Kraitkin

"Ask three vipers — get five answers."
(trad. proverb)

Nobody quite knows how or when the kraitkin arrived in the world - including the serpentine people in question

Kraitkin - also commonly known as vipers, asps, and a dozen other snake-derived nicknames -

And nobody argues fiercer or more often than the kraitkin themselves.

Appeared one day, slightly confused that nobody seems to remember them.

collect gods

Anybody who doesn't share their love for knowledge is treated with a kind of ??? and pity.

While not every snake is venomous, generations of breeding among kraitkin resulted in it being so widespread that the lack of venom glands is functionally considered a disability. The use of one's own venom is widespread in kraitkin culture, ranging from the medicinal, arcane or ceremonial, to as mundane as culinary or procedural. Despite that, kraitkin poison is never sold - not only would the motives of anybody trying to trade it be deeply suspicious, a quirk of its makeup renders it worthless within hours or days of extraction.

Still, that same volatility adds to its value. A kraitkin can maintain a poor or even modest lifestyle by selling their own venom, while a venomfang can even manage a comfortable one.

In common parlance, everything below a kraitkin's waist (or at least, the waist height of an upright one) is considered their tail.

Use their weight in combat - with a heavy weapon, may rear up and crash the weapon down on the target, then pull out of reach before an enemy can strike.

Kraitkin and other races

dragonborn - there's no reason they shouldn't get on well, but it just... keeps getting diplomaticaly fucked up

Kraitkin Names

Kraitkin names: Ptra, Anum, Pio, Ur, Ohr Pah (everybody knows)

Kraitkin epithets (prefix): Undying, Irreverent, Left-Handed, Turnwise

Kraitkin epithets (suffix): the Mountain, of Two

Snake sized

Stretched out fully, measured head to tailtip, a kraitkin is longer than some Huge creatures, while at the same time having proportions closer to those of a goblin, gnome or other Small creature. Their anatomy lends them the mobility to keep their vulnerable lower body out of harm's way, and the weight needed to leverage heavier weapons. Within the abstraction of Dungeons & Dragons, kraitkin are treated like any other Medium-sized creature, and the exact position of their lower body and tail has no bearing on game mechanics.

Slithering ahead

A kraitkin's serpentine bodies allows many methods of locomotion: undulating for speed, sidewinding over unsteady terrain, concertina in narrow spaces or rectilinearly for stealth - much like how a humanoid can sprint, walk carefully, crawl or creep quietly. In terms of mechanics, a kraitkin can walk, run, dash, climb etc. just as any other humanoid. Occasionally, what constitutes difficult terrain may be different between one and the other - smooth and slippery ground offers little purchase to a serpent's body, but a smooth pillar with no handholds is easy to coil around to climb.

The one major difference is jumping - instead of a running start, a kraitkin must spend an equivalent amount of movement to coil in place before a jump. Additionally, when rearing up (high jump), they may choose to remain in that pose, being functionally restrained for the duration.

Kraitkin Traits

Your kraitkin character has the following racial traits.

Ability score increase: Your Intelligence score increases by 1.
Age: Although it varies with size, most kraitkin reach maturity around the age of 13, though most do not grow into their adult size until almost twice that age. They grow old, vast and infirm in their eighties, but with proper care they can provide their wisdom for several decades more.
Alignment: Kraitkin, as a society, tend towards law. They have no strong leaning towards either good or evil, but even the more selfish of them are likely to co-operate towards a common good.
Size:
Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet.
Sidewinder: When swimming, squeezing, crawling or when moving through difficult terrain caused by soft ground such as mud, loose sand, or deep snow, you spend an extra foot of movement for every 2 feet traveled, instead for every 1 as normal.
Venomous Bite: You have sharp, envenomed fangs, which can you can use to make unarmed strikes. If you hit with them, you deal piercing damage equal to 1 + your Strength modifier, instead of the bludgeoning damage normal for an unarmed strike. Once per turn, if you hit with your bite, you can use your venom to deal an additional 1d4 poison damage to your target.
Coiling Grasp: You can coil your body around a creature to grapple it without using your hands.
Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and Viperine.
Strain: Some kraitkin - including most adventurers - belong to a strain, a something something. if you do not wish to play a strain, the prodigy represents one who subsitutes hard work for genetics

"Slit to sand."
(idiom - "in a great hurry", mildly vulgar)

Acidmaw

Wise, haughty and aloof - that is what is expected of an acidmaw.

taller

Ability score increase: Your Intelligence and Wisdom scores increase by 1.
Caustic Venom: Whenever you deal poison damage with a spell or ability, you can have it deal acid damage instead.
Blinding Spit: As an action, you can spray your venom as a fine, blinding mist. When you do, creatures in a 30 foot cone must make a Dexterity saving throw, taking 2d4 poison (or acid) damage on a failure and half as much on a success. Additionally, a creature which fails the save by 5 or more is blinded until the end of your next turn. The DC for this saving throws equals 8 + your Constitution modifier + your proficiency bonus. Once you use this ability, you cannot use it again until you finish a short or long rest.
At 5th level, this ability's damage increases to 2d8, the save DC increases by +2, and you can use this ability twice between long rests. You recover one use when you finish a short rest. At 13th level, the damage increases to 2d12, the DC increases by +2 (for a total of +4), and you can use this ability three times between long rests.

Venomfang

Venomfangs are easy to pick out in a crowd - rather than lose a juvenile's vibrant coloration, they double down on it. Their scales are decorated by stripes, bands and other intricate patterns of color, vivid reds and blues and yellows that once warned off predators but now serve to advertise their potent venom.

Aside from their coloration, venomfangs are distinguished by their namesake fangs, much larger and longer than other kraitkin, and uniquely able to fold back into the mouth when not in use. These same fangs give venomfangs a distinct lisp which most kraitkin consider desirable.

Ability score increase: Your Constitution score increases by 1.
Deadly Bite: The damage of your bite increases to 1d4 + your Strength modifier. The damage of your venom increases to 1d6.
Potent Venom: You have access to limited amounts of specialized venom. When using your venom, you can choose to deal additional poison damage equal to your Constitution modifier. When you do, the target must pass a Constitution saving throw, or become poisoned. A poisoned target can attempt the save at the end of each of their turns to remove the poisoned condition. The DC for this saving throw is 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Constitution modifier. You can use this ability once, and you gain an additional use at 5th and again at 13th level. You regain one use when you finish a short rest, and all uses when you finish a long rest.

Twintongue

With their large dark eyes and their rounded faces pock-marked with heat-sensing pits, twintongues look a little pitiable. Nonthreatening. Friendly. Soft-spoken and soft-voiced, they make natural mediators and manipulators. Everybody's friends, or just carefully upholding that image, their ranks include both the most caring protectors and the most selfish schemers.

Ability score increase: Your Charisma score increases by 2.
Infravision: Your awareness of heat sources can support or supplant your vision in poor lighting conditions. You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can't discern color in darkness, only differences in temperature.
Cold Reader: You're perceptive to minute changes in body temperature and language. You have proficiency in the Insight skill.
Sense redundancy: You have advantage on saving throws against being blinded.

Stranglecoil

By far the largest, in size and in number alike, the stranglecoil strain alone has the unfortunate privilege of being exempt from social and instinctive pressure. Many stranglecoils are content to work as simple laborers, ???, contributing to their reputation as somewhat dull and slow. Still, wiser folk know better than to dismiss these gentle giants - if they think slower, it's because they do so so much deeply, and the old tale about a stranglecoil solving the problem while everyone else still argues how to approach it didn't come from nowhere.

Ability score increase: Your Strength score increases by 2.
Dull Pain: Difficult to injure and resistant to pain, your hit point maximum increases by 1, and it increases by 1 every time you gain a level.
Crushing Coils: As a bonus action, you may attempt to crush a constricted creature. The target must take a Strength saving throw, taking 1d6 + your Strength modifier bludgeoning damage on a failure and half as much damage on a success. The DC for the saving throw is 8 + your proficiency bonus + your Strength modifier.
If a breathing target fails the saving throw by 5 or more, you begin to strangle them. The target cannot breathe until the grapple is broken. Every time they fail this saving throw while strangled (including the initial one), the amount of air they have is reduced by 6 seconds for each point they failed the saving throw by.
Think Before You Act: You have disadvantage on initiative rolls. If you are not surprised, you can take the dodge action as a reaction at the start of combat.

Dartspine

somewhat impolite to climb but still a risk darting to and fro and when needed in and out messengers, scouts, spies

Ability score increase: Your Dexterity score increases by 2.
Size: Your size is Small.
Speed: Your base walking speed is 35 feet.
Arboreal: Instead of squeezing, Sidewinder reduces movement penalties while climbing.
Darting Strike: When you make a melee attack on your turn, you can spend 5 feet of movement to increase the reach of that attack by 5 feet.

Prodigy

Not every kraitkin belongs to a strain - in fact, most don't, but these vipers tend not to become adventurers. The ones who do, though, tend to be the most driven and determined.

Ability score increase: Two different ability scores of your choice increase by 1.
Skilled: You gain proficiency in one skill of your choice. Alternately, if your starting class offers a limited list of skill proficiencies, you can choose two of those instead.
Avid Learner: You gain proficiency in any combination of two tools, musical instruments, languages or martial weapons of your choice.

"Ribs to sand."
(idiom - "hurrying too much, to no result")

Kraitkin Classes

An intellectual society steeped in magic, kraitkin have no shortage of those who study it. Their cities brim with low-level artificers peddling their miraculous wares, while wizardly masters compete for promising apprentices. This extends to a city's protectors, who are often eldritch knights and arcane tricksters, while a secretive order seeks out virtuous souls to teach a kind of magical battle trance not dissimilar to the elvish bladesong.

The study of martial arts is common, even fashionable among the kraitkin, and many schools and groups exist that teach anything from simple self-defense to promises of spiritual unity. Low-level monks are common even among the civilians, though relatively few have the discipline to really master one's body. Meanwhile, kraitkin generally lack the rage to become barbarians - but woe betide one who pushes the wrong gentle giant too far.

Kraitkin sorcerers are uncommon, and usually the result of magical accident or circumstances of birth rather than ancestry. Clerics and paladins are rare and tend to be secular, their powers drawn from an inner enlightenment. The usual, devout type is even more uncommon, and considered not much different from the more common warlock - somebody serving a powerful outsider, to be treated with general acceptance, provided their patrons and activities do no harm to the community.

All four of the above are expected to treat their magic as something to be studied and understood - those who fail or refuse to do it, those who are thought to take it for granted should be prepared to face prejudice or ridicule. To a lesser degree, this also affects the more common bards - while the fluid and emotional nature of their magic frustrates more logical minds, their dedication to their craft is admired almost as much as the art they create.

Lastly, kraitkin druids and rangers are rare - they tend to see nature as something to study and master, not embrace.

Abomination or Asp?

For many, Yuan-Ti abominations remain the idea of a half-snake humanoid, and many who heard only descriptions cannot easily tell them and kraitkin from one another. The most apparent difference is one of proportions - abominations are far stockier, with thick bodies and the arms and chest of a burly human, while kraitkin more closely resemble goblins and a body considerably narrower than an abomination of a similar length. Only stranglecoils can match the apparent size of most abominations, while being considerably longer.

A careful eye reveals more differences - abominations have short, broad necks not much different from a human's, while kraitkin ones are much longer and more flexible and expressive. Female abominations retain shapes humanoids consider feminine, while female kraitkin are if anything even larger and more muscular. Abominations often disregard clothing, while kraitkin have a nudity taboo. And so on...

One final difference is magical in nature: Abominations, long ago warped by magic, are all monstrosities; the kraitkin, regardless of strain or their origin, are humanoids.

Of Gods and Serpents

To date, no deity has claimed creatorship or patronage over the kraitkin.

On a street corner, an aged orc rants about his gods and philosophy of strength to any who will listen. His conviction and arguments seem to resonate with the small crowd listening.

A canal-boat passes by underneath, carrying a competent looking, mixed species party. Their boat tows another, its large contents hidden under a stained sheet.

Cloaks still covered in dust and sand, a group of hobgoblin mages marches past, staves striking the ground in nigh-perfect unison.

An enterprising alchemist singles out one of the party members, offering a wondrous medicine for an imagined affliction.

A charismatic serpent hawks his wares to a sizable crowd, while his accomplice sneaks between them.

A viper is touching up the intricate, geometric paintwork on the prow of their canal boat. They make a inviting gesture when spotted.

A very young kraitkin spots the party, then quickly disappears into the crowd. They soon return with a group of others, following and gawping excitedly.

In the mouth of an alley, a few young, armed kraitkin are very pointedly not noticing the party.

A group of kraitkin are having an animated argument about some aspect of the culture of a humanoid race, and try to pull the party into the conversation.

A scribe hurries down the street, carrying an armful of scrolls and followed by a floating disk loaded with even more.

A heated argument rages between two artificers, alternating between accusing each other of plagiarism and fraud. A group of spectators seems to be enjoying the show.

A flagellant rears into the desert wind, their scales and scourge red with fresh blood, an expression of pained bliss on their face.

A golem stands motionless in the street, obstructing pedestrian traffic. Two increasingly agitated attendants are attempting to rouse it.

rattles instead of boots

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