On Yuan-Ti and Orcs

On Yuan-Ti (including Medusa and Naga):

- Orcs warned humans not to do it, and do it they did.

- After feasting on the flesh of the Coatl out of revenge and anger, the curse was placed. The tribe of humans known as the Yuan-Ti would become twisted and would be hunted as monstrosities until they were all destroyed. So this curse came to pass.

- The curse stripped from the Yuan-Ti their emotions. It left them with nothing but logic, so that they could form no true alliances in the world. It turned many of them into monstrosities called Abominations, or half-twisted Malisons, or the reviled and godlike Anathema.

- But it made something else, too. If one accepts that they have sinned, then a curse is naught but a natural progression of things--a step on a ladder to deification. So the Yuan-Ti ascended even further, and many of them became Feathered.

- A Feathered Yuan-Ti has coatl feathers that bloom from their scalps or their ears or their arms and necks. These feathers give them emotions, and these feathers give them strength. Therefore, there is a Feathered Elite that rules the Yuan-Ti. They look nearly completely human, save for their serpentine eyes and the feathers proper. They call themselves Ouroboros.

- The Ouroboros rule Yuan-Ti society, which is condensed-yet-scattered. It is condensed, as there is one Serpent City, and that Serpent City is a place of intrigue and nightmare, where the Feathered Elite dance a dance of midnight assassinations and constant death with their nightmare-speaking Anathema kin.

- Yuan-Ti society is scattered because Purebloods and Malisons have injected themselves into every culture across the world. There, they weave a Conspiracy with the aid of Drow. This Conspiracy keeps all other creatures away from the serpent city and the truth of Yuan-Ti existence, for they know that if discovered, they would be destroyed utterly.

- There is a Yuan-Ti religion. When they were cursed, they experienced the first nightmares. In those nightmares Yuan-Ti discovered the Night Serpent. They know it will consume all things that do not nightmare, and thus they seek to one day awaken it, to prevent their curse from ever destroying them, for no thing truly wishes to die.

- Yuan-Ti Nightmare Speakers infect the minds of those that get too close to the truth. If you have nightmares, it is because you've met a Yuan-Ti recently and did not know it. The nightmares will terrify you, make you change what you're doing, make you question yourself--and thus the Yuan-Ti remain protected.

- All Yuan-Ti are afraid of losing their curse. Their minds, stripped of emotion, cannot process happiness, and thus they do not know that if they leave the shade of their doom that they will once more be whole. Instead, they full give themselves to their sin, for someone on fire will not be touched by someone safe. Their logic is twisted, but indeed it works.

- Feathered Yuan-TI know emotional fear, not just instinctual fear. They will not give up the powers they hold, nor their feathers, nor their grip on Yuan-Ti culture, for they are afraid of death if they do. Thus, they will often bring in third parties to Serpent City to use as pawns in their games of snake-eat-snake--their Ouroboros Games.

- Some may ask why Yuan-Ti hold sway over snakes. Snakes are wise creatures, whose scales can be read for great knowledge, and who know the ways of medicine and surgery. But if one knew why, they would know why the Yuan-Ti sinned and devoured the Coatl, and they keep such information hidden inside of countless nightmares, all scattered among countless brains.

- The Yuan-Ti know how to spread their curse. Purebloods do so, creating cults and then leading the cults off into the wilderness, from which they never return. These souls are turned into broodguards or Purebloods themselves through methods I will not speak of here.

- Every 52 years, an Anathema, an Abomination, a Malison, and a Pureblood all undergo a ritual of cannabilism. At the end what emerges from this disgusting orgy is a single creature--an Ouroboros, one of the feathered elite.

- Orc oral traditions speak of the Yuan-Ti and their sin. For this reason, Yuan-Ti never approach Orcs, and Orcs are always hunting for the fabled Serpent City, so that they may destroy it and free these humans from their shackles.

- Medusa and Naga are different factions of Yuan-Ti.

On Orcs

Female orc

- Before men, after elves, before dwarves, after stars, Orcs walked the earth proud and feral.

- All cultures that men have, descended from apes as they are, come from Orcs, who once herded those apes and protected their ancestors when the world ended once before.

- Orc oral traditions stretch back throughout the 4 apocalypses that have claimed the world; all the way back to the days of the dinosaurs, which were tamed and rode by Orc Amazons into battle.

- Orcs were targeted by elves, but the Orcs were resistant. They beat and smash and killed, and the elves found no emotions to harvest nor beauty to steal, and thus they left the Orcs alone when better prey manifested in the stars.

- Orcs know that the heights of civillization strips away the primal heart. They saw it happen with many races that have risen and fallen, and warned apes that the same would happen to them, and yet now look at humans, whose primal heart is gone, and who rule a cold world because of it.

- Orc men are goblins; Orc females are linked in this picture below. Hobgoblins and Bugbears are Orcs too, but of a different breeds with different cultures who worship ugly things best unmentioned. Orc women, however, are stronger together then all of these groups combined.

- Orcs know that the Muses that teach and inspire reading and writing have been poisoned by something older, and thus neither write nor read. Everything that must be said is spoken, screamed, or played.

- Orcs wage war because they know that bloodshed keeps the apocalypse from coming again. They wish not to relive the Extinctions they have suffered in the past, and they will kidnap and sacrifice and decapitate as much as needed to protect their children and families.

- Orc War has become a sacred ritual in this instance. There are seasons for war and seasons for hunting. During hunting seasons, Orcs are surprisingly peaceful and worth talking too.

- Orcs share not the psychology of humans. They are older things who know the value of instincts, and do not have the ability to entertain higher, complex philosophical motions. Ideas such as a nihilism and mental illness are foreign to them.

- Orcs are still surprisingly intelligent, but in ways of spatial awareness, understanding how others think and react, in knowing when the weather will come and when a heart will stop. Many Orc Medicine Drinkers can tell you when your death day will come--for this, they are valuable to kings and artist alike.

- There are many Orc cultures. Some prefer the life of roaming hordes, others as simple nomads, and others still set up shop in abandoned dwarf work cities. But make no mistake--they are different from us, and they know it, and they are older too, and they will have no problem killing us if we threaten them with Extinction. They have killed the Gods of Old and will kill them again if need be.