Naga

The lost precursors to modern Naga and Yuan-Ti. A known race and faction in ancient Arikhet. Inscriptions in the pyramid below Kitsch allude to a great conflict between the Naga and the Ari. Known extant naga resemble giant limbless serpents that command yuan-ti as avatars of their gods.

Basic Information

Anatomy

Naga resemble humanoid snakes with shoulders, arms, and a torso but move using a massive serpentine lower body. This lower body can increase their speed by lowering their torsos and using their hands for extra propulsion. Naga can exhibit other features like broad hoods, horns, tail-rattles and a variety of patterning. They tend to be sexual dimorphic with males having wider than their shoulders, while females have more gracile features and longer faces.
Extant naga have supermassive forms who've sloughed their limbs and become tightly entangled with Yuan-ti culture. Those unlucky to see their current form report monstrous fiends whose faces resemble an amalgam of human and snake.

Civilization and Culture

History

Most histories of Arikhet center around the Ari birdfolk while very little attention is paid to the other races. One of the most powerful and enigmatic of those are the naga. Mainly adhering to a caste of viziers and sages, naga have no widely recorded origin story within Arikhet. Histories within the yuan-ti cults of the Fosee Forest paint a very different picture. The snakemen of the Fosse herald the naga as their mythic progenitors whose secrets and magics will propel them into a new form existence. From these legends, the naga had many conflicts with the ari and may actually predate them. The Mohshish Cult within the middle of Oren hoard ari artifacts proclaiming the serpantfolk naga are truly responsible for the rise of Arikhet. Various cults all around Cabochon believe the naga shed their limbs and helped to destroy Arikhet by becoming incarnations of hidden gods bent on purifying the world.
Most yuan-ti speak a form of Abyssial with prolonged 's' sounds (commonly referred to as Long S Abyssal). This same language family is also seen within ancient yuan-ti ruins which may be of naga construction. If the naga caste is correctly assumed, this implies that naga may have adopted Ari as a language due to subjugation or infiltraiton.

EXTINCT

Naga Vitalist by James Ryman

Genetic Descendants

• Yuan-Ti

Conservation Status

Evolved into larger, more monstrous Naga.

Naga

Ability Score Increase +2 Con, +1 Int

Size Medium

Speed 30ft

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Speed Burst: By lowering your body to the ground and propelling yourself with your arms, you can move more quickly for a time. As a bonus action on your turn, if you have both hands free, you can increase your walking speed by 5 feet until the end of your turn.
Natural Weapons: Your fanged maw and constricting serpentine body are natural weapons, which you can use to make unarmed strikes. If you hit with your bite, you deal piercing damage equal to 1d4 + your Strength modifier, and your target must make a Constitution saving throw (DC 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Constitution modifier). On a failed save, the target takes 1d4 poison damage. If you hit with your constrict attack, you deal bludgeoning damage equal to 1d6 + your Strength modifier, and the target is grappled (escape DC 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Strength modifier). Until this grapple ends, the target is restrained, and you can’t constrict another target.
Poison Immunity: You are immune to poison damage and can’t be poisoned.
Poison Affinity: You gain proficiency with the poisoner’s kit.