Vohdian Vicious Viper

These long, thick creatures are usually found where mushroom trees group in dense thickets which allow them to move swiftly along the canopies. They can be found moving along the mushroom forests by themselves or in small dens of three to five vipers, often a mother and their offspring.

From afar, any vicious viper can easily be mistaken for a vine, either wrapped around the trunks of mushroom trees or hanging from their branches as they wait for their prey to get near them. Once it gets close enough, the snake drops from the tree and launches itself towards its meal, in a quick dart-like motion, after which it wraps around the body of the creature, constricting it and getting ready to eat.

Although the viper’s fangs look like a good enough reason to keep away from it—two long, sharp teeth—the real danger is found in its skin, coated with scales that can shift slightly, revealing a series of tube-like protrusions that serve as canals for a naturally produced acid. After wrapping itself around another creature, the serpent releases this acid, reducing the creature’s capabilities of fighting back and freeing itself from its grasp.

Being naturally adapted to the Vohdian atmosphere, the viper’s killing method relies not on directly taking their prey’s life, but on disrupting the way its organism responds to the Fog. An in-depth look at the acid’s composition would reveal that, instead of being corrosive, it attacks living organisms by altering their adaptability and reducing their natural resistance to Fog. These alterations do not eliminate permanent conditions that would benefit from a Vohdian atmosphere like Funglung, but they provoke enough of a change that cellular activity is reduced and the atmosphere becomes toxic, killing the snake’s prey and, with enough time, softening the tissue so it can be eaten. After hunting, a Vohdian viper enters a long slumber during which it digests whatever creature it attacked.

With no known natural predators, the snakes’ long, slow metabolism is both an effective way to obtain energy for long periods of time and the reason their population remains at a relatively stable number in the yet-unexplored regions of Vohd. However, due to the effects their acid has against Fog adaptability in living organisms, most viper colonies located near civilisation have been closely “regulated” and used as a continuous source of Funglung preventive products, in order to try and keep people from developing a condition that has no known way to fix.

(concept submitted by pavlogs_)