Serpent People

The Serpent People, or Serpent Men, are an interesting Mythos race. They have been around essentially from the inception of the Mythos, first appearing in Robert E. Howard's "The Shadow Kingdom", published in 1929.

In "The Shadow Kingdom", Howard's first and best-known (and arguably best) King Kull story, the Serpent People are able to magically disguise themselves as human (and as specific people), and worship the Great Serpent. They form an ancient conspiracy working against Valusia - and, implicitly, they have infiltrated all human civilizations. They, and several other nonhuman intelligences, are said to have dominated the earth until defeated by early humanity; the serpent men survived by concealment and infiltration.

The phrase "Ka nama kaa lajerama", said to be handed down from the days of the wars between early humans and the serpent men, is usable as a test to determine if a person is real or a serpent man in disguise. Serpent men cannot speak the phrase, since their vocal apparatus is different from that of humans. When confronted with it, serpent men seem to change into their true form - but this is probably just a defensive reaction to being discovered, rather than actually being affected by the phrase.

In Clark Ashton Smith's "The Seven Geases", the serpent people are advanced, scientific, urbane alchemists, and not hostile to humans. "Ubbo-Sathla" has a briefer reference to them; their civilization's glory days seem to have been very ancient, probably pre-dinosaurian. Howard's serpent men are ancient and pre-human, but they seem to have directly predated humanity; the serpent men of "Ubbo-Sathla" seem far earlier.

On the other hand, Robert E. Howard also included serpent-like creatures descended from humans or near-humans in his stories. In "Worms of the Earth", a Bran Mak Morn story set in Roman Britain, the titular worms are serpentlike creatures descended from an ancient, possibly not quite human, people who warred with the Picts ages before. They were driven underground, and eventually became snakelike through ages of separate evolution or degeneration. They seem unrealistically snakelike for a human descendant, though, with "viper fangs" and viperlike heads. "Children of the Night" seems to describe the same creatures in an earlier, more humanlike, less degenerate state - but their appearance is still described as suggestive of snakes. The ancient feud in this story is with the Sword People, who seem to have no relation to the Picts.

Howard's "The God in the Bowl" includes a human-headed serpent. It is unclear if this has any relation with the other serpent-people and snakelike human-descendants, but it appears not.

Spring-heeled Jack in the Mythos

Another "using weird phenomena in the Mythos" post:


"Spring-heeled Jack" was a phenomenon from Victorian England: mysterious figures capable of superhuman feats of jumping, which terrorized people in London and many other parts of England. Spring-heeled Jack was sometimes described as being able to shoot blue or white fire, having burning eyes, or even having sharp claws. (See the Wikipedia article).

Despite popular legend, "Spring-heeled Jack" is not a single individual. At least four are known to have existed, though there were likely more.

Spring-heeled Jacks are named for their amazing leaping abilities. This ability is actually merely a part of their greatly increased agility. The other strange ability they are known for is producing blue-white flame; this is an electrical phenomenon similar to "St. Elmo's fire".

A Spring-heeled Jack is produced by exposing a human being to carefully modulated electrical pulses at a certain amplitude and frequency. If this is done correctly, the person's muscles are supercharged and a "Spring-heeled Jack" is produced. The technique was developed in 1836 by the English doctor Isaac Baker Brown, drawing on experiments by the Italian scientist Luigi Galvani. After three experiments recorded in his book "On Diseases and Conditions of the Muscular System, and their Treatments" (and possibly more unrecorded) he gave up the practice. The only known Spring-heeled Jack that did not result from Brown's experiments was accidentally produced in the small American town of Los Amigos by early experiments in the electric chair. That creature seemed to be more powerful than the normal Spring-heeled Jack, resisting bullets.

(If you're not interested in the RPG side of the Mythos, then ignore the following:)

In game terms: A Spring-heeled Jack's DEX increases by 2, but POW (in d20, Cha) decreases by 2. The St. Elmo's fire ability is harmless, but casts light as if a lantern.

A Spring-heeled Jack lives in this state for one week to three months after transformation. After this, it has a 50% chance of dying of heart attack; if not, it loses its increased DEX and 2 INT, but can live for as much as triple its previously natural lifespan.


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The Los Amigos reference derives from Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Los Amigos Fiasco".