Yuan-Ti Worldbuilding

Also, most of the people in the government are commoners who earned their position, with the nobility at the very top. Most day to day decisions are made by commoners with regional power, the ruling caste only making big decisions and rarely micromanaging, trusting the lower ranks to get on with it and not interfering unless something goes wrong.

>It's basically enforced by internal honor codes that they're taught to uphold, to do less is to be shamed by the family. Any action beyond that hasn't been needed yet.

How long has this society been running for? I feel that anything longer than 40 years means that the honor code is going to be twisted and bent every which way to result in excuses for nobles with power to abuse that power.

Unless you want to go straight for "yuan ti brains are different"

Few centuries probably, you have a suggestion for how to keep it stable and non abusive? The entire philosophy that their education is based on stresses respect and cooperation, community and harmony. While some abuses are inevitable they're not ruled by tyrants. Mostly because the power is spread around the whole noble family which is quite large.

Spread across nobility still means consolidated into the nobles.

It seems that you don't want to give commoners sway over the nobility coward .

The best solution seems to be a kind of "mind control" ritual. Noble isn't something that's just from birth, you do a ritual where you get magick'd to following the rigid code (kind of like how Paladins need to follow a rigid code). Not doing the ritual could mean that they are stripped of their nobility or are otherwise given a form of outlawry where they just lose out on a lot of perks and decision making that comes with being a noble.

Maybe some kind of council that has to approve some decisions.

But absolutely not touching mind control. Just no. Full stop.

If the council is controlled by nobles then you will see the same problem you see across human history. When power is consolidated into a small group it will be abused.

The only other solution I see is that Yuan Ti are simply genetically predisposed to following the code of honor through magic.

You'd need some form of independent Judicial branch, which would wield near absolute power in judicial matters and very little power outside judicial matters. Would keep to nobles in check

You could try to tie it in with religion, maybe the "judges" of this society would be some sort of ascetic monk like characters operating under a divine mandate.

Also if the concept of "maintaining face" is important then most punishments should have an aspect of humiliation, preferably public.

That's a good one, judicial branch of commoners applying at least some control to the nobility.

The punishment for doing wrong for a noble would probably be some kind of public purification ritual where you admit your wrongs before a town square full of commoners and beg their forgiveness in order to regain your honor.

Then we go right back to the problem of nobles not taking the apology seriously. You still have room for shithead nobles who abuse there power. This is an alright thing to have in the setting but it definitely makes the nobles overall be not that unique in terms of fantasy governments.

Some kind of priestly judiciary makes a lot of sense. The ruling family maintains its power by a divine right they inherit, hence why it's a closed off family as the ruling caste, so a religious judgement would be extremely powerful.

You MUST satisfy the holy court or else you have no respect in the eyes of the commoners and thus no authority over them, if you're not upholding the responsibilities of the divine right.

Not perfect but pretty good, and a lot more control than in the other feudal societies in these kinds of settings.

>if you're a same sex couple there's an established, ritualized method of finding a third party from one partner's family to bear/sire a desired child.
>Yuan ti here also do not for exlcusive pair bonds, it's considered entirely normal and good for one to have a relationship with, normally, two to four others, who themselves have other relationships and so forth, and you're supposed to get along well with the other mates of your mate, there's rituals for that too, mostly involving tea ceremonies and formal dinners.
> there are only yuan ti 'abominations'. Snake tails, scales all over, serpent heads, no half breeds or humanlike ones.

I fucking hate it already.

Aren't you literally describing how feudal societies actually functioned?

Yeah, that was pretty much my thought process as well.

Also the ascetic nature of the priest/monk-judges would also pre-emptively address possible corruption. It's hard to bribe an ascetic Yuan-ti of the faith. Or of course, if you want to add the potential corruption as a hook for some plot development then ignore the ascetism angle.

I'm pretty sure you are literally describing how actual feudal societies worked.

Not really, the power church had over judicial matters varied a lot during the period and also by location. Church also held a lot of political power, pushing and nudging rulers in directions they preferred.

The system i suggested has the "church" not partake in politics at all and it's controlled by ascetics (which the catholic church as a whole really was not)

So yeah, while there are similarities, i also feel that there are significant differences, but you're free to disagree of course.

Basically, in this case the power of the church wouldn't be that it's a separate, powerful organization, but that it's directly enshrined in the government as the judicial branch.

It's not a rival power structure but part of the actual main power structure.

>ascetics

And how exactly is it guaranteed that ascetics are to remain the ones in control?

The only answer is magic and introducing a 3rd caste aside from nobles and commoners

You also aren't addressing the problem of nobles not taking the humiliation seriously. It's okay to allow for corrupt nobles, but if you want to have the honor thing be 100% then you are going to need to introduce some yakuza-tier punishments for infractions.

>And how exactly is it guaranteed that ascetics are to remain the ones in control?

Divine mandate and GM fiat obviously.

The judicial system with ascetic judges would obviously by a self-perpetuating system.
Judges are ascetics bcause that's how they have always been, the sociaty formed by such clearly defined roles would naturally resist any change that would push the ascetic out.

Would such a system survive in real life for extremely long periods of time? Probably not, but for the sake of world building it does not need to 100% accurate or realistic, it just needs to be plausible.

But, i'm just an user on Veeky Forums throwing ideas at OP.

>Divine mandate

Sounds good to me. Lolth-style divine intervention to keep things going. You already got snake people so I don't see the problem with them having a government system that could only be sustained by magic be sustained by magic.

Through this, nobles who don't take the code seriously get the divine smack-down. Curses, death, etc. You still have room for corruption, but that would be PC plot-tier as opposed to a common or occasional occurrence.

OP approves, I really like the idea of religious ascetic monk/judges keeping the royalty in check.

And yeah, I appreciate criticisms but I'm trying to make my idea work and seem good for potential players and my own imagination rather than throw most of it out and make something entirely different because it's not 'realistic' enough.

Oh I like this quite a lot. Their god would probably be a lawful neutral deity who is still fairly young for a god, more or less devoted to just having the yuan ti have a stable, functioning society and not be constantly at war with each other over petty disputes.

All of the ritual following is a form of worship for him, which makes him fairly powerful and strong enough to help keep the system running smoothly even where problems might arise within it.

>You also aren't addressing the problem of nobles not taking the humiliation seriously

I didn't suggest the public apology thing, but i did mention the public humiliation.

Now, assuming you have civilization based around a caste system with a culture of "maintaining face", being publicly humiliated would be, well, humiliating.
Could a noble just shrug and consider it a no big deal? Sure, why not. However i would not let them off the hook so easily; the crime which leads to the public humiliation would most likely diminish that particular noble in the eyes of his peers as well as in the eyes of the commoners, so you could add all sorts of unofficial punishments that might follow, like social ostracism, etc. I'm sure we could come up with more.

But yeah, i wouldn't let the nobles of the hook with just a public apology.

I'd also throw in branding/disfigurement, or otherwise some way to curb the noble's power should they defy the code. Also yo are going to want to lay out the specifics of this code if you want to make sure the nobles don't have easy mode abuses.

Yeah that sounds about right. Doing something seriously wrong would be a stigma that would follow you around for a while as a noble.

In a society that is meant to be built on ideals of harmony, run even-handedly for all, corruption or abuse is something that would take a long time to forgive, and the rest of the noble family would hold a wrongdoer very strongly to account.

Not to mention it would be against the philosophy and ideology that they would have been taught from birth.

Yeah that could work as well, especially in more serious offences.
You could have stuff like public floggings or beatings, or a more subtle ones where the offending noble has to carry out some truly menial labour that's normally done by the lowest of the commoner caste for some time.

>Also yo are going to want to lay out the specifics of this code

Absolutely, a hierarchical civilization, with a soft spot for rituals totally needs a properly codified system for punishments.

Yeah this sounds good, also you can add an expectation that for the public to believe the apology, the offender must redeem himself not with just with words, but also with deeds.

Apologies for all the typos, it's getting late over here.

Right, but I think we're spending a bit too much time focusing on this particular aspect. It's important but it's not something I feel needs to be the only thing we focus on.

Serious charges would probably be things like trying to enrich yourself using public funding or working the commoners beyond reason, but I envision the government as fairly well functioning and not constantly having to employ draconian punishments to keep things in line.

They are one big family after all, and there are a lot of rituals for maintaining good familial relationships, it's expected for them to get along decently well, check up on each other and so forth, can't really do that if they're flogging each other for doing something wrong every other week.

And with a priestly, untouchable judiciary reviewing decisions and noble clerks and functionaries having to actually carry things out, I don't think this is too prone to major abuses.

Did anyone have anything to say on other aspects of the culture, beyond just the interactions of royals and commoners?

Yeah, I should have made it more clear that was what I meant. I meant that a public apology before the commoners was PART of the ritual, not ALL of the ritual. They have to clearly say what they did wrong, why it was wrong, and then work diligently to fix it and regain face in the eyes of the commoners until they're forgiven by the people they wronged.

D&D's version of yuan-ti come in a wide variety of snakiness, from just-a-little-snakey purebloods to made-of-a-screaming-pile-of-snakes anathemas. Does this make an egalitarian society hard? Are all the biological castes treated with equal respect and given equal rights? Or perhaps rituals are available to transform a yuan-ti and make them change caste.

In my personal version there are only the 'abominations', I never use the others as it feels less like one species and more a ton of different species with a vague connecting snake motif and little else in common.

It sounds pretty good to me, now you just gotta expand and flesh things out.
Also, assuming you plan on using this setting in a game in the future, you gotta plant some seeds of conflict in there somewhere.

Right, personally I'm using this for a baseline, what the civilization is like normally so I could later come up with a problem.

I've no idea when, or if I'll get to use this and right now am just making this up for my own reasons really. I've got ideas in my head that I need to get out. Maybe I'll get to use it someday but I can't really plan for that right now.

>I've got ideas in my head that I need to get out

I get that, i'm pretty much the same.

What you got there is a pretty neat idea for a Yuan-ti setting, just keep fleshing out the ideas you already got to make it a nice internally consistent setting.

Thanks, trying my best.

Any thoughts on the relationship dynamics? Either for commoners or the royal family, which is more complicated? I think there could be potential for plots there.

Basically, there's a complex web of relationships, courtship and breeding that's a normal part of yuan ti social life. This gets more complicated and complex for the royal caste who are both one huge family and can only breed with each other, I imagine there's a whole office of several royal scholars whose entire job is deciding who should court who so the royal caste resembles a microcosm of society, all harmoniously knitted together and balanced.

Then there's the, for lack of a better term, gender dynamics, a kind of yin/yang tradeoff, one is dominant but expected to serve the needs of the other without having to be asked, the other more submissive but actually has the ultimate authority in serious and long term decision making.

At least that's my basic idea, I like the concept but am not entirely sure what to do with it.

but thats one of the unique things about yuan-ti is their different breeds

without that they are just naga with a different name

I feel like with the nobility it makes sense for everything to be a bit more strictly controlled, more heavily scrutinized, but how about the commoners? How structured is the "web of relationships, courtship and breeding" for the commoners? Or is it practically a free-for-all?

Also, if it's not a "free-for-all" then where does all this socializing take place for the commoners? For some reason i have difficulties imagining Yuan-ti hangouts, but that might just be my limited imagination.

You can still do different types of abominations, modeled after different real life snakes, plenty of variation for shape, size, coloration etc.

Yeah, plenty of different breeds of serpent, I just want them to be a unified species rather than a half dozen different species with one name. Just annoys me.

For commoners it's pretty free up when it comes to romance. Coffee houses would be pretty common hangouts and there would be other social groups. The rituals are more to determine HOW a relationship should progress healthily rather than WHO you can have a relationship with.

Like, it's been observed that it's a good thing for you to regularly share meals with your mates, it's healthy, good for the relationship, so there's a formula based on how many mates you have that calculates the minimum number of times per week you should have a sit down dinner with them, have afternoon tea with them and so forth.

For the royals, they can have their own relations within the family at their discretion, but now and then will get a nice little letter politely but firmly informing them that they have to go and court such and so and they'd better play nice if they don't want to have a chaperone minding them next time to make sure they get along.

Alright, that makes sense.

The relationship dynamics seem to make sense, there's nothing there that would throw me off.

Unfortunately i gotta head to bed, it's getting ridiculously late in here, but keep posting more, i'll be sure to pop in if i see a new thread about this.

And good luck user!

This neat little xenopsychology article

rfreitas.com/Astro/Xenopsychology.htm

brings up the intriguing premise that "advanced reptilian brains might display dogged aggressiveness and unyielding single-mindedness of purpose, and create societies having massive impenetrable hierarchical bureaucracies with individual actions heavily dictated by ritual gestures, elaborate ceremonies and dances, "turf" rules and highly stereotyped, emotionally cold behaviors"

Food for thought

...suddenly XS' quests make a ton more sense.

Well I suppose that does lend credence to the idea of 'yuan ti are just different'

Right, well, OP must sleep. Hope people found this interesting, if it's still here in the morning I'll carry on.

Mine are more inspired then ment to just be them, wannebe dragonblooded vampires who moved to the not Aztec lands from across the pond to take advantage of dragon worshipers.

They age slowly from convert to a variety of serpentine/draconic forms depending on some biology and theit blood intake

Everything great about them is being insidious doomsday cultists wallowing in awful mutagenic magic, the high status monsters can't do that without pureblood infiltrators to work through. If I was changing a thing it would be for them to shed human features as they age and make them Jungle Deep Ones.

Well that's because they're a human cult based around debasement and progressive corruption. That's the whole aspect that makes them unique. Take that away and they're just generic lizard/snake people. Probbly shouldn't even use the name Yuan-Ti and just call them naga or something

Huh, is that new lore? I'm still going back to the original 2e monster manual I remember reading that was just 'these are snake people'.

As far as I'm aware they've had their subraces/cult thing since AD&D

Huh. Well I never noticed then.

Call them whatever you will, snakefolk, this is just how I've personally always used them.

I almost never use a straight, unmodified race right out of the book without changing something about them.

Trying to think up specific rituals that might be done for the purposes of maintaining good relations with your family.

Probably semi formalized meetings, you're supposed to have tea together every so often depending on how closely you're related.

This not happening, or someone avoiding these meetings would be a flag that something's wrong and might be a hook for an adventure, one serpent hiring the adventurers to find out why his uncle suddenly isn't talking to him like he's supposed to and suspecting something is seriously wrong.

Would also make yuan ti out of their homeland feel very lonely and cut off, as well as be shocked and confused at how selfish humanoids seem, going for months or longer without speaking to their relatives and seemingly only caring about themselves and their immediate family, if even that.

just gonna rapid fire some ideas that popped up in my head.

commoners and nobles are distinguished by clothing and accessories.
nobles wear fine silk in a color corresponding with their civic duty, wear a large amount of jewelry and shiny gems, maybe even paint some of their scales with a gold pigment in certain patterns, like makeup.
commoners would wear simple cloth and jewelry of lesser metals, wood or bone. perhaps with a few exceptions such as items with religious or other cultural iconography.

speaking of religion, assuming of course they have one.
the clergy are a primary source of information of the various rituals and also serves as a community center.
sunday schools for hatchlings that needs to learn the most basic of rituals, and can also help arbitrate disagreements on rituals.

the nobles in charge invest alot of money into providing welfare for citizens who have been robbed, have their homes destroyed in a natural disasters or financial aid to single parent households.

murder is a taboo to such a degree that they dont have laws for capital punishment. instead the offender will have their face branded, or some other way of permanently marking them, and then exiled from any and all islands and territory.
unfortunately this has served to give the impression in the sorrounding areas that the snake people are killers, looters and bandits.

thats all i have hope you find something useful

Snake tits

Nope, no snake tits, zero sexual dimorphism, non yuan ti can't tell males from females without passing a DC 30 perception check.

no tits doesnt neccesarily have to mean zero sexual dimorphism, female anacondas for example are larger than their male counterparts

Sounds pretty good on a few points!

Welfare makes a lot of sense, very communal species that's very concerned with helping each other and supporting each other. For instance you're expected to give money to your less wealthy relatives because you'd expect others to help you if you were in a bad spot.

Clergy teachers are a good one, here they'd worship some lawful neutral god of harmony and order who just wants the yuan ti to not be at war with themselves and have a stable, efficient society.

Single parent households aren't really a thing though. They don't have such a strong attachment to their children as mammilian species do and thus have no qualms about giving away a child to a more well off relative if they can't provide for them.

Clothing sounds about right, yuan ti dress to impress or for practicality but never just to cover up. Probably only royals or very rich commoners can afford gold and silks, but royals probably all carry royal seals that they can use to obligate basic services from commoners, like giving them food or lodging or other minor favors.

On that note, I think it would be a neat idea to have the idea of 'wards' as a general concept in society. Giving your children off to relatives to raise for a few years for various reasons, at the base level just to foster better family relations but also as learning experiences.

I just thought it would be an interesting quirk that would inform society in some ways to have a species where biological sex is a distinction without a difference in terms of social role or relationships. It would be a thing that other yuan ti would be aware of but not care about. I just find that interesting and a way to make them more alien from a humanoid perspective.

it would be an important aspect to consider i think how the royals and their family fit into society.
in human history titles are passed through bloodlines, but in a society with a low familial attachment but a high communal one, would look and function very differently.

you mentioned they have a high amount of upwards mobility, i think it would be important to flesh that out as to how a YT becomes royal, and that it only applies to that specific individual.

examples could be public vote on a specific day for some form of governmental position, a rich merchant paying for a title or maybe a candidate is selected through a series of tests ranging from anything to physical prowess, mental acuity and/or the dalai lama toy selection thing.

wards sounds like a solid idea, but i think you need to give them a dash of infighting to avoid it turning into a hippie utopia.
such as young YTs claiming to be from some far off part of the family and then abuse their hospitality, or no one in a family wanting to take care of the newly hatched and they have yet to find someone who does.

consider parhaps a form of kindergarten, run by a sufficiently rich enough organization to pull it off, be it government, church or other entity.
they take care of the young in exchange for perhaps money, labor, favors, goods, etc

The ideas for the wards are solid, I like the kindergarten example, that's a pretty good one, public education is certainly a thing in this society.

Though you must have missed where I talk about the nobles, it's a caste system, while there is a lot of upward nobility, there is no way a non noble can ever become royalty.

The noble caste are the descendants of the leaders that originally ended the infighting of the old yuan ti and created the new society in the name of their lawful neutral god. They believe in the divine mandate of rulers and that only a pureblood child of two nobles inherits the right to rule, so they can only breed with each other. With the spread out web of relations that yuan ti pursue the original royal families have long since amalgamated into one big one.

Commoners can rise fairly high in government though by passing tests, inspired by the ancient chinese tests people took to become officials, same idea. They'll never rise to the absolute top but you can get pretty high with common blood.

yeah i did miss the caste thing, my bad :/

anyway i suppose thst would mean that breeding outside of your caste is a big no no, could be a good base for a romeo and juliet story.

the nature and concept of duality would propably be a common theme in society and culture, with the entire population basically being one or the other.

this would propably also lead to some tensions i would think, dissatisfied YT forming criminal syndicates because they didnt hatch from the right egg, jealous murders of nobles or a royal abusing the commoners because they are beneath him.

and with that im going to bed, this was fun and i hope the rest of your worldbuilding goes well.

There is a lot of duality in the society, but it's intentionally structured in what is supposed to be a stable way where each one supports the other. Nobles are ritually enshrined as the absolute leadership power but cannot function without their commoner functionaries and clerks, commoners get the stuff done but without the living inheritors of their gods will, the nobles, society is lost and directionless.

Not ideal and some would resent not being born noble, but you can rise pretty high as a commoner and there's no artificial cap in the business world, so you could raise to be a wealthy tradesman or business owner, the nobles are more interested in ruling and leadership than accumulating wealth, which they already have in great supply.

Breeding with the other caste is frowned upon but it's not a HUGE problem. Every noble egg is magically tested for pureblood status and if it's not then it's given to adoption and the parent is asked very pointed and awkward questions.

I imagine there's an entire subgenre of romantic comedy stage plays about a commoner unknowingly romancing adventurous nobles in disguise.

The snake always deserves to die.

...

yuan ti or vrael olo value their own hides and those of their fellow reptiles over anything else, they use dimension door to ensure always having an escape mechanism in battle.

Yuan ti are also known for taking hostages and making slaves of people defeated in battle rathering than outright killing them, they are always looking to get ahead in their conquest to bring down human kind and to summon their snake god sseth.