Serpents

Another part in making animals weird.

Serpents are simple creatures. They eat, and then they sleep. Only, they really don’t want to sleep, so they eat constantly. Differently from their lizard cousins, they can literally eat until they burst. They cope best in areas of relative scarcity, where they can’t eat too much, but have enough to grow quickly. Like every creature of the so-called creatures of cold blood (snakes, frogs, lizards, turtles), they can grow indefinitely and won’t ever die of old age. Their reckless gluttony is mainly what gets them killed.

Rumors About Snakes

Any, all, or none of these might be true.

• If a snake is venomous, it has one pair of teeth for poison, and one for the antidote.
• A snake that bursts due to overeating can be cooked to feed ten times the number of people who would normally be satisfied with that amount.
• The scales of a snake changes depending on what it last killed. To one who knows, the skin can be read to tell a truthful story of that person. If you let a snake drag you to within an inch of your death, you can read your destiny on its back.
• Snakes and lizards are one and the same species, and the reason for a snake’s hunger is that if it eats enough before it dies, it will be reborn with two more legs.
• The mountain chains of the world are ancient serpents still asleep. Earthquakes occur when they awake and move.
• If a snake bites another snake’s tail, and holds on for a day and a night, they will fuse to one (of their combined length). It can be used to make snake-rope. Tales differ on whether you can fuse a snake with its own tail.
• A snake can slither into a person, and live within their belly. Unless removed, they will, after  a year and a day, hatch as a serpent-person (in a fountain of blood and guts).

Why Do Wizards Like Snakes?

• You can boil a molting snake down into an extract allowing you to molt your own skin. This is useful for Tattooed Wizards who need their skin to be unblemished.
• Poison.
• Reading truths (see Rumors).
• They make decent familiars.
• They can be used as scrolls.
• Petrified snakes can be used for Spell Guns (wands).
• Quiet company (poor lonely wizards that don’t want to be disturbed).