Viper (lakshu)

Viper was a lakshu who served the reigar known as Cholana.

Description
Viper wore a suit of plate mail and a helmet. Her skin was covered in elaborate body paint, and her hair was luscious green, like all of her kind. It was braided, and each braid ended in colored beads. She had an exotic beauty about her, with high, broad cheekbones, black eyes, and eyebrows that angled up at the corners.

Personality
Viper was a cynical woman and one who showed herself to be more patient and strategizing than was typical of most members of her race.

Possessions
Around her forearm, Viper proudly wore a coiled jeweled snake, which was in fact a shakti, a magical totem that could transform into a powerful suit of armor or a giant snake at her command. The scale armor granted Viper increased speed in combat and the ability to spit venom. The snake form of the shakti was large enough for her to ride.

History
When Viper had grown up to reach her full combat strength, she became the bodyguard of the reigar Cholana, taking an oath to protect her mistress for life. It was then that she received her name, a name that matched the duplicate of her mistress's shakti that she was then given as a gift.

As Cholana's bodyguard, Viper had been present when that eccentric woman performed a daring experiment within the phlogiston. Cholana had sailed into the flow within a longboat. Viper watched from the deck of Cholana's esthetic, as her mistress foolishly tried to channel the rainbow-colored substance into a mural. Instead, the phlogiston exploded. No remains of either Cholana or the longboat were ever found.

However, Cholana later strangely reappeared, without explanation, and took control of her esthetic again. From the start, Viper new that her returned mistress could not possibly be the real Cholana, as Viper's shakti no longer functioned as anything more than a bracelet. However, she bided her time and observed, waiting for the opportunity to learn the truth and slay the imposter who pretended to be her old mistress.

Viper was aboard Cholana's esthetic as it sailed wildspace within the crystal sphere of Realmspace, when that vessel came within view of the legendary Spelljammer. "Cholana", using a magical sapphire pendant about her neck, tried to communicate with or observe the massive alien vessel. When doing so, her reigar "glory", a series of sparkling motes that ever orbited such creatures, began to fade. Then, they suddenly exploded away from her, and her body began to expand and grow. Viper dodged the blast of the exploding motes and rolled into a defensive posture, as "Cholana" transformed into her true form, a radiant dragon. The dragon, Celestial Nightpearl, gave no mind to the lesser creatures around her, as her massive body's bulk crushed the smaller spelljamming vessel. As the ship fell apart, Viper hurriedly grabbed the Arcane wizard, named Npamta, who sat at the helm and fled with him to one of the escape boats. The two escaped as Celestial Nightpearl's wings and tail shattered the esthetic.

Intent on gaining revenge on the imposter, Viper and Npamta were able to acquire a damselfly spelljammer. By magic, they managed to track Celestial Nightpearl&mdash;or rather, the pendant that she wore&mdash;to the Trumpeter, an elven swan ship upon which rode the Cloakmaster Teldin Moore. The ship was in the phlogiston on its way from Evermeet in Realmspace to the planet Radole in Winterspace, and Celestial Nightpearl was indeed aboard the vessel at that time in the guise of the legendary elven hero Raven Stormwalker. Viper and Npamta warned Teldin that his ship had a dragon aboard, who could take other forms and wore a magic pendant. Viper demanded that this dragon be turned over to her, but Teldin claimed that no dragon was on board, as he was still unsure of Raven's true identity or her motives. He offered to have a formal meeting with Viper and Npamta to discuss, if she would agree to disarm herself first.

Teldin left his "guests" to prepare for the meeting, but before it could occur, however, Teldin's illithid companion Estriss left suddenly with Nptama aboard the damselfly, three of the elven guards were slain, likely by Viper, and Viper herself was found dead, a hole bored through the center of her torso by a powerful beam of energy, such as that from the mouth of a radiant dragon.

Appearances

 * The Radiant Dragon