Dark Naga

Dark naga have fanged human faces on leathery serpent bodies of black, purple-black, or deep blue. With crested heads and nearly invisible scales, they look more like huge eels than snakes.

A dark naga's ESP (80 feet) is always running, and the same gift makes its own mind unreadable. Charm, sleep, hold, and other enchantment/charm spells can affect it, but it saves at +2 against that school. It is immune to all acids, venoms, and poisons.

The bite is not venomous; the barbed tail is. A stung victim takes physical damage and must save vs. poison or suffer 1-2 more points and drop into drugged slumber 1 round later, lasting 2d4 rounds. Each round the naga may sting and also either bite or cast, at one target or several, even foes in front and behind in a tight tunnel.

Its spellcasting is the real threat: sixth-level wizard (4,2,2), using verbal-only spells. It learns them from dragons, subterranean sorcerer races, or other creatures who cast by word or thought, or devises them itself; converting a spell that needs gestures and materials is much harder, and slow, costly study drives many dark naga into service or adventuring.

Some swallow poison and act as couriers. A carried dose can be spat at a foe within 10 feet with an attack roll in place of the bite, or released during a bite to combine the damage.

They lair in caves or ruins with hiding spots for loot, more than one exit, and a choke point the naga can block with its body to fight alone. They love traps and build or hire them whenever possible.

Mostly solitary, they sometimes form families of two or three. Each is hermaphroditic and abandons its squirming brood of wormlike young at birth. Knowing they rarely win alone, they join orcs, hobgoblins, drow, gazer tyrants, and similar powers, preferring a sergeant's role as the magical strike force under a stronger leader, and they adopt the group's faith and rules.

They never eat their own kind but will eat nearly anything else, mostly meat, especially warm fresh blood. Privately each pursues its own goals, some whimsical (forest a desert valley), all including more spells and magic. They loot the fallen by swallowing items, scrolls, and books into an internal sac with rubbery, air-cushioned walls that resists sharp edges, keeps out digestive juices, and hides its contents from all detection spells.