Snakes are one of the most maligned summoning creatures. They are not, however, misunderstood in the least. Snakes aren’t so much actively malevolent or subversive as they are disdainful of all other creatures (and even some of their own kind). They’re quite honest on the matter, too; while the weaker summons at least won’t be openly disrespectful, the more powerful they become the more likely they are to berate and insult their summoner.
The current avatar-class summon of the snake contract is unknown. A hundred years ago it was Manda, a tremendous cobra who is said to have died in the Fourth Great Shinobi War. Since then, nobody has mastered the contract to the level necessary to summon the current avatar…
…Or if they have, they just got eaten. Snakes do that, as it turns out.
This technique is one of the reasons people who use a snake summoning contract prefer to have long sleeves on their garments. You summon up to three snakes which appear coiled around one of your arms and leap from your sleeves to strike at an opponent. It’s much more visually impressive if they seem to leap out of nowhere beneath the sleeves of your shirt, coat, or similar garment.
Effects: You may use this technique twice per day; the first time it’s used in a given combat, it’s an automatic Sneak Attack. In future uses, it’s an automatic Surprise Attack. The damage dealt by Hidden Snake Hands inflicts Piercing wounds.
The effects of Sen’eijashu are variable: you choose which varieties of snakes to summon, and modify its Chakra cost, damage, and effects accordingly. By default, you summon zero snakes; you may summon up to three, applying the Chakra modifiers for each snake chosen. These snakes inflict multiple status effects; all of these effects are caused by that specific poison, and if it’s cured they go away with it. Unless otherwise specified in the individual descriptions, there is no benefit to summoning multiples of the same venomous snake (their effects and bonuses do not stack; Python and Black Adder are exceptions).
If you hit, make a single Toxicology skill roll, using 3+XP/200 or your normal Toxicology skill ranks, whichever is higher, opposed by your opponent’s Resistance. An opponent who fails is poisoned by every snake you used (but please review the rules in Status and Conditions -> Poison before using this technique). Without further ado, the snakes:
An advanced version of Sen’eijashu, this summons a huge quantity of snakes, usually on the order of dozens, which will intimidate, divert, and attack their opponents.
Effects: This is essentially an upgraded version of Sen’eijashu, with increased range and Speed. As noted, you may further increase Sen’eijashu’s Chakra cost to target any number of additional people within range with your snakes. Otherwise, all effects (base Chakra cost, costs to add snakes, number of snakes that may attack any given target) are the same as Sen’eijashu. Each target is attacked with every variety of snake you paid for.
However, this is still considered a separate technique from Sen’eijashu.
A technique many users of the snake-summoning contract are hesitant to use, mostly because it involves getting swallowed by a type of animal known to have absolutely no compunctions about eating their masters. Nonetheless, the snakes ensure their summoners that stories of fatalities resulting from this technique are entirely fabricated. Maybe.
Only one way to find out.
The head of a giant python rises up from the ground (without causing any damage to it, even! how convenient) and either opens its mouth allowing the user to step in, or just snaps its jaw shut and swallows them before retreating back into the morass of chakra from which it came, and vanishing as if it had never been there.
Effects: Oh my god two variables in the chakra cost it’s algebra all over again. Y is the number of “passengers”, people other than the user. If they are willing or unable to resist, it’s a simple matter of them entering the mouth. If they try to avoid it, the snake swallowing them has only Accuracy 20. All passengers must be within 10 yards of each other when the snake is summoned.
X hours later, the snake’s head will reappear within 50 yards of the location it was summoned at and its mouth will open, allowing passengers to leave (or just spitting them out, if they don’t). To the passengers, it will seem as though no time at all has passed. For all intents and purposes, they did not exist for the past however-many hours. Attempts to reach them, communicate with them, or forcibly end this technique early will all fail. If the area they disappeared in is no longer safe, the snake will instead deposit them on the nearest solid ground.
X has a maximum of (summoner’s total XP)/100, and a minimum of 1.
You summon a giant, forty-or-more foot long snake which coils itself around you in the blink of an eye, forming a protective living barrier of sorts. By the time an enemy’s attack actually arrives the snake has already shed its skin and returned to wherever it came from, leaving the discarded skin to crumble shortly afterwards
Effects: This protects everyone within 5 yards of you from whatever attack it is used to interrupt. All damage and secondary effects which require you to have been hit are negated. Suicide Shedding may only be used against attacks used from more than 5 yards away. However, this summon may not be used again for (damage of the attack it was used to stop)/100 weeks (OOC days), with a minimum of 1.
The delay before you can use Suicide Shedding again is reduced to (damage of the attack it was used to stop)/200 weeks (OOC days), still with a minimum of 1. This is a permanent, passive upgrade to Suicide Shedding, not a separate technique.
A large purple cobra, with a body a bit over a foot and a half in diameter, and well over thirty feet in total length. The upper side of its body is dark purple, and its underbelly (along with the inside of its hood) a pale, striated purple-gray.
The cobras can talk, and they totally don’t hiss their S-es. Well, some do, others don’t; it varies from one to the other. Some summoners find themselves summoning the same cobra time and again, while others call a different one each time. The common theory is that this is the snakes just screwing with people (though they resent any such accusations). Cobras are highly critical of their summoners, in a smug fashion, but will ultimately still fulfill their summoner’s requests.
Vitality: 600
STR: 60
RES: 70
CHA: 90
DEX: 80
SPD: 80
Accuracy: 32
Chakra Exhaustion: +15
Dodge: +24
Genjutsu: +20
Damage Bonus: 6.0
Movement: 2 yards per IC
Athletics: +10
Awareness: +30
Resistance: +15
Stealth: +25
Survival: +20
Toxicology: +20
Enhanced Smell
The cobra halves visibility penalties to its Awareness rolls and Accuracy.
Hypnotic Gaze
The cobra must be able to make eye contact to use any of its Serpent Illusion abilities. As such, they can be avoided by someone who shuts their uses. Never looking directly at the cobra works… sort of. This afflicts them with an effective -4 visibility penalty, but snakes are highly agile, and able to move in ways people wouldn’t expect. This doesn’t confer immunity to its genjutsu, but does give a +10 bonus to any defensive rolls against it.
Machinations of the Mighty
Cobras, being of exceptionally keen minds, are well aware of humanity’s place in the pecking order, and will, if sufficiently convinced, deign to match their summoner’s skills.. but only just, because if ninja realized just what they could really do, they’d become insufferable with their constant pleading to have their problems handled for them. Whenever you summon a Cobra, subtract the minimum XP required to summon it (2000 XP) from your Earned XP: that is the X value to determine what bonuses, if any, it gets from the following modifiers. X has a maximum of 3000.
In all cases, you round down. The bonus to skill rolls only applies to skills the summon has listed.
Sly Mind
Cobras have a +5 bonus to their defensive rolls against genjutsu, raised to +10 for rolls to see through already-in place static genjutsu. Anyone who fails to affect one with a genjutsu must immediately defend against one of the cobra’s Serpentine Illusions (at the summoner’s choice) with a -5 penalty, with the cobra paying no cost (in Speed or Chakra) for this.
Snake
Because they are snakes, cobras cannot be knocked prone. Any immobilization penalties are reduced by 5, and any reductions in movement speed from other sources are halved.
Venom
As might be expected, cobras are venomous. Certain of their attacks have a chance to poison their enemies, as will be described in Abilities. It has the following statistics.
Emperor Cobra Venom (Injury, Ingestion, Contact, Inhalation)
Standard Actions
Cobras may use the Block, Dodge, Hide, Move, and Parry (unarmed only) actions as described in the Combat chapter of the PHB, without their summoner needing to spend AP.
Bite (Speed 10, 8 AP)
The cobra bites someone! This does 10d10 damage. If partial defense does not apply, the opponent must also defend against the cobra’s venom, with the cobra receiving a +5 bonus to its Toxicology roll.
Constrict (Speed 14, 6 AP)
A cobra can grab someone and wrap them in its tail. This is treated as a grapple, but the cobra suffers none of the normal penalties for being in a grapple; however, it cannot move while holding someone this way. Every 10 IC, the person being constricted suffers a Suffocation 1 and takes 5*(cobra’s damage bonus) damage, which can not wound. The cobra has a +5 bonus to its rolls to maintain the grapple. Escape Grapple cannot be used to escape from a cobra’s coils. If the cobra chooses to Bite the person it’s constricting, their defense has a -6 penalty.
Devour Illusion (Speed 15, 5 AP, Chakra 20)
When confronted with a genjutsu, cobras can siphon the chakra sustaining it out of the air and “eat” it. This works against area-of-effect genjutsu as well as genjutsu affecting individuals, though in the latter case whoever has the genjutsu on them broken also advances 1 Fatigue level. This may only be used on willing individuals.
Serpentine Illusion: Bottomless Abyss (Speed 15, 10 AP, Chakra 30)
An illusion which plays on two of the most primal, instinctive human fears: falling, and darkness. The victim of this technique feels as if they’re falling down a dark, bottomless pit, the terror rising as they anticipate the inevitable impact at the bottom. It never comes, of course–but the illusion is enough to leave people reeling.
If this technique hits, it inflicts a Stun 10 + 5 * X, where X is the number of Willpower the victim is missing. Someone with 6 maximum willpower who had 4 remaining, thus, suffer a Stun 20. If they are missing at least half of their maximum Willpower (thus, someone with 3 out of 6 WP left would be affected, but not someone with 4 out of 7), they also advance a Fatigue category.
However, for every time someone has been affected by Bottomless Abyss they have a +10 bonus to future defenses against it in that battle.
Serpentine Illusion: Coiling Horror (Speed 10, 10 AP, Chakra 15 + 5 * X)
This is a genjutsu which targets up to X people. Those affected are placed in a trance-like state and unable to take any actions whatsoever (with their IC advancing normally) so long as this jutsu lasts; while it does, the cobra may not break eye contact or take other actions.
Anyone held this way may make another genjutsu roll every 50 IC, against the cobra’s original result, with a cumulative +2 bonus. They also break free automatically if they are the target of any attack. However! This only applies to attacks from which they can feel genuine malice (“killing intent”, in shinobi terms)–a friend punching them to try to free them will, unfortunately, not free them from the illusion. Anyone trapped by this technique may spent a point of Willpower at any time to make another roll, with a +5 bonus (which is added to their cumulative bonus for future rolls as well).
Against anyone with 2 or fewer maximum Willpower (which includes virtually all non-shinobi), the cobra does not need to maintain eye contact to maintain the hypnotism, and can in fact mentally give the victims any sort of non-combat commands (such as “go wander out of town instead of guarding this building”). Against non-shinobi, suicide is a valid command. (Certain exceptionally strong-willed individuals may be able to resist that–but this is a very, very small percent of the population)
Serpentine Illusion: Spiral Grave (Speed 25, 25 AP, Chakra 40)
This jutsu drives its victims slowly, if temporarily, insane. It begins with a sense of impending doom, moving on to cold sweat and steadily-mounting anxiety, then ringing noises and flickers of motion at the edge of one’s field of view, then difficulty breathing–and, finally, the body begins simply shutting down. However, so long as this technique is in effect the victim knows the direction and distance of the cobra who placed it upon them; it’s impossible for the cobra to hide from that person.
Every 10 IC, the victim suffers a Suffocation 1, loses 5% of their maximum Vitality (or HP if they have run out of Vitality), and suffers a cumulative -1 penalty to defend against genjutsu. This will continue indefinitely until the victim falls unconscious or the cobra is unsummoned (due to taking too much damage, or for any other reason). There is no other way to break this technique.
Venomous Spit (Speed 12, 10 AP, Chakra 10)
High-velocity projectile poison! It deals 2d4 * 5 damage with a Range of 15, ignores damage reduction and blocking, and may be a called shot–if used as a called shot, it has +1d6 accuracy. Someone hit by the spit must make a Resistance roll with a +3 bonus or be poisoned. It does not inflict wounds. However, if it’s a called shot made at the victim’s head, they suffer a -8 visibility penalty which is reduced by 1 every 10 IC, to a minimum of -4. Afterwards, it is reduced by 1 every week, finally fading entirely after a month. As it turns out, having poison in your eyes sucks.
A summoner may ask the cobra to provide some of its venom. It will offer enough venom to provide three doses. However, this is all it will do–after providing venom this way, it will unsummon itself (not staying around for combat, or to help otherwise); if it’s already performed some other service for the summoner, it will refuse. This venom will last for three weeks, after which time it is no longer toxic.
After being milked for venom, the cobra cannot be summoned for four weeks.
The term is something of a misnomer. This actually summons individual giant snakes, each several hundred feet long and capable of crushing wooden buildings beneath them as they travel. These are long, brown, non poisonous snakes, resembling giant boa constrictors. The name comes from the fact that these snakes are able to fuse their bodies together, while maintaining multiple distinct heads.
You summon X snakes, up to a maximum of (total XP)/1500. In addition to the once-per-week limitation on using a specific summon, you may only summon a total of (total XP)/1000 hydras in a two month (8 OOC day) period.
The snakes are intelligent, but cannot speak. They understand directions well enough, however, and are reasonably obedient. They may ignore troublesome orders (like telling them not to attack that random civilian who just threw a rock at them), but won’t be deliberately contrary.
Vitality: 1500
STR: 150
RES: 100
CHA: 50
DEX: 120
AGI: 80
Accuracy: 40
Dodge: +25
Genjutsu Defense: +26
Damage Bonus: 10
Movement: 2.5 yards per IC
Athletics: +15
Awareness: +35
Resistance +25
Survival: +20
Enhanced Smell
The hydra halves visibility penalties to its Awareness rolls and Accuracy.
Extended Range
The snakes have a 30 yard attack range, due to their immense size; these are still considered melee attacks.
Hard Scales
Hydras have a Damage Reduction of 40.
Huge
Hydras cannot dodge Area of Effect attacks; instead, they block them automatically as a Speed 0 defense. They can not enter any level of Stealth, nor Hide. They are too heavy to be knocked airborne, knocked back, or knocked prone, and ignore any jutsu or effects that work by binding or physically restraining them. Damage from all Small weapons (including Multi-throws) deals half its normal damage, calculated before any potential Partial Success.
Their physical damage bonus is doubled against anyone who is not Huge or Titanic in size, and they do not take penalties for being in a grapple with anyone who is not Huge or Titanic in size; anyone who is not at least Large (meaning all humans except those with the Large unique, or Akimichi in Baika X = 6+) cannot grapple them due to their size, and gaining control of a grapple the creature initiated merely has the grapple end, rather than allowing them to take control of it.
Attempting to parry an attack from this creature requires a Strength of 100 or more, or an unarmed physical damage bonus of 10 or greater.
Snake
Because they are snakes, hydras cannot be knocked prone. Any immobilization penalties are reduced by 5, and any reductions in movement speed from other sources are halved.
Tireless
Hydras do not need to make Stamina or Chakra Exhaustion rolls when they act. If forced to by an outside force (such as Suffocation), they have +15 to their rolls.
Standard Actions
Hydra may use the Block, Dodge, Move, and Search actions as described in the Combat chapter of the PHB, without their summoner needing to spend AP. They may use Take The Hit normally, but commanding them to do so costs 5 AP.
Combine (Speed 0)
This requires the hydras to all be within 50 yards of one another. They physically combine into a single being, their bodies seeming to melt together while maintaining however many distinct heads. This has the following effects:
Constrict (Speed 10, 6 AP)
A hydra can grab someone and wrap them in its tail. This is treated as a grapple, but the hydra suffers none of the normal penalties for being in a grapple. Every 10 IC, the person being constricted suffers a Suffocation 1 and takes 10* (hydra’s damage bonus) damage, which can not wound. The hydra has a +5 bonus to its rolls to maintain the grapple. Escape Grapple cannot be used to escape from a hydra’s constriction.
Reflexive Block (Speed 4, 4 AP)
In addition to being able to declare blocking normally, hydras may do so reflexively as a Speed 4 Interrupt if their summoner spends 4 AP.
Serpent Strike (Variable AP)
When directing the hydra’s action, you may spend up to 10 AP improving its Accuracy; every 2 AP spent this way increases its Accuracy by 1.
Smash (Speed 14, 5 AP)
The hydra tail-smashes, head butts, or just slithers over something, with destructive force! This deals 15d12 Blunt damage, and is considered a basic unarmed attack.
Presumably, there is an avatar-level snake summon. They’re one of the most powerful summoned species, and respect power (mostly just their own) above all else, so certainly one of the creatures would have asserted its dominance over the rest. Those few individuals who have contracted with the snakes and gotten them to talk on the subject have been able to confirm that the snakes do have an avatar, but nothing more.
It’s reasonably well-documented (to the extent that anything about summons is) that the previous avatar, Manda, required live human sacrifices in exchange for not devouring his summoner–not because he actually needed them, but simply because it pleased him to exert his authority that way. Whether that will hold true for his successor, however, is anyone’s guess.
Any information about this summon is probably going to have to come from summoning it first-hand.
Good luck.