Naga

Dark nagas covet luxury, wealth, and power over others. With bodies covered by shimmering, eel-like black scales, dark nagas slither deftly through forsaken lands and abandoned ruins, scouring such places for treasures and weaker creatures they might force into service. Their forked tongues spread only lies, and others whom they can’t manipulate they destroy with their insidious poison and destructive magical abilities. A typical dark naga measures approximately 12 feet long and weighs upward of 300 pounds.
Arrogant and sybaritic, dark nagas seek to dominate lesser creatures, relishing the fear they inspire and power over other beings. While some manage to carve indulgent fiefdoms from tribes of kobolds, lizardfolk, or other barbarous races, the luster of cosmopolitan fineries proves enticing as well, leading some to infiltrate city sewers and slums to gather an urban following. They particularly relish morbidly crafted jewelry and treasures, often adorning themselves with jeweled bands or taking their ease atop piles of treasure.
Dark nagas hate others of their kind, especially other dark nagas, seeing their brethren as deadly opponents to be dispatched swiftly and mercilessly—often rightly so.
Naga, Guardian
Although ferocious in shape, with radiant scales, cobra-like hoods, and powerful serpentine bodies, guardian nagas serve as dutiful protectors of places of fundamental power and sanctity. Their scales often bear elaborate patterns similar to those of exotic jungle snakes. A typical guardian naga stretches 14 feet long and weighs approximately 350 pounds.
While many guardian nagas adhere to the exotic practices of ancient or forgotten faiths, others are merely drawn to sites of innate wonder—towering waterfalls, natural spires, mountaintop temples—minding them out of their own senses of duty and reverence. Often these nagas join a living faith, serving as protectors of sanctuaries or ancient treasures. A pair of nagas might take up residence near a site they deem worthy of protection, hatching a brood and raising their offspring there. When the young grow to adulthood, they have the choice of departing to seek their own homes or staying to protect their elder’s charge. Sometimes, a guardian naga protecting a ruin or temple is but the current protector in a line of sentinels stretching back centuries. Such sentinels often take the same name as their forebears to appear as a single, exceptionally long-lived figure.
Naga, Spirit
Morbid-minded and wretched to look upon, spirit nagas are the witches of the naga race, hateful outcasts long shunned for their dark powers and loathsome ways. A typical spirit naga is slender, with the scales of a venomous serpent and a tangle of greasy hair framing their pale faces. Most measure 14 feet long but weigh less than 300 pounds.
Spirit nagas delight in places of death and desolation. Battle-scarred ruins, untended graveyards, despoiled forests, and tangled swamps all attract these repulsive creatures. Where guardian nagas favor places of innate sanctity, spirit nagas seek out places of fundamental corruption, sites they believe to be imbued with dark magics. The crypts of long-dead tyrants, the death places of great heroes, and the ruins of nefarious keeps all attract these wretched serpents.
Most spirit nagas believe themselves to be the inheritors of some mysterious dark favor, seeing their innate magical talents as evidence of such. Most commune with vague powers of death and devastation, working profane rites and seeking grotesque auguries from cultic forces. To aid them, spirit nagas often use their enchanting gaze, changing victims into fawning fanatics and would-be sacrifices.
Spirit nagas occasionally band together in small groups—some seeming to mimic the covens of hags. While a particular plot or foe might bring these deadly serpents together for a short time, spirit nagas are loyal only to themselves, and such alliances always end in deadly betrayal