This one was a real treat! I have never had  pac to a digital painting for me. I decided it was high time for that! I requested a portrait of an NPC for a D&D campaign I am putting together. This is Vas'Hrraska, a yuan-ti lord and master of a cult to Mershaulk.

He wasn't always as he is now. Once, he was a human; a young man serving as an acolyte in the church of Pelor. Unbeknownst to him, he had a small trace of serpent blood, stemming from a brief contact with yuan-ti many generations before. The effect was tiny, just a slight natural resistance to poison. But it is said that yuan-ti can sense when a human has a trace of serpent blood. And a pureblood spy in the city sensed the tainted serpent blood in the young human. He could have just kidnapped the human and taken him to his hidden temple. Instead, he decided to play a longer game. Slowly, over many weeks, the spy poisoned the human's beloved sister. The human was distraught, and prayed to Pelor to intercede on her behalf. But, his sister only grew worse. Nor being a full cleric yet, there was little that he could do. Finally, after weeks of suffering, his sister killed herself to end the pain. When this happened, the church refused to bury her on sanctified land, due to her being a suicide. This act devasted the young human's faith. At that moment, the pureblood spy finally revealed himself to the young acolyte. He told him of his serpent blood, and that Pelor had refused to help his sister because she had the same blood. The spy was lying of course, as his sister did not share the same tainted blood. But the acolyte believed it. The spy offered the human a chance to bury his sister on sanctified land; bury her in the temple to Mershaulk. Had the accolyte not been grief-stricken, he might have seen through the ruse. But he did not. Accepting the offer, he stole away his sister's body and took it to the hidden yuan-ti temple. Before they would allow the body to be buried, the human was made to pledge his service to Mershaulk. He did so, and underwent a ritual that activated his serpent blood, and turned him into a yuan-ti pureblood.

His grief for his sister was too much to bear, so he had no trouble casting off his humanity to try to relieve it. The new pureblood became a devoted follower of Mershaulk, vowing to due whatever he could to advance his new master's agenda. He was not satisfied being a mere pureblood. He wanted to go further. Through guile, ruthlessness, and determination, he advanced through the ranks of the temple, earning a ritual that turned him into a yuan-ti halfblood. To finally prove himself to his deity, he finally went to recover an artifact from the old serpent kingdoms that predated recorded history. It was a quest that was believed foolish and suicidal by the yuan-ti temple. But he went forth and did what no one had been able to do in millenia; recover the ancient artifact. For his dedicated service, he was finally granted the form of a yuan-ti abomination. As an additional reward for his faith, Mershaulk granted him a gaze attack, similar to a medusa. Instead of stone, it turned those it affected into snakes.

After his ascension, the new abomination took the Yuan-ti name Vas'Hrraska, and is now one of the senior members of the Mershaulk temple. While the others play their secret games of power and influence, Vas'Hrraska carries out his master's will with a dedication unmatched by any other. He will see the yuan-ti rise again and establish the Serpent Kingdoms once again, and does not care what he has to do to accomplish this task.

Secretly, he still slithers over to the spot where his sister is buried. After decades, he knows that she wouldn't want to be buried in such a place. He also knows how she was poisoned. He is simply too deep into the cult of Mershaulk to do anything about it. He visits, but never for long. Seeing her grave makes him remember being human. That is not something he likes to think about.