Geminate Serpent, Bone
- Armor Class
- -3 [22]
- Hit Dice
- 11
- Attacks
- Bite or Spell (2d6; see age table)
- Special
- poison, breath weapon, spells, fear, constriction, immunity, surprise, magic weapons to hit, age-table damage
- Move
- 15
- HDE/XP
- 13/2,300
Description
Geminate Serpents are very long, serpent-like fey with a head at either end of their snake-like bodies. Their heads are very dragon-like, and geminate serpents can easily be mistaken for dragons if the entire creature is not seen. They earn their name for the gem-like quality of their scales. Being fey creatures they are very long- lived, growing through the entirety of their very long lives; like dragons, they have their development categorized with age classes ranging from 1 to 7.
To geminate serpents, breeding is the ultimate goal of their lives. Each lair will always include an immature geminate serpent. The adult female of this species cares for its young until they reach the second or third age class. During this time both parents will take turns hunting for food (when numbers encountered are rolled, they will be in order, Female, offspring, Male, and further offspring). If there is only a female parent present, the immature serpent will accompany their mother on her hunts. A geminate serpent will have a morale of 12 when defending its offspring, and will never leave their side, even if doing so risks its own death.
Using its long serpentine body to constrict its prey is its favorite attack; geminate serpents can carry or constrict one creature of humanoid size or less per 20 feet of its body's length. The constriction attacks of these serpents do subduing damage. When their prey falls unconscious, the geminate serpent brings them back to their lair to train their offspring to hunt. Once the prey is brought back to the lair, they are stripped of the armor, weapons, and shiny or dangerous-looking items like spell-books, which are added to the serpent’s treasure hoard. The prey are then dropped in a hole, usually as deep as half the serpent’s length. Every other day, one creature is removed from the pit as set to fight the serpent’s offspring, under the watchful supervision of the parent. If the adolescent serpent seems to be losing, the parent will intervene, either dropping them back into the pit, or killing them to feed the offspring.
Geminate serpents have a breath weapon (except bone serpents), which they may use as many times per day as they have Hit Dice. However, they may only use its breath weapon every second round. It can use a non- empowered version that does no damage (basically just fog) for obscuring cover as often as it likes. A geminate serpent’s breath weapon will only affect those equal or less hit dice to the serpent unless otherwise stated, and a saving throw is failed; creatures with more than five hit dice less than the serpent do not get a saving throw. Geminate serpents are immune to their own breath weapons, as well as all spells or poisons that replicate their effects.
Geminate serpents all speak their own language, Serpentine. They also have a chance of speaking Elvish depending on age category, as specified in the tables below for each type.
Bone geminate serpents differ from the other types in many ways. Resembling skeletal serpents, with bones that glint like polished ivory, bone serpents do not need food to live, subsisting entirely from ambient magic; they hunt entirely for sport, and to train their young. This in turn has led them to being the most feared of all the geminate serpents.
A favorite ploy of the bone serpents is to lay still, playing dead and leaping to attack when curious creatures investigate, allowing them to surprise on 1-3 on a 1d6 surprise roll.
Uniquely, bone geminate serpents have no breath weapon, rather they have an innate magical ability that they may use up to their hit dice times per day, though they can only use it at most every other round. This ability turns the serpent’s bones into razor-sharp steel blades, giving it bonuses to its armor class and attack bonus as listed in the table below, and also a +3 damage bonus on its constriction attack.
While this ability is active, the constriction attack also counts as a magical weapon. Once every day a bone geminate serpent can cast Raise Dead on all creatures within a 30-foot radius of its body, the spell lasting for as many rounds as the serpent has hit dice, before the raised creatures once more fall dead. This is how bone geminate serpents train their offspring to fight. As bone geminate serpents constrict with sharp exposed bones, and have no need for live prey, their constriction attacks do real damage rather than subduing.
Bone Geminate Serpent Age Table
| Trait | Age 1 | Age 2 | Age 3 | Age 4 | Age 5 | Age 6 | Age 7 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Length | 60' | 70' | 80' | 90' | 90' | 100' | 110' |
| Hit Dice | 9 | 10 | 10 | 11 | 11 | 12 | 13 |
| Attack Bonus | +7 | +7 | +8 | +9 | +9 | +10 | +11 |
| Spell | — | Bones to Blades | Bones to Blades | Bones to Blades | Bones to Blades | Bones to Blades | Bones to Blades |
| Armor Class | -4 [23] | -5 [24] | -5 [24] | -6 [25] | -6 [25] | -7 [26] | -8 [27] |
| Bones to Blades Attack Bonus | +10 | +11 | +11 | +12 | +12 | +13 | +14 |
| Bite | 2d8 | 2d8 | 4d4 | 2d10 | 2d10 | 2d12 | 4d6 |
| Constrict | 1d8 | 2d6 | 3d4 | 3d6 | 3d6 | 4d6 | 4d8 |
| Talk | — | — | — | 10% | 20% | 20% | 30% |
See Also
Other creatures grouped under Geminate Serpent: Geminate Serpent, Blue, Geminate Serpent, Green, Geminate Serpent, Pleasant, Geminate Serpent, Sea, Geminate Serpent, Shadow, Geminate Serpent, White.
Source note: This creature is converted from The Basic Fantasy Field Guide of Creatures Malevolent and Benign – Omnibus Edition, 1st Edition Release 4, © 2010–2025 Chris Gonnerman, R. Kevin Smoot, James Lemon, Matt Sluis, and Contributors. The Basic Fantasy Field Guide textual material is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International; this page adapts that creature to White Box.