal world. It rapidly progressed in metalworking, using keen intellect and magic to discover the secrets of making steel. Its military shattered rival tribes and developed advanced tactics for fighting in forests and open plains. The civilization grew into a cluster of allied city-states. Conquered neighbors were allowed to keep their leaders and culture so long as they paid tribute, swore allegiance to the victors, and incorporated their conquerors’ serpent gods into their religions. These victories sent a constant influx of food, ore, and slaves back to the home cities. The wealth of the empire allowed the ruling elite plenty of time to focus on intellectual pursuits. These nobles turned to philosophy and prayer, offering gifts of magic and animal sacrifices to their serpent gods, paying homage to the perfection of the ophidian form. The serpent gods taught the humans how to take on aspects of the snake, but the cost of the change was high, requiring many sacrifices for each person to be transformed. Entire households of slaves in one city-state were killed and eaten to create the first yuan-ti, and once the news of how to perform these rituals spread to other leaders, the call for slaves to fuel the process increased. As the serpent gods began to demand more and more sacrifices, the yuan-ti stepped up their raids on bordering settlements to meet this need. The physical and magical prowess of the yuan-ti empire allowed the former humans to retain their holdings for several hundred years, until a combination of drought, attacks by enemies (including dragons and nagas), civil war, torpor among the serpent gods, and the development of iron weapons by the some of their conquered enemies finally loosened the yuan-ti’s hold over nearby lands. The serpent people withdrew to their fortified cities and underground temples, ceding the rest of their territory to their former minions. The yuan-ti crawled away and hid in a matter of weeks, all but disappearing from the world. Yuan-ti structures throughout the land were torn down to celebrate liberation from the snake-bodied oppressors, and within a few generations the yuan-ti were all but forgotten by the new humanoid civilizations. For over a thousand years after their empire fell, the yuan-ti remained ensconced in their hidden strongholds, biding their time until they were ready to strike again. Today, with their numbers greatly depleted and their enemies much stronger than in ages past, the yuan-ti know they can’t resort to direct attacks in order to reclaim their rightful place in the world. Operating out of the subterranean ruins of their buildings in foreign lands, yuan-ti agents infiltrate enemy governments to discover weaknesses that their leaders can exploit. The yuan-ti look forward to the day when their empire rises again and spreads across the world like venom through the blood, as it once did.
Emotionless Evil
During their ascension ages ago, the yuan-ti freed themselves from the yoke of their human emotions. Now they view the world from a pragmatic and dispassionate perspective. They understand emotional connections in a detached, intellectual way, and recognize that these feelings in others can be exploited through bribes, favors, or threats. As creatures devoid of emotion, yuan-ti exhibit behavior and use tactics that exemplify that outlook (or lack of one). Whether in combat or in daily life, the following principles guide the yuan-ti in all they do.
Other Lives Are Cheap
Yuan-ti put little value on humanoid lives, even those of their own slaves and cultists. They would poison children to carry out a threat against their parents, or turn one person into a broodguard in order to show her family the consequence of resistance. They might refrain from provoking others’ feelings if doing so could adversely affect the yuan-ti’s plans, but they understand humanoid psychology well enough to know that they can get away with this casual disregard for life almost anytime. Furthermore, in the yuan-ti caste system, a greater yuan-ti’s life is worth far more than a lesser one’s. Weaker citizens are expected to lay down their lives to protect their betters. Leaders rely on this zealotry in their plans, and although they don’t needlessly waste the lives of purebloods on futile actions, most strategies include a fallback option in which mobs of purebloods and slaves are thrown at opposing forces in the hope of allowing the malisons and abominations time to escape.
Survival First
Yuan-ti are likely to retreat or flee from conflict if they don’t believe they have a reasonable chance of success. This reaction isn’t out of cowardice, but practicality—yuan-ti value their own lives much too highly to risk them when the odds aren’t in their favor. A short retreat might be just the thing to reach a better tactical position, find allies, or to allow the yuan-ti the opportunity to study their opponents and implement better tactics. Any enemy who chases a group of fleeing yuan-ti might be on the victorious side of a rout or could be heading into a trap; if the enemy has been encountered before, it is likely that the yuan-ti have prepared a special ambush at the end of the pursuit.
Capture, Not Kill
The objective of the yuan-ti as a race is to conquer and enslave others; they don’t espouse the sort of evil that calls for them to butcher or eradicate all who oppose them. In keeping with their goal of domination, the yuan-ti would rather capture potentially useful opponents than kill them. They use many methods for capturing enemies, such as poisoning, knocking out an opponent instead of making a killing blow, throwing nets, using magic such as suggestion, or restraining them in the coils of a giant snake. To force their compliance, enemies might be brainwashed, charmed, tortured, or transformed into broodguards. Those that prove intractable still have their uses, either as sacrifices to the gods or as food.
Depend on Deceit
Yuan-ti have no sense of honorable combat. They are naturally stealthy, and if they can sneak up on enemies, either in an ambush or to murder them in their sleep, the yuan-ti will do so—and they actually prefer these tactics to open warfare. Because abominations and malisons can change into the shapes of snakes, they can keep their presence hidden and get into places their normal forms couldn’t enter. Their immunity to poison gives all yuan-ti a tactical advantage in dealing with other creatures. A pureblood serving as a food taster for a royal family could poison a meal and declare it “safe” after taking a bite.
Roleplaying a Yuan-ti
Yuan-ti are emotionless, yet feel completely superior to humanoids, in the same way that a human can feel superior to chickens or rabbits — in a matter-of-fact, completely objective way that doesn’t brook any second-guessing. To a yuan-ti, there are only three categories of creature: threat, yuan-ti, or meat. Threats are powerful creatures such as demons, dragons, and genies. Yuan-ti are any of their own kind, regardless of caste; although a rival yuan-ti might be dangerous, and a weak or dead one might be potential food, it is first and foremost one of the true people and deserving of some respect. Meat includes any creature that is neither a threat nor a yuan-ti, possibly useful for a base purpose but not worthy of other consideration. Most yuan-ti consider it beneath themselves to speak to meat. Abominations and malisons rarely communicate directly with slaves except in emergencies (such as for giving battle orders at other times, slaves are expected to constantly be aware of the master’s mood, anticipate the master’s needs, and recognize subtle gestures of hands, head, and tail that indicate commands. Only purebloods — which walk among humanoids and therefore have to learn how to speak to them civilly — practice interacting with meat-creatures. Much of their training involves suppressing their innate annoyance at having to speak to lesser beings as though they were equals, or being obliged to kowtow to a humanoid ruler as if the pureblood were merely an advisor. Pureblood spies feel a sort of aloof contempt toward meat-creatures, but they can affect a pleasant tone, and speak to such creatures with a silver tongue that disguises their true feelings. Under normal circumstances, yuan-ti are always calmly deferential to those of higher rank. They tend to be curt and formal with those of lower rank, for the differences between them aren’t a source of anger or disgust (emotions that the yuan-ti don’t feel anyway), merely a fact of the natural order, and their culture long ago realized that treating the lower castes with a measure of detached respect prevents rebellion and advances the cause of the entire race.
Age
Purebloods mature at the same rate as humans and have lifespans similar in length to theirs.
Alignment
Purebloods are devoid of emotion and see others as tools to manipulate. They care little for law or chaos and are typically neutral evil.
Size
Purebloods match humans in average size and weight. Your size is Medium.
Yuan-ti Names
Yuan-ti names have meanings that have been passed down through the generations, although spellings and inflections have changed over time. Some yuan-ti add more sibilants to their birth names to create an exaggerated hissing sound, based on one’s personal preference and whether an individual’s anatomy can more easily pronounce the name in this altered form. An adopted name of this sort is recognized as a variant of the birth name, rather than a unique name unto itself. A yuan-ti might refer to itself by its birth name, by its adopted name, or (especially among purebloods) by a name it borrows from the local populace.
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