Hskori

In the civilized city of Skyholme archaic ideas of ritual sacrifice to dark goddesses of death fell from favor centuries ago, but in the shadowy untouched jungles where man seldom travels the new sensibilities of the modern world are rare. Deep in a treacherous swampy jungle, laden with toxic floura and venomous fauna, and many weeks travel from the city proper, sets a moss covered stone temple. The centuries old cyclopean structure rises up from the dank murky water to crest just above the massive hundreds foot tall tree top canopies. It black metamorphic stone coated in a melina of over growth, though its ancient door ways show the signs of daily use by the swamps primary indigenous peoples.

The Ophiduan of the untouched region live the same lifestyle they have for thousands of years with out advancement. They are simple tribal hunter gatherer community living in harmony with the unlivable conditions of the toxic swamp via specialized survival techniques born over centuries of wisdom and experience passed down by oral tradition. Though wise in thier way these serpent folk also held onto a host of superstition, the main one being that the serpent goddess, Lims-Kragma, where their creators.

Their story claims that in ancient past they were more like humans, but humans of the land started a war with them and threatened to eradicate or enslave them. To avoid certain death they fled into the deadly swamp to seek shelter. Most of them died quickly to the unforgiving environment. 333 of the original tribe of 400 died in the spot of the final death a great serpent rose from the swamp and spoke to their leader. She thanked the tribe for the souls they fed her and offered them salvation at a price. She would teach them a sway over life like none had and teach them how to mold themselves in her image, in doing so they could thrive in the hellish condition of the jungle and protect it from intruders. In exchange they were to build a temple to her at that very spot and every year on the date sacrifice 33 souls to her. The tribe did so and the rest was history.

Hskori was hatched in the toxic swamp and grew up there, gifted with the touch of the goddess she was on a track to be made a preistess of Lims-Kragma. She was however a rambunctious child who unfortunately never played the rules of the tribe the heed they warranted. She broke the primary rule of the tribe, never leave the swamp, simply out of curiosity of what lied beyond the trees. What she found though were a group of human bandits who captured her and took her away in a cage tp be sold as an oddity in a slave market. There she served a cruel wealthy elven master until one day during a beating the something inside the serpent girl awakened in desperation. She found her mind able to connect with the body of the elf and reached out psychicly to rip and tear at the very fabric of his soul until he withered to a shriveled corpse before her eyes. She was both astonished and horrified by what she had done, but her shock didn't linger long as she quickly made her escape while she could. She took off from the estate and headed into the nearest city gate where she found herself in the strange new world of modern civilization, in Skyholme.

### Appearance

Hskori from the upper thighs up appears to be a beautiful shapely female with pale green skin patches of green snake like scales, long unkempt wavey black hair, and gold reptilian eyes. From just below the waste down her lower half appears to be a large serpent tail with scales patterned with stripes of deeper and medium forest greens.

She generally dresses in simple meager tribal garb. Wearing a crude hide loincloth and top, and asorted leather, feather, bead, and bone necklaces and bracelets. She carries a round dark wooden shield with an oroboros painted in white on its face and a roughly formed stone dagger.