THE SERPENTS’ GRAVEYARD

By Ari Marmell, art by James Zhang, cartography by Mike Schley - Dragon October 2007

The yuan-ti are truly alien in their practices, and their methods of burial prove no exception. While the yuan-ti of the Vanguard have abandoned many of the traditions of their race in order to focus their veneration on Sertrous, their burial practices are not among them. Here, in this cemetery for the honored dead, they observe many of the same traditions, and organize their graveyard in the same fashion, as other yuan-ti.

Stepping through the portal, you find yourself between a pair of towering trees, both long dead. Perhaps 50 yards ahead of you, an imposingly steep hill rises like a blister from the earth. From where you stand, you can see at least two stone stairways built into its sides between the compass points. Strange stone shapes, roughly rectangular, lay embedded in the hill in perfect lines, radiating downward from the crown. Atop the hill stands a great sculpture of four rearing cobras with hoods spread. Each cobra stares outward in all four cardinal directions. Several dead trees break the otherwise perfect symmetry of the hill.