Ssarak and Serpent Kingdoms

[Elton Robb]

I have a copy of Serpent Kingdoms, and I could use this to eke out an article on the Ssarak. Some possibilities:

* The Yaun-Ti could be used to represent Ssarak. But they could also represent the Children of the Serpent.

* The Ophidians in Serpent Kingdoms could work for Ssarak. They are not as well known as the Yuan-ti and have the same basic background. Humans who have corrupted or been corrupted into a mix of human and snake.

* Finally, the Sarrukh. Not something that Azrai would create, I admit. But maybe he did. After all, he is a god. The Sarrukh is one of the progenitor races of Faerun, and probably could make for an interesting beast-man race.

[AndrewTall]

Humans always expect that they were 'the grand plan' - to a god they could simply be one of many attempts - albeit a successful one (so far).

Make a race with great magic held by all, make a race with arcane potential rarely tapped; make a race for warm lands, and one for cold; make a race short lived and fast breeding to scorn losses, make another near eternal to worship with understanding and complexity to make the first weep for recognition of its folly - Azrai may have made the Sarrukh, and then cast them aside as failures when humans proved more successful, he certainly played with shaping races enough to show that humans were not necessarily his ideal, or only, creation.

Another possibility is that dragons made the sarrukh as servants, and Azrai then corrupted them into more useful (to him) forms such as yaun-ti. This would have an impact of how dragons saw sarrukh - although the possibility that they see scaly-kind much as we see mice is a possibility - we recognise them as fellow mammals but that's about it.

One social interesting question - do the scaly kind see themselves as scorned failures with humans the favored children? Do they see humans as usurpers unfairly claiming the gods attention? Do they see humans as superior to be emulated and revered? Do they see themselves as the inevitable replacements, inherently superior and thus destined to rule once humans have done their job of preparing the world?

It should be easily enough to tailor them to suit your campaign and they are a versatile adventure tool worth adding in places like Aduria that are known for wild weirdness.