Sruvara
Swamp dwelling dragons best known for their incredibly deadly poison, sruvara are a toxic blight on any area they choose to inhabit.1
Appearance
Sruvara look like huge snakes with a dragon-like head. The head boasts a large mouth filled with teeth that drip some of the most lethal venom known on Golarion, poison so potent it can even strike down demons and other creatures that are supposedly immune. Their bodies are covered in slate or dull metallic-gray scales, between which seeps a toxic green powder that looks like the verdigris normally found on aged bronze or brass. Further back along the sruvara's body grow a set of clawed muscular arms, and behind that a set of powerful but lean wings. Despite the wings, the sruvara looks more snake-like than dragon-like. A big part of this is the way it moves with silent, serpentine grace, some even likening its hunting style to that of a predatory big cat.1
Habitat and ecology
Sruvara prefer warm marshes and swampland as their home, but this is not the only place they make their lairs. The only requirement they have is that there be some sort of body of water nearby. Places of infamy and dark legend are a favorite lairing sites for sruvara, as they appreciate the infamy of the site and the general privacy it affords them. Their formidable climbing skills allow these creatures to use deep pits or isolated mountain canyons as lairs. When not using such lofty sites they tend to favor despoiled oasis, fetid bogs or plague-infested jungle river deltas. Survara are found in the legends of realms like Katapesh, Osirion, Qadira and Thuvia even though none are renowned for the wetlands.1
Sruvara are part of a group of dragons known as azi, powerful creatures that combine the worst elements of true dragons with the hateful nature of the div.2 Their draconic heritage gives them a breath weapon of highly acidic poison, and the ability to utter potent curses that taint their enemies with evil. Sruvara are the smallest and weakest of the azi, though with dragons "small" and "weak" are both relative terms. They make up for their size with their poison, some of the strongest in the Great Beyond. The sruvara known as Niasvorias has poison so strong it can slay the undead, something that should be impossible. Their bodies function as a poisoner's laboratory, filled with bizarre organs and glands.
To assist these organs, sruvara eat poisonous creatures, the more poisonous the better. While they normally hunt snakes, giant spiders, giant scorpions and similar creatures, they sometimes hunt assassins. Sruvara occasionally will serve as assassins for other azi or similarly powerful creatures. Their potent venom ensures they are very effective, although they are far from subtle assassins. If not explicitly ordered, they to will poison a whole city just to kill one target. Sruvara who offer this service are known to ask outlandish prices, ranging from the toppling of a local pasha, to the corpses of a pair of simurghs.1
Known sruvara
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 . “Bestiary” in The Final Wish, 80–81. Paizo Inc., 2009
- ↑ . “Bestiary” in The Final Wish, 75. Paizo Inc., 2009
