Originally posted by Pennarin:
I’ll revive this thread regularly, and post it inside the Archive.
Hopefully somebody, someday, somehow, will find the holy grail of an explanation, marrying logic, poetry, and a Dark Sun-ish twist to their culture, appearance, and demeanor.
Good luck everyone! And may the winner’s name be remembered for ages! Well, years.
Originally posted by ian.thomson:
In before “PRISTINE TOWER! PRISTINE TOWER! PRISTINE TOWER!”
What the Yuan-Ti believe: they are pure blooded descendants of the first serpent. They used to rule the world during the green age. The Yuan-Ti see no difference between their elemental priests and priests of the first serpent, the elements are facets of the first serpent. Earth is his body, water his blood, air his breath, and fire his lifeforce. Psions may also join the priesthood, and are highly respected as they are bringing the first serpent’s mind into the world.
One possible truth: A long time ago, a warlord in a small and remote desert tribe (whose totem was the snake) was compared with a snake due to how tricky he was, hard he was to kill, and for how well he survived in the desert. He slew a number of defilers and was almost ready to inspire his tribe to destroy the sorcerer kings, gaining the attention of a pyreen. When he was killed, his tribe nearly fell apart. The pyreen, wanting to inspire them to continue their war against the sorcerer kings, decided to attempt to return the warlord back from the dead. Either in a misguided attempt to improve his fighting abilities, or because of some mistake in the ritual, the warlord came back partially serpentine. The tribe, already favoring snakes, threw their women at him and his descendants.
Another possible truth: It wasn’t a pyreen, it was a sorcerer-king, either looking to fight off potential rivals, or looking to curb the potential threat this tribe could have had had they remained human.
Regardless, the tribe was composed of the descendants of some noble families from one of the empires of the green age.
Also, despite being against the sorcerer kings and for the elements, they are not necessarily good guys. Non-Yuan-Ti priests are looked upon as no different than defilers, they are defiling the first serpent. Although psionic power is more highly valued than arcane power, Yuan-ti always welcome their own preservers and may see non-Yuan-Ti preservers as valuable (or as meddling with the first serpent, depending on what they think of the preserver otherwise). Yuan-Ti hate all non-Yuan-Ti defilers, and Yuan-Ti defilers even more so. However, Yuan-Ti defilers do have the potential to become valued members of society, if they diguise their craft as bringing the wrath of the first serpent into the world (something the defiler might actually believe). A few defiler cults have started, some believing that they are actually removing the impure, non-serpentine elements from the world.
It is also possible that a few Yuan-Ti who are aware of their real origins have begun worshipping Borys, possibly thinking (or knowing) that the pyreen responsible for their origin is none other than Rajaat. If this is the case, it’s possible that the defiler cults that are starting among the yuan-ti are acting as templars for Borys.
Originally posted by diggles:
awesssome possst but a sssnake sis sssound would make it even better!
Originally posted by 603:
They’re a failed experiment on the part of whatever created the Dray. They were dumped off in the Ringing Mountains because their creator figured they’d get devoured by the halflings and nobody would notice.
Originally posted by toriel:
I’m wondering why people are looking for a reason for them to be there. They don’t have to be religious at all.
I see them as slavers and poison/drug sellers. They might have caravans or simply occupy ruins and have merchants come to them. They raise different kinds of snakes and spiders and grow all sorts of plants for their different properties.
They are also scheming and like to stab each other in the back (and others too).
Originally posted by Duke5150:
Looks like a fun project, I’ll have to give this a try but I’m not going to use the default “Yuan-ti” you find in core D&D.
Question, anyone know wth “yuan-ti” actually means? Snake people?
Originally posted by turlough:
I was thinking that they are the lizard men that were hunted by Oronis who changed themselves to get away from him instead of being protected by the Mind Lords. Once they were partially human, Oronis couldn’t detect them, however he did that, and concluded he had succeeded.
This allows me the possibility that lizard men could return, for those who changed back, and creates the yuan ti as those who started half human and half reptile.
turlough
Originally posted by Pennarin:
@toriel: Any explanation worth it’s salt - even if you strip them of religion and zealotry - will be good. Try your hand at it!
Originally posted by Duke5150:
Ah, I seemed to have misunderstood the purpose of this project. Do we have an exact explanation of the origins of everything included in the setting? Like braxat, silt horrors and so on? If so, I need to do some more reading to refresh my memory. If not, then why the focus on yuan-ti?
I’ll be posting some stuff on my version of a current athasian yuan-ti “nest” and it’s social structure. As for the origin of the race. It could be as simple as natural evolution from an aquatic serpent species from the blue age. Maybe they even lived in the coral before the halflings began harvesting it for crafting.
Another question. Athasian naga… Do they exist by default or is that something I’ll have to do on my own? Thanks.
Originally posted by hurgantsor:
In my Athas, Yuan-Ti were one of the races created after the fall halfling civilization. Halflings who lived in forests combined their essence with those of forest snakes who were seen as symbols of wisdom and nature.
The Yuan-Ti of that time were druids and mystics living away from civilization in villages and settlements within forests, near swamps and deltas of rivers. They were known for their knowledge about plants and healing but also feared by humans as holders of unknown mysteries.
When the Cleansing Wars came, Rajaat targetted them as one of the races for extermination by his Champions(yes there was a Yuan-Ti Slayer as well). The Champion combined military war with stirring up propaganda against the Yuan-Ti as well as fear.
They scattered among the land of Athas and were target of persecution, untill they were almost destroyed when the end of Cleansing Wars came.
Now they live in Silent Forest(the forest beyond the Sea of Silt on the other side) and are a race lead by evil druids, who make sacrifices on living sentient beings who they hate for destroying the world. There are several villages and druid circles in the forest, which they defend from mountain raiders seeking wood, animals for trade with other settlements in the region.
Originally posted by Sysane:
In my old game I had the Yuan-Ti act as servants to a tribe of ancient Snake/Beast-Headed Giants called the Slethren who resided in Rhulisti ruins found beneath Under-Tyr.
The Slethren would have the Yaun-Ti raid the nearby dwarven town of Kled with the intent of retrieving some sacred relic located in the lost Green-Aged keep of Kemalok.
I never really developed the idea beyond that. It was a two or three session adventure hook I used to get the party I DMed to fight some Yaun-Ti and befriend the dwarves of Kled.
Originally posted by Pennarin:
Wow, ancient servants of beast-headed giants (snake or reptile-headed, in this case), from a time when the beast-head giants and all giants in general had a strong footing on Athas…say the Green Age. I’m liking this explanation, Sysane!
Primal power was used by these servants/worshippers to turn themselves into animal hybrids, half-human(elf, dwarf, etc) and half-reptile/snake. Their Green Age masters died out by the hands of Dregoth (remember Taraskir, the lion-headed giant? those no longer exist either…nor do lions, for that matter), but the servants continue across the centuries on their quest to transform themselves, emulating their former masters, and some even becoming a lot bigger, attempting to become reptile-headed giants themselves. Someone could create a new yuan-ti variant that’s Large and has a giant’s body and a snake/reptile’s head, and the giant keyword…
Originally posted by Sysane:
The loose premise was that the Snake-Headed Giants were at constant odds with the dwarves of Kemalok during the early part of the Green-Age. At some point one of the Kemalok Kings took an important item away from them. In my game it was a rod of healing which the Yaun-Ti hoped to use to cure their ailing giant masters.
Originally posted by greyorm:
This isn’t an “origin story”, so I don’t know if it counts here, but there is [URL=http://wildhunt.daegmorgan.net/other-stuff/dark-sun/the-city-of-scales/]The City of Scales[/URL].
Originally posted by evilvegan:
Well Johnny, when a man and a snake love each other very much…
Easiest explanation: (Borys) The Dragon’s ascension warped reality to the point that common serpents in the area gained malevolent sentience. Their zealotry is in serving the serpent (the dragon). They took on their humanoid aspects from his cast off aspects.
Though I do like the beasthead giant story a lot.
Originally posted by xiahouxu:
[i]“Our ancestors were the snakes, the natural beasts found under the deserts of Athas, hiding from the Scorching sun… But the world… the world forces us to adapt… And even the most mundane beasts upon these deserts have some talents of the wild…
We’re really all your fault. The one known as ‘Goblin Death’… He was so frightened, so scared. Assassins at every turn, lying in every shadow, behind every eye and he couldn’t, wouldn’t let that happen. He commanded his Templars to find us, young as we were, and take our venom. Drop, by drop.
He told them to breed us, to make new poisons, to keep ahead of those who would seek to destroy him. They farmed us. And we waited. We watched, and we waited. And generations passed, when our kind were young, and so did our abilities, augmented as they were by the search for more potent poisons… And we realised ourselves.
Some of us escaped, but some of our brothers and sisters are still captive underneath Eldaarich… And we cannot let this situation fester.
They come to us and we feed them our poisons… And we farm them.”
[/i]Yuan-ti venom on Athas is a highly addictive hallucinogenic substance, found often in backstreets, slums and gladiator pits across the continent, where it is also sometimes used as a painkiller before surgery.
Originally posted by Silverblade_The…:
as said elsehwere, my take on Athasian history is very different, more Clarke Ashton SMith etc
in times so remote as to be beyond mortal comprehension, abominations of all kinds were committed as dread emperors and and obscene cults wrathed the world in a pal of their foul machinations.
No deed was too base, no crime was too great in their lust for more power, and yet ever more power…
Who they were or why has long been lost, did they mate with a demonic marilith, or one of long dead gods? did they meld flesh with mighty psionics, or mahcines lost under mile high dunes?
Did they bargain with demons, or beings even worse?
Who knows, but they imbued some wretches with the essences of what seems to be snakes, but yet is not, it is much, much worse: some foul contemptable depravity that would forever soak their souls in cold, slithering debauchery, set them afire with base treachery and shadow their steps with dark arts, no longer human, no longer fit to walk in honest daylight.
Thus came the yuan-ti to Athas.
Originally posted by 603:
They’re an intelligent race. It only matters for intelligent races.
Originally posted by Pennarin:
Yuan-ti have been one of the least “introductorible” race in DS for as long as I’ve been on these boards, and one of the most desired race to be introduced. Failure in its introduction has consisted in the following: failure to provide an adaptation of the culture, backstory, motivations, and perhaps even look of the race. All other races have been adapted with an Athasian bent, but for yuan-ti it seems like they are eternally linked with a repitle god of some kind, intense worship, and an ever pervasive reptile/snake symbolism. These elements have survived settings and editions more unchanged than most.
On Athas there are no gods, furthermore whatever false gods were once worshiped ceased to be once civilization pretty much fell after the Cleansing Wars and the destruction of the environment.
One could say they worship a false god with intense faith (keeping them unchanged from Core), yet such things currently are not found anywhere on Athas, and haven’t been for millenia, and this fact is one theme of DS.
An effort should be made to seek out theories and points of views on what their society is like without a god to worship, and how half-humanoid, half-repitle/snake people came to be.
This is what this thread is about.
Originally posted by wordserpent:
The Yuan-Ti have always been.
