The Blood Naga Kanya or Priestesses comprise the lower but most numerous ranks of the royal Naga caste, younger daughters and granddaughters of the Naga Queens who were born after the rebellion against the Old Ones and the tumultuous times of the Chaos Incursions. The Naga Kanya are afforded only a portion of the Naga Queens’ power, advancing in knowledge only after they have sufficiently accomplished their matriarchs’ capricious whims and objectives for at least a century. It is because of the mercurial, paranoid and invidious natures of their mistresses that barely any Naga Kanya are able to rise to the rank of lesser Queen, and even less from Queen to usurping the position of one of the Twelve. Naga Priestesses who are seen as potential dangers to their matriarchs' positions tend to disappear while on missions or fall afoul of disastrous mishaps in battle.
When not called to war, the Serpent-Priestesses are given the tasks of ritual preparation, prisoner inspection, tool maintenance, ingredients collection, the brewing of minor elixirs and other mundane errands that their Queens cannot be bothered with. Still they are invaluable to the day-to-day operations of their grim civilization, dutifully serving their mistresses with opportunistic zeal. The Priestesses are always on the lookout for a chance to ascend to higher levels of power, so that they too may properly assuage their ravenous hunger and attain perfection promised to them by their coiling deity.
Less monstrous than the other Serpents but still intimidating in appearance to mortal Men, the Priestesses have only two arms rather than the four of the fully matured Naga Queens. This allows the Kanya to more easily assume a more tempting disguise through shadowy glamour, in order to deceive their victims or momentarily distract the foe in battle. Due to the taint of Chaos upon their forms however, their prey will invariably feel a growing sense of unease the longer they stay in the Naga’s presence.
Though their magical prowess pales in comparison to the Naga Queens, the Priestesses are still many centuries old and no less useful in strengthening the spells cast by their matriarchs. Armed with the trishula trident and the kujang ceremonial blade, the Kanya are stunningly agile and crafty combatants, dodging attacks with contemptuous ease. They may be found riding atop Chorakhe-drawn chariots into the fray, punishing enemy warriors with a collection of lesser curses and disorienting conjurations as they swiftly attend to their hosts' needs.
The Naga Kanya are often accompanied by an intelligent but bloodthirsty guardian familiar known as the Placid or Buzzer Daemon, a large insectile forest daemon that traces its origins to the time of the Great Incursions. Fashioned by those who would form the Ebon Stone marga from malevolent entities coaxed out of the Dreaming Wood, the Placid possesses the body of a giant predator cricket found on the Isles of Elithis, a head with a grotesque grinning elven face, and four of six limbs that end in disturbing human-like hands.
While out of combat, the Placid conceals itself with Ulgu and closely hovers in the air or skitters beside its mistress, helping her with her tasks and watching out for danger. When hostile, the Placid emits an insanity-inducing buzzing cacophony as it flies swiftly towards its foe. Hungry for warm blood and the meaty tongues of its prey, the Buzzer Daemon savagely attacks with magic-infused tooth, tail and claw, flitting through reality as it dodges retaliatory blows.
The Kanya secure the services of these abnormal familiars by sacrificing their own blood and the tongue of a child of the warm-blooded races at a Khureshi crossroad, bonding with the insect-daemon for life. Curiously and for esoteric reasons known only to the eldest Blood Naga, the Buzzer Daemons exclusively bond with female Naga and refuse to do so under any circumstance with the male Pannaga counterparts to the Kanya. The Pannaga Whirra in turn possess their own particular battle familiar that likewise refuse to bond with female Naga. A Naga Priestess that succeeds in becoming a lesser Queen tends to accrue a number of such familiars as they grow in might. These daemon insect entities will invariably go on to make up the strange attendants of the Crucibles of Manifestations.
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