Hannya

From the waist up a hannya is a crone with a hooked nose, a long forked tongue, and small black eyes under a milky haze. She is gaunt and bony, her skin a sickly green, her mouth full of sharp yellow teeth. Greasy black curls hang across her stooped shoulders, and her long, thin fingers are tipped with claws. She dresses in a peasant's filthy rags, usually black or gray. Below the waist she is a thick, supple, powerful snake, its scales of green or black, thin and cold.

She speaks local tongues plus those of the vasshari and all reptiles, and when agitated she hisses and sputters between long, shrill cackles.

A hannya is a bully. She slips away from equal or stronger foes at the first chance but savages the weak with relish. Polymorph self is hers at will, she has continual ESP out to 100 feet, and she can plant a suggestion in an unwary mind at the same range. Her favorite ruse, once ESP turns up a likely mark (a lost child, say, or a wandering priest), is to become a sweet-faced old lady and suggest that she is lonely, needs a hand, or can offer food and a bed. If the victim comes, she chats pleasantly until his guard drops, then strikes.

She attacks with claws and bite and can coil her tail around a victim for 1-4 damage; after the first successful squeeze, the victim takes another 1-4 automatically each round. A bend bars/lift gates roll lets a trapped humanoid wriggle free, and allies chopping at the coils have a 20% chance of hitting the victim instead.

Violets repel her. She will not willingly enter a building ringed by beds of them, and anyone holding a bunch is safe from her touch and her spells. In disguise she may sweetly ask the guest to put the blossoms in water so she may enjoy them, or plead an allergy and ask that they be put away. These are plain requests, not suggestions, since the violets block her magic. If the victim complies, she attacks.

Each hannya was once an evil human woman, an eastern sorcerer or eastern priest expelled from her village for crimes against it. Burning for revenge, she swore worship and loyalty to dark spirits in exchange for this monstrous form. Hannya lurk in ruined temples and abandoned buildings on the fringes of human towns. Most live alone, though a few form a covey and split any prey drawn in evenly. They hoard coins and valuables as bait, using suggestion to tell passersby there is treasure inside.

A hannya eats any living creature but prefers humans and humanoids. She rarely deals with other monsters, though hannya sometimes join with vasshari to attack big human parties.