Lamia

Template:Fey Lamias are dangerous, fey-like vampires that live to bring strife and suffering into the world. They are cruel and seductive beings that lure their victims closer to doom with illusions of beauty.

Description

A lamia stands over six feet tall, measures eight feet long, and weighs about 650 pounds. Most lamias appear to be beautiful women from the waist up, with the bodies of powerful lions from the waist down—similar to a centaur. These are the weakest forms of lamia however, as the more powerful versions can have the lower bodies of serpents (often confusing these creatures for naga or gorgons), birds, spiders, or any other form of animal or vermin. The most powerful of lamias can change their lower bodies as easily as a mortal being changes their clothes.

Lamias are centaur-like creatures resembling animals such as lions, goats, and deer, with a human torso and head coming up from where the animal's head would usually be. The upper body is fully humanoid, however, not bearing animalistic features such as scales, horns, or fur.

Characteristics and Habits

Lamias are evil creatures who live in desert ruins. They sustain themselves by eating human flesh. To bring prey to them, they use a variety of abilities, including seduction, disguise, ventriloquism, illusions, mirages, mirror images and other such things, to lure, entice and confuse those who wander into their midst into dangerous situations. When they have secured their victim, they carve a feast out of them with curved daggers. Lamias do not wear any form of clothing or adornment. They seem devoted to chaos and destruction in their native habitats. They never venture more than ten miles from their lairs. Lamias also have the ability to drain wisdom with their touch.

Lamias are matriarchal and believe males are good for nothing more than breeding and slave labor.

Lamias seek to live in excess, surrounded by beauty and slaves. They are highly sexual creatures and mate often with mortal males to produce offspring.

Society

Lamias are a matriarchal breed. They follow the most powerful member of their community. Lamias make their lairs within ancient ruins and abandoned cities. In these lairs, they use their illusory powers to transform the environment to appear new as if rebuilt to their former glory.

One type of rarer lamia is the lamia noble. These beings rule over other lamias and the locations they inhabit. Unlike normal lamias, they have the lower bodies of serpents. Males fight with curved swords and magic, while females only with magic. Lamia nobles are also capable of venturing further from their lairs than other lamias, and prefer to go into urbanized areas in the guise of a human to infiltrate human and demihuman societies. Lamia nobles are prone to outbursts of senseless violence. They can speak all forms of human and demihuman languages.

Lamias are evil in alignment.

References

This page uses content from the Annex. The original article was at Wikipedia at Lamia (Dungeons & Dragons). The list of authors can be seen in the Annex page history. As with the Forgotten Realms Wiki, the text of the Annex is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.