Vasshari Thrall

A vasshari thrall is a gaunt, hairless reptilian humanoid draped in filthy rags. Its tough, scaly hide is gray or yellow-green and faintly stinks of spoiled meat. Small bloodshot eyes peer out above a forked tongue that never stops flickering, and its mouth holds dull yellow teeth shaped like tiny, razor-edged hooks. Its fingernails have grown into black, twisted lizard claws. Thralls talk in clipped hisses, speaking the vasshari tongue, the languages of snakes and snakelike creatures, and whatever languages they knew as humans.

Unless ordered otherwise, a thrall attacks any non-reptile on sight, usually by charging straight in with claws and teeth. Whatever skills it had in life are gone: it never uses weapons or magic. Once a day it can fly into a berserk rage that grants +2 to attack rolls for 2d6 rounds. Thralls defend their masters to the death. They lack the natural magic resistance of the vasshari but cannot be affected by any hold or charm spell.

Most thralls are made from captives, though some willing worshippers volunteer. The vasshari brew a draught of their own venom steeped with particular herbs and roots and force it down the throat of anyone who will not drink. A human who drinks saves vs. poison at -4. On a failure, the change completes in 1d6+6 days. On a success, the victim falls into a coma and dies within an hour unless slow poison or neutralize poison is cast within that hour; human-headed vasshari often do this themselves, only to serve another flask. Nonhumans can never become thralls; they also save at -4, and success means 1d4 turns of helpless sickness while failure means coma and death in 2-5 rounds.

Before the change completes it can be undone by casting neutralize poison first, then dispel magic, then remove curse, and finally heal, in exactly that sequence, at the cost of 1 point of Intelligence forever; a wish or limited wish reverses it with no loss. Afterward, only a wish restores the person. Thralls live 2d8x10 years after creation and cannot reproduce. Utterly obedient, they share their masters' lairs, usually jungle ruins or caverns under human cities, where they guard brood chambers and prisoners, hunt, tend reptile collections, and clean. With rare free time they like soaking in cool pools. They keep no treasure.

Thralls eat only meat: rats, worms, and other vermin, plus scraps from their masters' meals.