The Medusa
Connects to: 40.20 and the City of Shuttered
Windows.
One of the many potent weapons that are hoarded by the Doges of the City of Shuttered Windows is the medusa. After it escaped and caused great havoc in the Undercity, the Doges decided that it would be much safer (for them) if it was kept beyond the city walls, so it is currently penned in Tower Savage, which lies at the heart of Blind Midshotgatepool. While waiting for a time when she can be used against the enemies of the City, the medusa earns her keep by transforming the newly-dead of Blind Midshotgatepool to stone that can be used as building material to raise the Tower Savage ever higher.
If intruders break into the tower and come face to face with the medusa, she will appear to be a normal teenaged girl, if a wan and haggard one, except for the great mass of serpents that grow from her head. The size and appearance of these snakes vary greatly, but the largest can rival the greatest cobras in length. The snakes will writhe and attack any intruders, using poison, constriction and petrification.
The girl within the mass of snakes may speak cryptically, make extravagant threats or beg for death. The girl is in every way a normal human and can be killed as easily as one, although the snakes will attempt to defend her. If she is killed, the mass of snakes will detach itself from her scalp, slither with surprising speed across the room and attempt to attach itself to the head of any young female (if none is present, it will make do).
This is rather painful for the new host.
Connection:
- The medusa was used by the blind Doge against the centaurs of the Burning Lands (40.20).
Hooks:
- Where did the men of Shuttered get this parasitic medusa from? Are there more?
- What happened when it got loose in the undercity?
- Why is the Tower Savage (the Shuttered base inside of Blind Midshotgatepool) made out of petrified bodies?
- How fresh do dead bodies have to be to be petrified? Why?
- Who was girl before she got the medusa parasite stuck on her head? How long is she likely to live?