Vicharamuni

Awakener nagas are benevolent and wise teachers of people and places. They seek to guide and nurture the world around them, sensing mortals or locales with potential supernatural significance. Once located, these nagas provide instruction and divine trials to forge their wards toward strength and to impart a deeper understanding of right and wrong. Though considered stern and intimidating taskmasters by their students, those taught by a vicharamuni often go on to become great heroes.

Awakener nagas are similarly attentive in guiding their young. Upon reaching adulthood, a naga is provided a final trial before being encouraged to depart the nest and seek out their own natural wonders or promising mortals. Sometimes generations of nagas might guard the same place or family line, passing the honor of such care from parent to child. In such cases, the parent nagas aim to have at least one of their children elect to stay behind and become the guardian of their ancestral ward, giving the parents peace of mind that the site they protect will continue to be guarded by their descendants.

Nagas are serpentine beings with magical powers and keen intellects. Physically, they resemble massive snakes, though they often wear jewelry and other ornaments that clearly separate them from their animal kin. Nagas use their innate magic and poisonous fangs to keep all but the most stalwart foes at bay. They keep their own counsel, viewing their cosmic role to be sacrosanct and beyond the understanding of outside scholars. Their unwillingness to explain themselves or entertain the suggestion of alliances has led to a long history of conflict with their neighbors, who read them as aloof, arrogant, or duplicitous.

Nagas often have a powerful sense of duty to their perceived role within the universe, even if this role leads them to violent or tragic ends. Many see them as harsh and stern due to their devotion, terrifying in their majesty yet possessed of an aura of transcendence.