Sapphire the Blue Adder and Tourmaline the Black Snake
I am slowly tinkering with a setting and hack of Blades in the Dark with working name Maus in the Park, based kinda on Mausritter. In general PCs are adventuring mice in a small world of meadows and forests. MitP starter
And then we're coming to current RPG Blog Carnival topic: Dragons, Gods and other Powerful Beings. And for mice a snake would be like a dragon! Give them magic powers and that snake truly is a dragon! I already had a post about Ruby the Red Viper and Quartz the White Snake so let me present last two of the four in tandem!
Sapphire the Blue Adder
Grey-blue coloured common European adder with shiny deep blue scale between it's eyes. He is large for an adder, and unnatural hue of their scales is clearly visible.
Tourmaline the Black Snake
Almost jet black coloured green snake. The magical scale is there somewhere but cannot be easily identified. Tourmaline is rather small, could be mistaken as common slow worm. She is invisibile in the dark and in shadows.
Snakes Together
Sapphire and Tourmaline live together in ther secret hideout. They can rarely be seen, both tend to go out and hunt during the night hours when no one can trace them. They don't collaborate directly with any faction but due to their sheer power factions nearby hastly adjust their behaviour in relation to
Tourmaline can be classified as Tier 1 enemy, she is small and doesn't have too much strength. She can jump to Tier 2 or even 3 in the darkness and thanks to her magic immunity. Sapphire on the other hand is large and thanks to a roster of spells, rather solid stature and venom is Tier 3 or even 4.
Mausritter faction template:
- secret hideout
- gallery of magic abilities (Saph)
- shadow scouting
- magic immunity (Tour)
- acute occult knowledge
O O O indulge in power and magic by scaring other factions (recurring)
O O O O O uncover enemy plot to use or to take away their magical abilities
O O O O O O weaken or kill another magical snake to avoid the prophecy
Sapphire and Tourmaline are a tandem gathered in hell. He has a menagerie or magic spells to cast on creatures or environment around them and Tourmaline is immune to it all. They are largely self sufficient and live hedonistic lifestyle to constantly quench whatever desire they have at the moment.
Paranoid over the occult ambitions, recipes and prophecies they lurk in the shadows and don't trust anyone but themselves. They have acute knowledge of occult possibilities, the Crow plot to create a Phoenix, Snake Cult to combine magic snakes into one five headed Dragon or various sorcerers hoping to get their magical scales to use in their rituals. That paranoia is the main reason they didn't took over whole Grand Valley.
Combat
If by any chance PCs would end up in combat with Sapphire and Tourmaline they'd be basically dead.
They are scaly as snakes are so the weaponry to hit has to be large and very sharp.
Tourmaline is a master sneaker and although her swallow-mouse-whole ability is limited it is still powerful and she specialises in sneak and choke tactics.
Sapphire is large, can push crowds away, has a venomous bite that can kill (although it is limited and costly so usually it is a scare tactic or last resort before fleeing), can swallow mouse whole and even straight up hit someone by virtue of size and weight.
In addition Sapphire can cast a few spells that make it even more advantageous. Usually first spell is Darkness to force enemies to use light and be visible as well as grant Tourmaline the edge. Then it is Frost as it slows down and weakens enemies, Saph is large enough not to be affected and Tour is immune to magic. Then they tend to strike physically unless something happens. Scales to Thorns is the spell against crowds, Scales to Steel in purely defensive manner, Snake Charmer in order to get rid of singular powerful enemies and Whirlwind as a way of chaotic airborne way of escape if everything else fails.
Separated both are definitely still threats but less so than together. And their basic mode of operations is stealth, paranoid carefulness and spreading terror which makes any attack even less likely.