The H’ris

 

Background: Long ago, in the mountainous regions of Asia, a race of snake people thrived.  They were the H’ris.  The H’ris lived apart from humans, choosing not to sully themselves with the presence of a lesser race.  To them, all other sentient beings were scum.  They believed they were given life by the great snake god, S’rpes, and that they were the only ones worthy of life.  Through most of the year, they would keep to themselves in their hidden villages in the mountains.  But as the days approached when they would celebrate and give thanks to S’rpes, they would go out into the world seeking human sacrifices.  They would sweep down on unsuspecting villages, taking captive only enough humans as they would need, butchering the rest.  They then tortured and sacrificed their prisoners in the name of S’rpes, the Deadly.

 

One among the H’ris thought their ways were wrong.  K’sar could not understand the hatred his people had for humans who had never done them any harm.  He tried to persuade the others to make peace with the human villages, but his people regarded him as a heretic.  They beat him and tried to kill him, but he escaped.  He made it to the forest near a human village before he collapsed from exhaustion.  He was found there by the local healer, an outcast woman named Cyanara.  She took him in and brought him back to health.  He stayed with her.  The two of them had three children together: K’taran, S’kmet, and M’sara.  The villagers hated and feared them and would have nothing to do with them.  Several years later, the H’ris found them.  The villagers refused to help K’sar and his family against the H’ris.  Without their aid, the family could not hold off their attackers.

 

S’kmet escaped with Talpa’s help and used his armor to destroy the H’ris…or so he thought.  The H’ris rose again years later.  S’kmet, who was now called Sekhmet, stopped their killing spree.  In an uncharacteristic display of mercy, he refused to destroy the women and children.  The H’ris have been defeated, but not decimated.  Will they trouble mankind again someday?  Not if Sekhmet can help it.

 

Abilities:  The H’ris are physically stronger than humans with greater endurance.  Their fanaticism makes them even more dangerous.  They will rush an enemy, knowing they face certain death, just for the chance that they can take down their opponent with sheer force of numbers.  It doesn’t matter how many of them die as long as they kill the enemy in the name of S’rpes.  They also move in an undulating lizard-like manner that can be disconcerting at first.  Fortunately, the H’ris move slowly and are easily dispatched by an opponent who is strong and swift.  They carry swords with poisoned blades, but often prefer to use their hands.  They can transform their hands into razor-sharp claws to eviscerate the enemy.  They especially like to fight close up in order to touch their opponents’ bare skin.  The H’ris can create a thin toxic layer across their hands capable of incapacitating or killing the enemy outright.  Sekhmet inherited this ability from his father.  His Armor of Venom heightens and enhances his poisonous abilities.  Oshay seems to have acquired a mutant form of this toxin-creating power, able to form a blast of venom in stressful situations.