Serpent-Men
Snake-headed humanoids that predated humanity and once were almost stamped out by humans. Men conquered and drove them forth into the waste lands of the world, there to mate with true snakes until some day, say the sages, the horrid breed shall vanish utterly.
Through their magic, the serpent-men could take any form, and impersonate anyone they wanted to. So the remaining serpent-men returned in disguise to infiltrate humanity. But men learned to detect them in various ways. First, no serpent-man could pronounce the words "Ka nama kaa lajerama." These words could be spoken only by a real man of men, whose jaws and mouth are shaped different from any other creature. The words' meaning had been forgotten, but not the words themselves. Second, men took for a sign and a standard the figure of the flying dragon, which was the greatest foe of the serpent. It appears that the image of a dragon could act as charm, for in later years, Brule the Spear-Slayer had a mystic armlet of gold representing a winged dragon coiled thrice, with three horns of ruby on the head, which could not be worn by or even touched by a serpent-man. Finally, it is possible to kill a serpent-man, provided that one strikes at the skull. Upon being slain, a serpent-man would resume his true appearance. So humanity was able to drive them out again.
Still later, after humanity had grown forgetful, the serpent-men returned once more, this time as priests of a new cult of the serpent god. These priests lived in the utmost secrecy; no one had ever seen a priest of the Serpent and lived. For the most part, they ruled through their power as priests, but sometimes they would secretly murder a king and substitute one of their own as ruler. One such Valusian king fell beneath the spear of Lionfang and resumed his true guise as a snake.
After King Kull conquered Valusia, the serpent-men plotted to kill him and replace him with a double. The Pictish ambassador, Ka-nu the Ancient, and his warrior Brule the Spear-Slayer helped Kull to defeat the plot. Brule remarked that "These serpent priests know naught of swordcraft and die easier than any men I ever slew." [REH Shadow (online text)].
During the vanished saurian age, Valusia’s serpent-men laid the foundation-stones of evil magic [HPL Diary (online text)]. The serpent-men of Valusia salvaged the Shining Trapezohedron from the ruins of the crinoid Old Ones of Antarctica [Haunter (online text)]. While Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee's mind was a captive of the Great Race in 1908-1913, the Great Race had sojourning among them a mind from the reptile people of fabled Valusia [Time (online text)].
Compare with: serpent-men (2), serpent-people.
Paul Tregardis, on gazing into the crystal of Zon Mezzamalech, was regressed through time until he was one of the serpent-men who reared their cities of black gneiss and fought their venomous wars in the world’s first continent. As a serpent man, Tregardis walked undulously in ante-human streets, in strange crooked vaults; peered at primeval stars from high, Babelian towers; and bowed with hissing litanies to great serpent-idols. [CAS Ubbo (online text)]
Compare with: Serpent-men (1), serpent-people.
Return to Cthulhu Universalis Contents Page
Return to CthulhuFiles.com Home Page
Send comments to jfm.baharna@gmail.com.
© Copyright 1996-2024 by Joseph Morales