Naga

Naga

Realm Affiliation: Night

The Naga are touched by the realm of Night, a realm of shapechanging wyrms and winged serpents. They embody both the subtle nature of the Night Eternals and their powerful emotions. They are a Lineage that expresses itself physically in a number of ways, and Lineage strength varies greatly based on part how inhuman they appear (as opposed to Changeling and Cambion Lineage, for example, which tends to appear more human at all levels).

The Naga Lineage is intended to appeal to players who want to be subtle and manipulative, as well as those who want to be a little “sexy” (although we run the danger of them becoming the new Wemic). The Naga suits a number of concepts – fanatical priests, fighters who enjoy fighting, artists and performers of all types, mysterious wizards.

The concept plays with images of the snake as wise and subtle, but subverts the idea that snakes are “cold-blooded.” There is also some room to explore dragon-like concepts with this Lineage (greed, arrogance and a love of riddles all work with this idea).

Naga Trappings

Naga are snake people. A problem I’ve encountered to date is finding “low end” Lineage images – most of the pictures appear to be full-on snake people, which would represent a powerful Lineage in Empire. With an eye to the trappings – the physical changes that set a Naga apart from a human without Lineage – I’ve put together this short list. The “required trapping” is intended to be the baseline thing that defines a Naga as a Naga – a starting point from which to build a look based on how “lineaged” a character wants to be.

Required Trapping: Scaled Eyeband or Scaled Brow or Fangs

A scaled eyeband is created with make-up, possibly supplemented with latex scales. A “scaled brow” is a built up prosthetic piece covering parts of the forehead and highlighting the eyes, like that used by some dracoscions. Fangs – apparently these are reasonably easy to get hold of. Whichever of these is the required trapping, the others become “Other Trappings”

Other Trappings

Scaled skin – either with make-up or latex. Naga are not restricted to any one colour scheme – exotic shades are entirely appropriate for this Lineage. Snake-like Eyes – costume contact lenses. Scaled forearms with talons in place of nails Feathers – some feathers can enhance the Couatl-like elements of a Naga, but may run the risk of confusing the concept and ending up with “bird-people.” Sibilant voices – Hissing is not out of character for the Naga.

Roleplaying Naga

Naga blood influences the character of the one who possesses it. Not every Naga expresses these effects to the same degree, but characters who strongly express these roleplaying effects often possess stronger blood than those who do not. This section needs quite a bit of work to tighten it up – theres too much material here, and I’m not convinced all of it is necessary I think the “indulgent” section especially needs looking at, and I’m not at all sure about the “intuitive” and “subtle” sections, or that “narcissism” is really what their fatal flaw is. In short, work to do here to deliver a fun and playable lineage!

Naga are passionate. Their emotions are stronger than those of other humans, and they express them freely. They might be prone to rages or sudden fads, or switch between joy, love, fear, bloodlust or hate at the drop of a hat. They rarely like or dislike something, they either love or hate it. They form strong about things opinions.

Naga are intuitive. They tend not to accept things at face value, and rely on their “gut feelings” or instincts. They may assume everything is multilayered and that everyone is as sublte as they are, constantly looking for deeper meanings, hidden agendas strange coincidences and extended metaphors that help them understand the true motivation of others.

Naga are subtle. They love to act mysteriously, to operate at one or more removes, to create conspiracies and to both act in secret and uncover the secrets of others. They are often driven to conceal their real agenda, even from their allies, and this may make them manipulative or sinister in aspect. They enjoy complexity, depth and cleverness.

Naga are indulgent. They love doing the things that they enjoy and find it difficult to focus on things they find dull. Individual Naga find different things enjoyable; a Naga warrior may fight for the sheer love of fighting, a Naga politician may take pleasure in debate or the exercise of power, and any Naga may have an almost literal lust for wealth and the comforts it brings. They also love to indulge their senses, savouring tastes, smells and textures as well as exciting things to look at or listen to, using every sense to experience everything they encounter.

Some Naga become dangerously narcissistic. Unconcerned about the feelings or needs of others, they care only about their own happiness. They become selfish hoarders, discard those who fail to amuse them, indulge their whims in extreme ways, and assume that their intuition and subtlety make them superior beings. Naga in the grip of narcissism are a threat to everyone around them and verge on the sociopathic (callous unconcern for the feelings of others, low tolerance for frustration and a low threshold for discharge of aggression, incapacity to experience guilt). Danger! Sociopathy is a real thing and so we probably shouldn’t use it!

The Blood

Despite their appearance, Naga are as warm blooded and mammalian as any human, they just have some ophidian characteristics. They mate and breed just like humans do, they have hair, and they give birth to live offspring. Naga bloodlines require regular influxes of human blood. Without them the bloodline reaches a point where the Naga becomes incapable of successfully mating with another Naga. As a consequence Naga often take human lovers, even if they are in a relationship with another Naga. As well as Naga who have a Naga parent, some Naga claim one of their parents was directly seduced by a disguised Eternal of the Realm of Night.

Possible Advantage : Discerning Senses

Naga senses are more subtle than those of humans, especially their senses of taste, touch and smell. Strong tastes and scents may be overpowering, while subtle smells and flavours provide great pleasure. This is purely a roleplaying effect – it is of no advantage to detecting poisons or the like. Naga are encouraged to display their keen senses through their roleplaying.

This is probably not a good idea – while we can say “roleplaying only” there is the risk that people will want to use it to detect poison and so on and so forth. I also considered the possibility of explicitly letting them change their colours and details by “shedding their skin” to capture the transformative nature of the Realm they are associated with but again that is probably open to abuse.

Lines of the Naga

Currently our only “line” of Naga are the Kallavesi Marshsnakes who dwell in the swamps of Wintermark. Another example could be the Catazzarian Shadow Brokers, a loose network of Naga who trade blackmail material, secrets and influence with each other in the same way more