WIP
Valdane is a powerful, sleek anthropomorphic viper. Though there's no doubting his serpentine heritage, he also sports arms and legs, each ending in sharp talons. His body is lithe and well toned if not overly muscular. He is covered in smooth emerald scales that shift in luster depending on how recently he's fed, his under belly and chest are a dull yellow. He stands 6'2" tall, not counting the additional 6 feet of tail that trails behind him. The tail is completely under Valdane's control and is one of his main tools in catching prey. He speaks in a low raspy hiss and accentuates every S syllable.
Valdane's serpent body, though primarily viper sports a few features not native to the species. For one, Valdane is equipped with a hood like a cobra, it only extends when Valdane is agitated, frightened, or in a like mindset condusive to heightened adrenaline. He is also capable of stretching his body and tail to coil and crush prey much like a python, though he himself prefers prey alive and kicking. Like all snakes he is able to unhinge his jaws to swallow anything up to and including his size, though he bulges up trememdously from the act. Valdane is also possessed of a potent neurotoxin in his hollow dagger-length fangs, though he rarely uses it. It's potency is about the same as a normal pit viper... only he delivers many times more doses of the venom in a single bite than the comparatively dimunitive cousin.
Valdane's slow digestion often allows prey the luxury of a few hours to themselves, should they have a way to stave off the suffocating embrace of his gullet. One meal can sate Valdane for up to a few weeks depending on his activity level, and after eating a healthy meal, he is his most vulnerable and sluggish.
Valdane's Backstory:
Though his history is lost to the ebb of memory and the antiquity of his heritage, Valdane did once another place call home. Valdane is a native son to a vast jungle planet, contested fiercely by two dominant species. He was born under the Ivory Birth Moon, too auspicious a sign for so ominous a birth. Normally the hatching of any from a clutch during the Ivory Moon is cause for celebration, but for Valdane (who is named ironically after a beloved Cobra leader of the mythic age), a bastard son of the Standing Serpent tribe's elder chieftan King Cobra and his loyal guard and secret paramour Selveni, it would mean a life of persecution and hardship.
The chieftans of the Standing Serpent tribes all hail from whom they believe to be a regal, noble God-Cobra. As descendants of the wise and just deity, they have engendered a tradition of sole claim to leadership and advisory positions. But the second, lower caste are descendants of a mythical protector of the God-Cobra, the brutishy loyal Viper-Guardian. They are the servants, the warriors, retainers and workers. A great taboo among the tribal litany is the mixing of these two bloods. In an unprecedented show of mercy, Valdane was allowed to keep his young life, despite the revulsion he had fostered in his people, by virtue of his Ivory Birth, and the willing exile accepted by his mother, ensuring the secrecy of his Father's daliance.
From the egg he was taken to be trained by the Viper caste, they were more tolerant of his half-breed status than his more dominant family had been, and treated him as another student. Valdane was an accomplished learner. From a young age he learned to use his natural weapons at their deadliest. He was hailed as an efficient killer, the kind that could bring down the enemy, "Rishetem Curasssass" Or literally in his tongue "Battle Strider."
Engendered in Valdane from an early age was a hatred of the enemies of the Standing Serpents, an eldritch and ancient power that in the mythic age had enslaved the races of Snakekin, taking from them freedom and life. They were the race of Drakkenin, anthro dragons that trace their lineage back to the most powerful creatures ever to have stalked the planet millions of years prior. For millenia the Drakkenin lorded over the Snakekin, using them, Cobra and Viper alike, for sexual playthings, sensual meals, indentured servants, and other less "pleasant" tasks.
The Drakkenin were fierce and terrible opponents, physically stronger more intimidating then the Serpent races, they also managed to harness a mystical power. The most potent among their number were dangerous mystics tapping an energy forever lost to the serpents. No one remembers when the serpents gained control of their destiny once more, simply that they threw off the yoke of slavery and fled deep into the jungles where the eked out a primitive, comparatively pathetic existance for years.
But this golden age was not to last, soon the Serpents were pressing their boundaries, encroaching upon Drakkenin land, when they proved to be competitors for resources, the Drakkenin retorted, sending their own soldiers into the jungle to hunt and capture the Serpents, caught unprepared the first series of these battles were an incredible success. Hundreds of Serpents were either captured or set upon and devoured upon the field of battle by the merciless Drakkenin forces.
There was outrage, there was change, there was the creation of the Battle-Striders, an elite order of Viper-warriors trained to fight with tooth and claw, using the jungle for concealment, and the advantage against their viscious foes. Decades after their inception, the greatest of their number completed the training, a trial by fire that saw the death of a Drakkenin scouting patrol at his hands. Valdane was a natural born killer.
Climbing through the ranks Valdane became content with his lot in life, soon rising to the first circle of Battle-Striders, those that were chosen to meet the Drakkenin with Fang and Venom, against Wing and Fire.
It was in one such conflict that Valdane proved his mettel, through stealth born from cunning the Battle-Striders managed to cut off a Drakkenin general and entourage while she was hunting a meal for herself. Though outnumbered the Striders were egged on by Valdane's words, of glory through combat, honor through death. As if to prove himself to the others, he lept alone towards the the battle hardened dragoness fangs bared and claws flashing through the air crippling her wings in a series of quick strikes. Having grounded his opponent he found himself fast surrounded by her guards.. the gleam of hunger and anger rising in the General. She smiled a toothy grin at him, shouting to her men that Valdane was hers. The Battle-Striders did not join their embattled ally. And so, surrounded by enemies, no aid in sight, and battling the leader of the Drakkenin forces in the region Valdane and the dragoness met in terrible combat. Blows were traded on both sides, and the bloody conflict came to an end when by chance Valdane managed to move his coiled tail around the larger woman's neck and hold her tightly until the fight began to leave her... ((To be continued!))
((Valdane is both predator and prey, though he is an accomplished hunter and enjoys a good meal, he isn't the biggest pred around and could conceivably be gobbled up by something larger then himself. There's no preference on preds or prey, human or furry, male or female. Prefers soft vore, but almost anything can be worked out, just send a pm if interested in a scene.))
This is just a tribute to an amazing player.
Ries