Brilliant Scales

A Tale of Brilliant Scales

... What?

Why you lookin' at me like that?

... Aw hell, you're new, aren't you? Probably fresh out of the sick-house too. Fa'chrissakes, why do I always find the new ones.

Alright squirt, walk with me here. I'm gonna scare the crap outta ya. Well ya wanna know why you picked me out of a crowd, why you can taste me? Yeah I thought so, so come on. Now, I bet you got into an accident, maybe ODed, young kid like you. And you saw the pinpoint of light gettin' bigger, but'cher not feelin' good you're feelin' scared, and then the light got all rainbowy and you knew that you had a choice, and you decided to come back. All of a sudden you're not dyin', you're actually gonna pull through ok. And at some point while you're gettin' better you realize that you're not the same, you look different you feel different, you're just not the same, and you're pretty sure it's got somethin' to do with that rainbowy light. Course you don't tell no one about any a' that, they'd think you were nuts.

Am I scarin' you yet?

So now here you are, wonderin' what it's all about. Well that rainbowy light was Quetzacouatl, a big shiny snake-god. Big in South America back in the day. And he picked you, who knows why, to be His. We call ourselves Naga, snakes that speak like people. Yeah, he got me too. It's not real fair of Him, is it, offering you a way back without telling you everything, when you're DYING fa'chrissakes. Anyway we're His now, and He basically wants us to look out fer humanity. Save'em from themselves sometimes, sure, but mostly from the things they don't know about. Yeah "they," whatever you are you're not human anymore. So we keep the poor schlubs as safe as we can from the other monsters in the world.

Look kid, cry about it all you want, but yer not human anymore. If I cut yer hand off it'd grow back like a lizard's tail. If I slit yer throat you'd make a damn mess and black out, but eventually you'd get back up. People, human people, don't do that stuff. They can't pick a person out of a crowd by how they make the air taste, and that's exactly what you did with me. I tasted different from all them humans because I'm not, and neither are you. Now come on. I'm takin' you to meet the Nest.

"Nest?" That's just what we call a bunch of us. It's a dog-eat-dog world (heh, "dog-eat-snake" if you like), and the only people you can count on to understand you now and have your back are your Nest.

Setting Concepts

<quote>The player characters are servants of the Scintillating Serpent, a major manifestation of the World Serpent. Their main powers are based around prestidigitation and their pulchritude. When necessary they can inflict enemies with a venom that causes xanthosis in the immoral and unclean. The Servants of the Serpent themselves must maintain their rectitude or be stripped of their powers and punished horribly. The main opponents of the Scintillating Serpent and his brood are the Oxocrani, horrible spider-like demons whose main weapon (aside from the usual array of spidery things) is power over fear.

A bit of a slant use of "arachnophobia," but I think the whole thing sounds pretty keen.</quote>

Wushu

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