4e Couatl Lore

=Couatls=
The resplendent winged, feathered serpents known as couatls fly serenely above the notional surface of the Astral Sea. Demons, devils, and githyanki scuttle for cover when they hear the searing sound of couatl wings flapping overhead.

Folklore portrays the feathered serpents as selfless paragons of virtue. Those who actually meet them discover a harsher truth. Couatls are self-obsessed strivers that just happen to have chosen all the right enemies. They pursue the forces of evil as part of a ceaseless struggle for rank. Although they’re happy to take credit for any good this does for the universe at large, that is hardly their main concern.

==Outlook and Interaction==
Couatls refer to the pursuit of status as the Great Chase. A couatl’s honor, worth, and influence can be measured by the number of kills it racks up, directly and indirectly. Couatls commemorate their victories by seizing and displaying souvenirs. To mark a victory against an overtly monstrous creature, a couatl takes a choice part of the creature home to its trophy hall, where it might display a demon’s horn or a stuffed and mounted beholder. When its foe is more humanlike in shape, the couatl confines itself to taking treasure and equipment. A trophy hall must be tasteful, never gruesome.

Functionaries recruited from the Astral Sea’s population of rootless outsiders carefully make lists of their masters’ kills. They stand ready to recite them ritually at any time.

A couatl claims the deaths not only of enemies it personally dispatches, but also of those killed by its servants. The Great Chase’s unwritten rules allow couatls to treat members of other races as their designated agents, so an ambitious couatl scours the Astral Sea for likely proteges.

To the stouthearted astral wayfarer, the sudden appearance of a couatl might represent salvation from certain doom—or an annoyingly imperious interruption of important plans. Often a couatl will introduce itself to a new prospect by snatching the creature from the jaws of certain defeat. (The mere appearance of a couatl is often enough to send evil astral denizens of lesser power scuttling to safety.) The couatl gently grasps the wounded creature between its opalescent teeth, ferries it to the deck of a ship or safer ground, and tends to its injuries. The rescuer introduces itself and reveals what it has learned by watching the creature from afar. Before distrustful words can be fully uttered, it promises a bountiful material reward for the minor services it will eventually request in return for its momentous rescue.

Couatls prize adventurers as retainers. Bringing a promising new adventuring band into the fold wins status all by itself. Since adventurers are rare, most couatls have to settle for less desirable servitors, such as mercenaries, ex-pirates, or wandering soulforms.

Under constant pressure to win favor, a couatl can become overzealous when it comes across a likely prospect. Couatls don’t take refusal lightly, sometimes resorting to subterfuge, veiled threats, or similar forms of mild coercion.

Working with a couatl has its benefits. A couatl patron shares its wealth, spending from its treasure hoard to finance new missions against evil. It might perform additional rescues—though it hates to let its servitors grow soft or dependent. A couatl mentor can also make important introductions, granting entry into the politics of the divine and semidivine.

Although sellswords and astral riffraff might covet positions as couatl servitors, true heroes come to chafe at couatls’ attentions. The feathered serpents feel no need to justify themselves to inferiors. They abruptly yank part-time allies away from their current business when the couatls need missions performed, or they unashamedly lecture their adopted adventurers on their perceived tactical failings. Some assign other servants to monitor their allies’ behavior, all the better to second-guess them.

Characters who value their freedom could find themselves physically resisting a couatl’s commands. The average couatl regards such skirmishes as a regrettable consequence of firm discipline. It defends itself vigorously, perhaps summoning other members of its entourage to assist. When fighting recalcitrant disciples, it never strikes to kill. No matter how serious the break, couatls believe that any ruptured relationship can be repaired. Eventually, they confidently believe, their mortal followers will see the error of their ways and gratefully bow down before them.

Wise adventurers learn to persuade their way out of sticky situations involving a demanding couatl. The serpents’ constant quest for status leaves them vulnerable to flattery, and they’re also open to negotiation, such as someone making a promise to do a greater deed for them later if left alone now.

==Cloudlands==
Couatls live in floating communities called cloudlands. These edifices of rosy-colored celestial matter slowly spin across the Astral Sea, far above its horizon. Though they look insubstantial and fanciful, cloudlands and their structures are quite solid.

The most magnificent of these is the Cloud Court, the palace of the couatls’ Glorious Feathered Emperor, Nahua. Configured as a series of soft-edged concentric rings, it ascends ever higher toward the center. At the midpoint of the insubstantial-looking complex floats a stepped pyramid. From inside its hazy walls, the emperor oversees his dominion, surrounded by the golden trappings of mythic wealth.

The Cloud Court’s stunning beauty is a hazard to mortal sanity. Once they set foot there, normal mortals often desperately plead to stay forever. If the petitioners are powerful combatants, a couatl courtier will be only too happy to arrange this—in exchange for a pledge of eternal service.

==Life and Culture==
Couatls attend the Cloud Court on days of ceremonial observance, at the command of the emperor, and when they want to announce fresh victories against the forces of evil. Their dignity discourages them from bragging directly. Instead, they rely on poets and bards to do their crowing for them. If such tales of a couatl’s exploits win the emperor’s favor, the emperor permits the couatl to take up temporary residence on the Court’s outer rings. When that same couatl is eclipsed, it is asked in hushed tones to vacate the ring so that a new favorite might take its place. If a courtier fears that it will soon be ejected—or if an aspirant believes that it is on the verge of an invitation to the Court—it will redouble its attempts to score spectacular victories. This pressure might lead it to risk the lives of its servants and allies.

Efforts to undermine other couatls’ victories are officially deplored; nevertheless, they are widespread. Jealous courtiers send servitors to sabotage missions, lure away allies, and steal kills. In extreme cases, couatl entourages wind up fighting each other. The couatls themselves never openly attack each other. For that, they have servitors. Occasionally, the disappearance of a fast-rising couatl leads to scurrilous whispers against its rivals, but no instance of murder between members of the Court has ever been proven.

==Factions==
Grudges arising from the Great Chase occasionally lead to schisms in couatl society. Over time, splinter movements fade, leading to reunification with the Cloud Court. At present, two splinter groups remain active.

===Spirals===
Nahua’s faction refers to one group of breakaways as “spirals” because the vertical cloudland where its self-proclaimed true emperor, Xihue (pronounced ''chee''-way), dwells is named the Spiral Spire. This group maintains all the same traditions as the larger Cloud Court. The break between the two groups stems from a dispute over succession. Emperors die infrequently; when one does, he or she is replaced by the highest-ranking courtier. Nahua became emperor when his predecessor died, days after taking over from the older Xihue as vizier. Xihue claims that the previous emperor never formally replaced Xihue with Nahua as second in command, and therefore Xihue should rule the Cloud Court.

The spirals periodically suspend their version of the Great Chase to attack Nahua’s loyalists. Nahua prefers to lure Xihue’s followers with bribes but makes defensive war on them when necessary.

===Deniers===
Nahua’s court calls the second splinter faction the “deniers.” This group calls Nahua’s forces the “imperials” and refers to itself as the “reclaimers.” A growing force representing perhaps one in five couatls, the reclaimers renounce the vanity and splendor of the Cloud Court. They still kill evil beings to gain admiration and influence, but they live in austere conditions and reject the accumulation of treasure and trophies. Under the tutelage of their spiritual leader, Tzotl, they daub their golden feathers with ashes and proclaim the virtues of self-denial. Second in importance to the battle against evil is the struggle to reform the Cloud Court and depose the emperor. A fifth column of covert reclaimers remains at court, working quietly to convert Nahua’s followers. They uphold the values of bloodlust and austerity over pleasure and self-satisfaction.

In contrast to his tolerant attitude toward the spirals, Nahua loathes and fears the reclaimers. Tzotl and her followers hide from loyalist reprisals inside a stationary astral anomaly called the Smaze. Inside its billowing red reaches, the directional orientation of the Astral Sea is reversed. Flying creatures must painstakingly retrain themselves to navigate in it. Until they do so, they plummet downward when they attempt to ascend and spin up when they try to dive.