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| The Taquicaotl Serpent of K'tumal
Taquicaotl Serpent: (subclass-feathered) Taquicaotl are social creatures of the jungle canopy. They range from ten to twenty feet long, and appear much like feathered serpents. Their bodies are entirely covered with fine, tiny feathers, with the exception of around the eyes and jaws, which have a rough scarlet scaling. Bright, colorful feathers create a majestic crest across the top of the serpent’s head, and continue to a lesser degree down the back. The feathers end at the tip of the tail, from which projects four cruel spikes. The wings of the taquicaotl are close to the head, and very small. The wings are vestigial, and serve mostly for balance, helping the serpent move about through the canopy, where it can jump and leap from branch to branch, or slither in the traditional manner of a snake. When posing or threatened, the taquicaotl often coil up and raise their upper bodies up off the ground, spreading their small wings (the effect being like the hood of the cobra, only feathered). |
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Unlike their larger, rarer cousins, taquicaotl are very social creatures. They gather in treetops, or twine together in seething masses inside their dens and temple ruins. They sun themselves whenever possible across the forest floor wherever the sun manages to peek through the treetops. They perform complicated group attacks on large prey, and seem to delight in surprising unwary naktul by dropping onto them from above. During successful attacks, the taquicaotl “sing.” Taquicaotl song is a haunting, rasping sound, and when sung in chorus, is downright eerie (but not magical as are the larger dragons). Taquicaotl are parthenogenic, with no sexual distinction. Each individual is capable of laying an egg, which is fertile without any help from another individual. The serpents lay an egg every year, but each egg has only a forty percent chance of hatching into a snakeling. All the rest are infertile, never getting that spark of life, or may become food for wandering scavengers before being able to mature. The eggs develop for two weeks before the successful ones hatch into tiny snakes no more than six inches long. Of the eggs that hatch, only a third of those will make it to full maturity at five years of age. The longest living taquicaotl has been recorded at twenty-five years of age, though they do not usually live beyond twenty years in the wild. Taquicaotl are sometimes caught for the pleasure of the aristocracy of K’tumal. They are dangerous, and warriors able to hunt down and capture a taquicaotl without dying are rare, forming a special elite force of the Penak’s guard. Typically, naktul bands at least ten hunters strong will go out to capture a taquicaotl, and they consider it successful if they return with a live taquicaotl and at least five still living hunters. The taquicaotl have a very lethal poison, which is a formidable weapon, not from fangs within their mouths, but from the spikes on their tails, which drip a deadly toxin. A minor scratch can kill a naktul within six hours. A well-aimed strike can fell a man and keep him down. There is no known antidote for taquicaotl venom: only magic seems to completely cure a person thus afflicted. Taquicaotl are born with their venom. |
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