The Painted Serpent

Of all the court of nightmares, the Painted Serpent is the strangest, being the only member without a humanoid shape. It is a winged snake only four feet long, its vivid red scales ringed with stripes of deep blue, black and yellow. Cunning malice shines in its eyes, and its mouth seems fixed in a permanent grin; that sly, mocking smile is often the one thing dreamers recall about it.

It never truly speaks. Instead it plants words and ideas directly in listeners' minds, in whatever tongue it has picked up from the dreams it has visited, and its audience can never be sure which thoughts are their own and which come from the serpent.

The Serpent avoids open fights. It prefers to have its dream spawn take shapes that breed mistrust among any travelers who stray near its lair, while it hides close by and slips suggestion, as the spell, into their minds whenever the moment is right.

If cornered, it strikes once with dripping fangs for a modest 1d4+1. The venom is the real danger: a failed save vs. poison means 1d4 hours unconscious, and even a successful save leaves the victim at -4 on every die roll for 1d4 hours.

Three times a day, much like sticks to snakes, it can transform ordinary staves and polearms into shadow asps, foot-long coils of darkness whose bite can turn a victim into a shadow. Normal items get no save, magical ones save vs. spell, and a transformed weapon is gone forever.

Dream spawn, perilous plants and nightmarish versions of ordinary reptiles guard its lair, all obeying the deceiver. A soft hiss calls them, and they arrive in 1d4 rounds; the Serpent can take no other action in the round it summons them.

Its home is a primeval jungle park at the heart of the dream city. It glides through the dense, maze-like greenery frolicking among its scaly minions, or coils in the boughs of its tree of suspicion, gazing out over the dreamscapes it rules.

Like every member of the court, it lives on the energy of dreams. Its richest meals are dreams of insecurity and paranoia, in which trust collapses and any beloved friend might be a traitor.