"Starry Wisdom #3 The Children of Yig" - читать интересную книгу автора (Call of Cthulhu RPG)

earth, which may still burrow beneath Wales and Scotland. The old ones of Lost
Valley, in the American Southwest, and the slitherers of the Nameless City, in
the Middle East, are also degenerate serpent people.
Lurkers tend to hide in human society, using their powers of disguise to appear
as humans. Most lurkers are great sorcerers who have lived for millennia. Two
powerful lurkers are the geneticist Ssruthaa and the high priest Ssathasaa.
Dreamers are serpent people who escaped long ago to the Dreamlands. They fled to
that land through the Vaults of Zin when Yig cursed Yoth long ago. Accordingly,
most serpent people of the Dreamlands still worship Tsathoggua.
Sleepers are serpent people who have hibernated for thousands of years and are
just awakening now. They contend that the End Times are at hand, and that very
soon they will found their third and final empire. Of all the serpent people,
the sleepers are the most dangerous. They are extremely powerful, and do not
remember the bitter defeats which swept their race so long ago.
BIOLOGY
Serpent people are the natural end result of reptilian evolution. They share
many characteristics with snakes, particularly the cobra family, but with four
improvements: They are intelligent, they have limbs, they walk erect, and they
are warm-blooded. Although serpent people have poorly developed hearing, their
other senses are very sharp. Their eye sight is very precise, and is
particularly attuned to motion. Pits near the serpent people's nostrils provide
a primitive infrared sense. It is the most keen among the underground
degenerates. The serpent people's sense of smell is complemented by their
Jacobson's organ. Using their forked tongues, serpent people can transfer odor
chemicals to this highly sensitive organ.
Like many snakes, serpent people are venomous. Certain subspecies can even spit
their venom, as the spitting cobra of Africa does. Some varieties of serpent
people have hypnotic eyes. Most can hibernate for extended periods of time.
Many serpent people are sorcerers. The abilities to assume human shape, enslave
the ghosts of the slain, and reanimate corpses are among the most common magical
powers of the serpent people.
Most importantly, serpent people are either very long-lived or immortal. There
are many still alive that have seen millennia pass.
TECHNOLOGY
At their height, the serpent people were great scientists. They are best known
for their alchemical creation of toxic substances and for their genetic
manipulation of many life forms. The voormis of Greenland and the gyaa-yothn of
K'n-yan still bear the mark of serpentine manipulation. In the modern world,
only scattered lurkers and sleepers remember their technology. Most have fallen
back to bestiality or the practice of sorcery.
SOCIETY
In the modern world, serpent people society is almost totally lost. Some
degenerates and dreamers live in primitive clan-based societies, but most
serpent people dwell among humans. At its height, it is said that serpent people
society was nearly anarchistic, an independent society of individuals.
CULTS
The serpent people's greatest god is Yig, their creator. He is called by many
names, among them Damballah, Kukulcan, Quetzalcoatl, and Set. Yig usually
appears as a serpentine human, but in some forms he is a huge snake. According
to legends, Yig is imprisoned in the Pit of Ngoth, beneath K'n-yan.