The Nagas of Uchronic Paris are a race of female serpent creatures that inhabit the dark waters of Antiterra and attack passing ships, carrying sailors into the water.
| Type | Creature |
| World | Antiterra |
| Habitat | The Seine, the Black Sea, the Mediterranean |
| Spanish entry | Las Nagas |
Description
A naga is a woman from the waist up and scaled from the waist down, with hair knotted into living serpents. The canonical scene shows one with a trident raised in her right hand and her mouth open in a scream that only the sailors hear, facing two sailors in gabardines on the deck of a steamer while a third approaches from the stern with a lantern, under a full moon. That attack coincided with the conjunction of Venus in Scorpio; nagas attack in Scorpio.
Their haunts include the Seine below the Pont Neuf on moonless nights, the depths of the Black Sea near Constantinople, and a strip of the Mediterranean between Sicily and Tunis. Of all the creatures of dark water, they are the only ones that also attack in clear water, when offended.
They are a race divided into lineages: lunar, dream, shadow, deep, slime, Mediterranean and shapeshifting.
Behavior
- They prefer modern ships with steam engines.
- They climb the hull at speed, wound one or two sailors with the trident and take at least one into the water, alive if possible. Those taken do not return.
- More dangerous than the trident is their hypnotic gaze, aimed at the least experienced sailor aboard; the hypnotized sailor jumps. Some accounts hold that they speak to him in a language he understands for the first time in his life.
- They attack in calm water.
The Silk Road
The Mediterranean nagas take part in the maritime stretch of the Silk Road, exacting a tribute of sailors at certain passages: one sailor per twenty ships. Merchants accept the rate; attempts to negotiate it lower have failed.
History
The Time Bandits fought a naga on the Seine. Some make Tiamat the cosmological mother of the line.
Open questions
- What the nagas do with those they take below is disputed among three accounts that the archive does not detail.
Gallery
