Yig's introduction
Strange tales of mad crews are becoming more and more frequent around the seas, some crews have sworn never to step on dry land again in fear of angering the snakes, others have sworn never to sail again choosing instead to live in harmony with the serpents and worshipping them. The snakes themselves have also began to behave differently, colossal snakes large enough to eat a man whole have been spotted and reported to be hunting down pirates with a vengeance as well as shadows of things far more disturbing and unexplainable.
Short story: https://www.seaofthieves.com/forum/topic/126158/serpentine
Tall Tale -
The Serpents Tale
Part One: Madman's Journal
Besides Merrick's cooking pot sits a new book named "Madman's Scribblin's", named by Merrick himself. After picking up the book the Tall Tale begins and Merrick starts to talk to the crew.
"If I was you I'd put that down and forget you ever saw it, doubt much good will come from fillin' your head with them horrors less you want to end up like the poor sap who I got it from. I fished him out with me fishing rod, thought he was a trophy till I realised it were a man, at least, I thought it were a man, truth is I still ain't sure. He still had clothes on but they were torn up something fierce, not a hair on body and covered from head to toe in snakebites. His skin seemed shiny, and when I checked to see if he was breathing I opened his eyes and, his eyes, my god those eyes, they still haunt me. Reptilian, like a snakes they were. In a way, I'm glad he passed before I found him, not sure what kind of life that would 'ave been. Not sure how I'd have reacted if he'd've came alive then, probably jump in the sea and let Steven over there have at him. That book he were holding were the most human thing about him and yet none of it makes any sense, suppose at least he was consistent eh? Why don't you take it, let me try an forget the whole thing ever happened, though I'm sure it'll haunt me till my end, god those eyes.
I don't know how much luck you'll have with it, it's mostly just the ramblin's of a madman and some drawings of snakemen, I don't know what to make of it. If you ask me, you need another madman to be able to translate it, think Wild Henry is still just to the East of us on Crooks Hollow, tell him I sent yer, im sure he'll help you out."
Part Two: Investigating a Snake Shrine
Giving the Journal to Wild Henry to translate will takea short amount of time so he sends the players to investigate the upper cave systems where he says he's heard strange hissing noises recently unlike the regualar snakes around. Inside the cave is what is called a Serpent Shrine, an alter used to worship snakes and all things serpentine. There are paintings of snakes that seem to move all over the walls and in the middle of the alter lies a broken Golden Idol of a snake like creature.
When the player picks up the idol piece, large anaconda snakes come through cracks in the rocks and attack the players, if they strike successfully they will also begin to coil around a player making them unable to move, the player must break free with force or be slowly crushed to death and eventually consumed whole. If the player is killed and consumed whilst holding the idol they must kill the anaconda to retrieve the piece back. Music will not tame an anaconda either but it's meat may be cooked and sold to the Hunter's Call for an average of 100 - 300 gold.
Return to henry once you have the idol piece to tell him what you found and receive the translations which are a list of Islands that have the other shrines with the missing idol pieces.
Part Three: Rebuilding the Idol
Travel to each of the specified islands to recover the missing 3 or 4 pieces. Possible islands include;
Smugglers Bay, Lone Cove, Crescent Isle, Wanderer's Refuge, Marauders Arch, Sunken Grove, Crooked Masts, Kraken Fall, Discovery Ridge, Snake Island, Crooks hollow and Devils Ridge.
Part Four: The Temple of Yig
After all pieces of the Idol have been recovered and put back together the player can read the inscription on the base of the idol to find they must travel to snake island. Find the hidden door in the tunnels and open it with the idol like a vault key.
Behind the door leads the player down into the Temple of Yig, about the size of an empty vault with no puzzle pillars. The crew must fend of wave after wave of both poisonous snakes and anacondas as they come pouring in through holes in the walls.
After a number of waves the Madman's old crew will slither out too, they have been cursed by Yig, transforming them into hideous half snake humanoids and eventually the captain who has also been transformed will spawn. The captain much like the other serpent men are stronger and more agile than your average skeleton but the captain can also spit poison for a ranged attack.
Part Five: Rewards
When the captain is slain, all other serpents slither back into the rocks they spawned from. The captain drops two items;
-The Serpent's key which can be used to open a secret door to access piles of gold and the serpent crew's plunder which they used as tribute to worship Yig.
-The Serpent Captain skull is also dropped after the Captain has been beaten, selling this to the Hunter's Call will sell for 3-5000 gold as well as rewarding the crew a new figurehead, the Serpent Slayer, much like the bone crusher figurehead only a snakes skull instead of a kraken.
Completing this tale 5 times and reading all of the entries of the madman's journals found around the snake shrines will reward you with The Curse of Yig,
Whilst the player wont become a medusa creature like the Serpent Crew, a player with The Curse of Yig will appear more scaled and their eyes will be turned into snake eyes as if the transformation is beginning.
And so ends my concept for a new tall tale that ISN'T based around skeletons, what did you think? Please let me know in the comments below, if you enjoyed it please consider upvoting it too.
One of my initial Ideas for this Tale would be a feature called Yig's Favour where Yig would judge you based on your actions towards snakes; playing music and otherwise avoiding snakes puts you in good standing with Yig and could reward the player in some way, capturing and killing snakes will put you out of favour with Yig and he will order more anacondas and snakemen to attack you. I decided against it for this tale but wonder if I could use it in a part two expansion.
