Serpent Men

[Anonymous]

Has anybody stats for creating Serpent Men characters? I know it was somewhere in this forum stated that they belong to Kull era, not Conan era, but I want to devise one high level Serpent Man sorcerer who has just awaken from some hibernation trance to restore the glory of their lost Empire!
I don't think that counts as "anti-canon" since there's no way he will win -there's Conan in case my players fail to stop him - and I won't create more than one Serpent Man, or maybe a handful.
What about a +2 Con, +6 Int, +4 Wis, +2 Cha, with Darkvision and Poison as a special qualities? I think that's what you would get from a straight Call of Cthulhu d20 to Conan conversion. But I want a more Conan flavoured version...
Oh, and if Vincent Darlage reads this I would be VERY interested in his opinion both about the stats and the suitability of Serpent Men for use during the Hyborian age.

 

[Judge Walker]

Like I've always said, "it's your world." Don't fieel constrained to follow canon religiously, if you want something in your game, put it in.

 

[VincentDarlage]

The stats seem fine. You may want to add the power to appear human. I don't know if Kull & Conan merely ran into a bunch of sorcerous serpent men or if they all could do it. They turned to snake-man form when killed, though, implying magic (the rule of impermanance) as opposed to something physical.

Technically, the serpent people belong in King Kull's era, but they have cropped up in Hyborian Age tales for as long as I can remember. L. Sprague de Camp decided a small enclave of them survived - Conan and Conn wiped them out in Shadows of the Skull (found in the Ace/Lancer volume, Conan of Aquilonia). Those remnants had the power to appear human, but mirrors would reveal their true self.

A curious limitation of the Serpent Men is that they cannot speak the words "Ka nama kaa lajerama." This phrase, referred to by the Serpent People as the Words that Unweave causes them pain and universally forces a disguised Serpent Man to reveal his true nature. These words are mentioned in the Kull story, "The Shadow Kingdom" by Robert E. Howard. These words also made an appearance in Conan the Barbarian #24 and were uttered by Red Sonja in an attempt to control a magic snake-item.

"The Seven Geases" by Clark Ashton Smith also feature the Serpent Men.

If I remember right, Conan the Barbarian #89 also featured Snake men and man-serpents (similar to the God in the Bowl).

Of course, there are different kinds of serpent men in Hyboria. In Conan the Barbarian #138-139, Children of Ishiti or Snake People, were inhuman creatures akin to the pre-Cataclysmic Serpent Men, but were of various colors (orange, green, yellow, etc.) instead of universally green, and their heads were almost dragon-like in appearance. Unlike the Serpent Men, they are incapable of human speech.

 

[Mythos]

Does anyone know if we will ever see stats for the creature from, God in the Bowl? It seems to me that this monster could have been a related creature to the serpent men.

 

[XcomSquaddie]

Physical description sounded like a naga, i.e. serpent body, human head.

The 3rd ed. nagas seem to have poison bites, charm gaze and some mental powers like "detect thoughts". Might be a place to start.

The story seemed to make them extremely powerful, constrict attack, a commanding or compelling presence, otherwordly horror, etc.


Just some thoughts anyway.

 

[emirikol]

I give them all kinds of wierd powers to keep my players on their toes. I have an entire race of serpent men (the Mutare from the later pastiches) that I have involved with the psionic abilities.

jh

 

[cornelius]

I'm pretty sure it was Clark Ashton Smith who invented the serpent men , and Howard " borrowed " them as Smith did with some of Howard's inventions , and if you agree with the Hyborian Age being another facet of the Cthulhu mythos ( something that Howard hinted at in a couple of stories ) , they should definitely be around at the time of Conan as they survived to the modern day in several Mythos stories . They're supposed to be able to hibernate almost indefinitely , so it would be easy to include them as " leftovers " from the Kull era . I'm not sure if there's stats for them in Cthulhu D20 , but it could be a good place to start looking .

 

[Iron_Chef]

The S'Tarra were a race of physically powerful but mentally degenerate serpent-men controlled by the renegade Stygian necromancer Amanar in Robert Jordan's Conan The Invincible pastiche. I would use D&D lizardfolk for these.

 

[J Harper]

The Shadow Kingdom was first published in 1928. The Seven Geases wasn't published until 1934. Smith borrowed from Howard, in this case.

Jeremy Harper

 

[Zamora Joe]

For those interested in converting, the Cthulhu D20 stat are;
Medium_sized Humanoid
Hit Dice: 2d8+2 (11hp)
Initiative: +0
Speed: 30 ft., swim 15 ft.
Armor Class:15 (+5 natural)
Attacks: Bite +2 melee
Damage: Bite 1d4 + poison
Face/Reach: 5 ft. by 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Poison
Special Qualities: Darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision, spells
Saves:Fort +1, Ref +3, Will +2
Abilities: Str 10, Dex 10, Con 12, Int 17, Wis 14, Cha 13
Skills: Concentration +5, Cthulhu Mythos +2, Knowledge (occult) +5, Spellcraft +4
Feats: Weapon Focus (bite)
CR:1
Climate/Terrain: Any warm desert
Advancement: As character
Sanity Loss: 0/1d6

Their poison deals initial damage of 1d6 Con on a failed Fort Save (DC 13) with another save required one minute later, regardless of the first result, to avoid secondary damage of 2d6 Con.

I'm not sure what all those things mean, but there they are.

 

[Prof.Dogg]

For those interested in converting, the Cthulhu D20 stat are;
Medium_sized Humanoid
Hit Dice: 2d8+2 (11hp)
Initiative: +0
Speed: 30 ft., swim 15 ft.
Armor Class:15 (+5 natural)
Attacks: Bite +2 melee
Damage: Bite 1d4 + poison
Face/Reach: 5 ft. by 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Poison
Special Qualities: Darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision, spells
Saves:Fort +1, Ref +3, Will +2
Abilities: Str 10, Dex 10, Con 12, Int 17, Wis 14, Cha 13
Skills: Concentration +5, Cthulhu Mythos +2, Knowledge (occult) +5, Spellcraft +4
Feats: Weapon Focus (bite)
CR:1
Climate/Terrain: Any warm desert
Advancement: As character
Sanity Loss: 0/1d6

Their poison deals initial damage of 1d6 Con on a failed Fort Save (DC 13) with another save required one minute later, regardless of the first result, to avoid secondary damage of 2d6 Con.

I'm not sure what all those things mean, but there they are.

Lose the Cthulu Mythos skill & treat Knowledge (occult) as Know (arcana) & Spellcraft as Performance (ritual) recalculating with Cha instead of Int as the mod. Forget sanity loss as it's specific to CoC. Just use the normal Conan fear rules. Treat them as 2nd level Scholars for BPP, MAB, Sorcery Styles & known Advanced Spells. Change Inititative to +3. Raise their bite damage to 1d6 & treat it as a finessable attack. Give them DR 5 & a total Dodge DV of 10 + the Dodge bonus of a 2nd level Barbarian (sorry, don't have the chart in front of me). Viola! Instant Conan version of Monte Cook's CoC Serpent-people a la Lovecraft.

 

[Zamora Joe]

Your serpent-person coversion is spot on Prof. Dogg. I've my CoC book right here if you want to do anymore. Bt the way, I love your Insmouth/Yuetshi idea.

 

[Sword-dancer]

IIRC Correctly in the Stories of Bran Mak Morn and or Cormac Mac Art, are the serpent people, or at least one of the serpent people play a role.

So their must have existed some in the hyborian age, and they must have survived.

 

[cornelius]

Consensus seems to be that these are a degenerate form of serpent men resulting from interbreeding with the humans of prehistoric Britain ( You don't get much more prehistoric than the Hyborian Age ! ) . Howard also wrote a follow - up ( of sorts ) set in the thirties where they were shown to have degenerated still further to a more snake-like state , similar to the Atlantean / Ape- Man degeneration . I can't remember the title at the moment and my books are all packed away , but someone else on the forum might know what I'm on about ( the story also featured a racial memory - type flashback involving a character called Conan ! ) .

 

[ReptileJK]

For those interested in converting, the Cthulhu D20 stat are;
Medium_sized Humanoid
Hit Dice: 2d8+2 (11hp)
Initiative: +0
Speed: 30 ft., swim 15 ft.
Armor Class:15 (+5 natural)
Attacks: Bite +2 melee
Damage: Bite 1d4 + poison
Face/Reach: 5 ft. by 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Poison
Special Qualities: Darkvision 60 ft., low-light vision, spells
Saves:Fort +1, Ref +3, Will +2
Abilities: Str 10, Dex 10, Con 12, Int 17, Wis 14, Cha 13
Skills: Concentration +5, Cthulhu Mythos +2, Knowledge (occult) +5, Spellcraft +4
Feats: Weapon Focus (bite)
CR:1
Climate/Terrain: Any warm desert
Advancement: As character
Sanity Loss: 0/1d6

Their poison deals initial damage of 1d6 Con on a failed Fort Save (DC 13) with another save required one minute later, regardless of the first result, to avoid secondary damage of 2d6 Con.

I'm not sure what all those things mean, but there they are.

Lose the Cthulu Mythos skill & treat Knowledge (occult) as Know (arcana) & Spellcraft as Performance (ritual) recalculating with Cha instead of Int as the mod. Forget sanity loss as it's specific to CoC. Just use the normal Conan fear rules. Treat them as 2nd level Scholars for BPP, MAB, Sorcery Styles & known Advanced Spells. Change Inititative to +3. Raise their bite damage to 1d6 & treat it as a finessable attack. Give them DR 5 & a total Dodge DV of 10 + the Dodge bonus of a 2nd level Barbarian (sorry, don't have the chart in front of me). Viola! Instant Conan version of Monte Cook's CoC Serpent-people a la Lovecraft.

Has anyone ever come up with the damage for the venom delivered by these serpent men? How 'bout a list of spells?

Thanks,
Reptile