The Sarathi: Serpents of the Sunken Empire

Of all the Elder Races that survived the Sundering, none lost more than the Sarathi.

Origins

The Sarathi are a serpentine people — tall, slender, with scaled skin that ranges from deep emerald to burnished copper to the rare midnight blue of deep-ocean bloodlines. Their eyes are vertically slitted and shimmer with an inner luminescence. Their movements are fluid, almost hypnotic. To watch a Sarathi walk through a crowd is to see water flowing around stone.

Before the Sundering, the Sarathi ruled an empire that spanned the southern seas. Their capital, Sserathis the Golden, was said to be the most beautiful city ever built — a sprawling complex of coral towers, obsidian plazas, and canals that sang with the tide. They co-ruled their domain alongside the lizardfolk in a partnership that had endured for millennia: the Sarathi provided arcane knowledge and diplomacy; the lizardfolk provided strength and the deep patience required to govern.

The Sundering swallowed Sserathis whole. The city sank beneath the waves in a single night, taking with it the majority of the Sarathi population and nearly all of their written history. The survivors — those who had been traveling abroad, those who clung to the highest towers as the waters rose — were reduced from a civilization of millions to scattered bands of refugees.

The Sserakai Enclave

Today, the largest surviving Sarathi community is the Sserakai Enclave in Fort Valiance. Numbering perhaps three hundred, the Sserakai occupy a damp, partially submerged quarter near the Underdocks. Their homes are built in a style that echoes the drowned architecture of old Sserathis — curved walls, no sharp corners, doorways that can be sealed against rising water.

The Sserakai are scholars, divers, and keepers of fragmentary lore. They maintain a small temple to Sserath the Tidewatcher, their patron deity, and their elders guard a collection of waterlogged scrolls and coral tablets that represent the last remnants of Sarathi written culture.

The humans of Fort Valiance regard the Sserakai with a mixture of fascination and unease. The Sarathi know things about the deep water — about what lives there, about what the Sundering left behind — that most humans would prefer not to think about.

Sarathi Traits

Those who play a Sarathi character carry the weight of a drowned civilization. They are often quiet, watchful, and possessed of a dry wit that serves as armor against the world's cruelties. They value knowledge above gold and loyalty above knowledge. To betray a Sarathi's trust is to make an enemy whose patience is measured in centuries.

Their innate connection to water grants them limited aquatic capabilities: the ability to hold their breath for extended periods, a sensitivity to changes in pressure and current, and — in some bloodlines — the ability to see in the lightless depths where even darkvision fails.