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You thought I was being metaphorical, didn't you?
Sorry to disappoint.
The Serpentblooded
Sorry to disappoint.
The Serpentblooded
Drip. Drip. A couple drops become a stream, and the steady dripping becomes a hiss. Thick red fluid gives way to scales and fangs and smooth musculature.
Cut your wrists and release a viper.
The Serpentblooded possess the following traits:
A Taste For Venom
Those with serpent-blood are entirely immune to the venom of snakes - in fact, she may treat consuming the venom as a second Vice. This involves either drinking some venom milked out of a snake, or simply consuming the snake raw.
Dislocate Joints
Someone with serpent-blood can dislocate her joints, allowing her to slither through small spaces. As long as she can fit her head through a hole, she can move through it regardless of whether or not she has any limbs free. For that matter, she may move her Speed even if her arms and legs are immobilized. As a side effect, she's fully double-jointed.
Hissing Blood
By far, the most disturbing feature of the Serpentblooded is that she literally bleeds snakes (which causes appropriate Breaking Points to anyone that sees her shed blood). She uses the Conditions as Health variant in place of normal Health levels; additionally, she gains additional benefits while suffering Conditions due to being damaged.
As long as she is at least Bruised, she may release a snake's head from her wounds, which gives her a Size 1 +0 Brawl weapon that inflicts a poison with Toxicity [Higher of Resolve or Composure] each time it bites someone - treat this as the Poisoned (Moderate) tilt if used to bite someone in combat. If she's at least Maimed, the snake comes out regardless of whether she wants it to or not; this increases the weapon's size and weapon bonus by one, as well as granting it one of the following tags: Bleed, Grapple, Reach, or Thrown. If she's Incapacitated, enough snakes burst out that any character that comes within reach takes 1L and is poisoned. Attacks made with snake body parts never suffer the penalties due to damage-inflicted Conditions.
As long as she's at least Maimed, she may spend one Willpower and an Instant action to "summon" a snake through one of her wounds; use this statblock, with the snake's bite inflicting the same poison as her snake-based natural weapons. Snakes summoned this way are unnaturally cunning (for a snake), and will strike at anyone who attacks (or comes close) to her. If she's Incapacitated, she can summon snakes as an Instant action without paying Willpower, or as a Reflexive action for one Willpower.
If she fails a Stamina roll to remain conscious while Incapacitated, she may reflexively shed all of her injury-based Conditions and transfer her consciousness and soul to a snake she summoned that turn (she can choose to summon a snake just prior to collapsing). She uses the snake's statblock, except it retains all of her Mental Attributes and Skills and any traits she possesses from the Serpentblooded template, as well as her non-Physical merits. Over the course of the week or two it takes to recover from the Incapacitated condition, she sheds and mutates until she is back to her original body.
Scaled Skin
The Serpentblooded tend to have dry, scaly skin - mundane enough to pass off as severe dry skin. However, this skin is a source of health and rejuvenation; she halves the time necessary to resolve Conditions inflicted by damage. She gains a pool of Shedding, which can hold up to three points. She may spend up to one Shedding each round; by default, she may only spend Shedding to shed her skin over the course of a minute, revealing healthy, smooth skin below. Doing so allows her to remove any one physical tilt reflecting physical damage that wasn't caused by Aggravated damage; if she spends one Willpower in addition to the Shedding, she may instead remove a tilt inflicted by Aggravated damage or resolve a Condition that can be resolved through medical treatment.
As a side effect of her... unique... physiology, she may spend one Willpower while shedding her skin to gain the benefits of the Biokinesis merit if she possesses it.
She regains one Shedding whenever she recovers Willpower from resting.
In addition, any character with serpent-blood may take points in the following traits (henceforth referred to as Ophidisms); each one has a dot rating from 1 to 5.
Charm
You may spend one Willpower as a Reflexive action to gain the Bonded condition with regards to a snake you have eye contact with. Rather than a +2 bonus, the Bonded condition grants a bonus to influencing or persuading the snake equal to your dots in Snake Charmer, and uses your dots in Snake Charmer in place of your dots in Animal Ken. As long as you possess the Bonded condition with a snake, you can communicate with it as if it were about as intelligent as a 6 year old.
Cold-Blooded
Your dots in Cold-Blooded serve as a Supernatural Tolerance trait against any supernatural ability that manipulates your thoughts or emotions. Additionally, it serves as a penalty to any attempt to determine your emotional state. As long as you have at least one dot of Cold-Blooded, you treat all Extreme Environments based off heat as if they were one level less severe, and may ignore the Extreme Heat tilt for one hour per dot.
Constrict
When you grapple someone using a snake-based natural weapon with the Grapple tag (or grapple someone while in snake form), you may use +[Constrict]L in place of your weapon bonus for the purposes of the Damage move.
Skin
You may have an additional point of Shedding for each dot of Skin you have. If you have at least two dots of Skin, you restore one Shedding whenever you regain Willpower; at four dots of Skin, you regain two Shedding whenever you regain willpower from resting. If you have three dots of Skin, you may choose to remove the Bruised Condition in place of a physical Tilt, and at five dots, you may remove up to two tilts or Conditions whenever you shed your skin.
Slither
As long as you are prone, you may add your dots in Slither to your Speed. In addition, you gain a bonus equal to your dots in Slither on any rolls made to navigate through narrow spaces or climb. In addition, you can escape from the Immobilized tilt using your Dexterity rather than your Strength; doing so allows you to add your dots in Slither to the roll.
The Serpentblooded begin with three dots split between their Ophidisms. They may purchase additional dots for 2xp each.
While they can't normally purchase Supernatural merits reserved for mortals, they can take the Aura Reading (they can "taste" auras by quickly flicking their tongues in and out), Assertive Implement (with respect to their snake-based natural weapons), Biokinesis, Evil Eye, and Numbing Touch merits, as well as any merits that use them as prerequisites. They may spend points of Shedding instead of Willpower when using these merits.
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