Serpent Lord

Picture a hooded cobra, white as fresh snow and as long as 50 feet, wearing a human face with a warm and friendly smile. It speaks its own language, the tongue all serpents share, and the common trade tongue of the desert lands.

Serpent lords think of themselves as healers and scholars rather than warriors. Four or more giant constrictors with maximum hit points always attend it, and many lords also keep 2-12 giant venomous snakes and 2-8 spitting cobras; all will die defending their monarch.

Each lord wields the magic of a 16th-level cleric with 18 Wisdom, turns undead, and prepares spells of 1st through 7th level in a 9/9/8/7/4/3/1 pattern, favoring the healing, charm, protection, divination and necromantic spheres but sometimes taking combat spells. Strong magic resistance shields it from most spells cast at it.

When guards and magic fall short, it coils around enemies for 4-24, binding as many as eight man-sized foes at once. A caught victim takes that damage again every round with no roll needed, and pulling one man-sized captive loose takes rescuers with 70 points of Strength between them.

Their homes are big, secluded caverns deep in the wilds, usually in stony, snake-haunted hills or ancient abandoned ruins. Monarch of every snake within 20 miles, a lord given 1-4 days can rally constrictors (10-20, ordinary or giant), venomous snakes (10-60, ordinary or giant) and spitting snakes (10-40) to its side. It treats its snakes as friends and kin, will not waste them in battle and personally shields them from powerful enemies.

Food is the court's main worry. Lamb and beef are favorites, poultry will do, fish is refused outright, and cooked meat is preferred. A gift of meat earns a -4 bonus to the reaction roll, and a gift of roasted meat a -10.

People seek them out for healing, and gifts from grateful patients build a large hoard over the years. Far from greedy, a lord often hands a gem or a pot of gold to a favored guest or someone in need. A patient too poor to pay may instead be told to hunt down a wild boar or a stray herd animal, light a cookfire and roast it for the healer's supper. As sages they specialize in herbalism, potions and clerical magic, and some keep watch over a sacred item, perhaps a +5 holy avenger blade or a book of exalted deeds, yielding it only to whoever fulfills a foretold quest.

Serpent lords protect and champion wild snakes and spend nearly all their time healing. A slain lord's brain is a prize for potion makers: the right half is deadly and yields poisons, while the nourishing left half goes into potions of longevity and elixirs of life.