A group of half-human, half-snake Shadowkind who are known for their bad relations with humans, due to them thinking of them as meerly prey. As a result, they did not take well to the Great Treaty. Eventually, an ophidia leader named Saramanda tried to openly rebel against the Treaty by leading a rebellion but was quickly overwhelmed. And when punished, she turned informant by becoming a Submitted in order to avoid the death penalty. Since then, she had been branded a traitor and relations between the humans and ophidia have taken a major strain. They serve as main antagonists in Power Primordial until the aboleth's introduction.
Tropes shared for all ophidia:
- The Dreaded: Ophidia are traditionally enemies of humans, and Saramanda's crimes have not helped shake that reputation. Whether an individual ophidia deserves this moniker of The Dreaded or not, it remains.
- Expy: Of the yuan-ti from Dungeons & Dragons, changed to make the species more mutable story-wise.
- Only One Name: As mentioned in "Soulscape", ophidia do not use surnames.
- Non-Mammal Mammaries: Female ophidia have them, although a narrative says that they're always completely non-functional.
- Non-Mammalian Hair: Often found on both genders.
- Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Most ophidia tend to be antagonistic towards humans.
- Snakes Are Sinister: Not all of them, but named ophidia who are villains tend to outnumber heroic ones.
- To Serve Man: Their species traditionally regards humans as prey, although only evil ones actually do it.
Hebi-Na
- Arch-Enemy: Ember considered her this although Hebi-Na currently does not think the same way.
- Ascended Extra: Originally just a minor criminal in the original storyline, she played a much bigger role in Power Primordial.
- The Atoner: Soulscape shows how much she feels sorry for what she's done and the pain she had inflicted to her victims, especially Ember. One of the things she wants to do if she ever wakes up is to find Ember and apologize. Although she has been cured of her curse, it is unknown if she had ever made amends with Ember.
- Battle in the Center of the Soul: The whole plot of Soulscape revolves around this, with Jalal entering her soul to battle the demons who have invaded it.
- Butt-Monkey: And not played for laughs either. Towards the end of Power Primordial, a lot has happened to her that she thinks she's merely a divine being's chew toy. Fortunately she gets better in SoulscapeHebi-Na: Is there some higher force at work? Was I doomed since the day I was hatched? Did someone wager my soul on some celestial game of craps and lose?
- Note that the Shadowchasers ally Wilhelm denies that this is true, quoting Einstein by saying that "God does not roll dice". It doesn't do much to convince her.
- Despair Event Horizon: Crosses this after Taramanda's death and when her life was practically in ruins.
- Driven to Suicide: Clearly, she wanted to kill herself after Taramanda's death, thinking she truly had nothing left to live for. This was made even more obvious in Soulscape, when one of the demons that Jalal encountered in her mind was an embodiment of the sin of self-murder. Fortunately, she did not succeed.
- Fate Worse than Death: Towards the end of Power Primordial, the aboleth casts the Bells of Baphomet on her which would have caused to suffer this eventually. Fortunately for her, Wilhelm puts her in an eternal sleep in order to prevent her from hearing the bells, but causes her to stay that way until Soulscape wherein she gets cured of the curse, thankfully avoiding this trope in the process.
- God Is Evil: She makes this controversial claim at her trial when asked to make a statement, after explaining that humananity's fear and distrust of snakes has dated back to the story of Creation. She suggests that God let the Serpent into Eden on purpose to tempt Eve, and when it's clear that the spectators are upset at this statement, she mentions the Book of Job as further "proof" that it's true. (It's very likely, of course, that she was simply trying to get a reaction. After all, she really thought she had nothing to lose.)
- Have You Come to Gloat?: Says this to Ember when she (Ember) approaches Hebi-Na after she loses to Wilhelm while in her weakened state. Ember doesn't.
- Heel–Face Turn: At the end of Soulscape, she becomes the ophidia negotiator for the Shadowchasers, promising to help improve the relations between her people and humans.
- Hot Witches: Used a Fortune Lady deck during her and Msskim's tag duel against Shichiro and Jinx in Power Primordial.
- Ironic Echo: During her second and third duels with Ember, she uses a deck similar to Sonja's as an attempt to psyche Ember out.
- Mark of Shame: Taramanda gives her one after rescuing her from jail due to her failures in the original fic, she later removes it after Hebi-Na is given authority over the Dark Synchro cards.
- Olympus Mons: In the original fic, she uses a Venom deck containing Venomminaga the Deity of Poisonous Snakes during her first duel with Ember and towards the end of Power Primordial, a deck containing Hamon, Lord of Striking Thunder that the aboleth forces her to use. Due to the card being too powerful for her, she almost dies out of exhaustion while it's in her control.
- Professional Killer: Part of her job in the conspiracy in the original fic, although she also acted as a go-between between two groups of conspirators.
- Rage Against the Heavens: In her case, this is justified. During her first duel against Ember, an omen from her goddess gave her advice, and it turned out to be very bad advice.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Well maybe not "why you suck", but in Power Primordial, she tells Taramanda off after winning the Dark Synchro cards from the Demonic Guardian about the deceptive nature of their goddess when Taramanda demands her to hand over the Dark Synchro cards to her.
- Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Besides from being one herself (at first), she has used Reptile Decks that focus on some well-known sinister Reptiles on two separate occasions (Evil Dragon Ananta and Venomminaga the Deity of Poisonous Snakes.)
- The Scapegoat: She is treated like this by the rest of her clan for much of Power Primordial, who blame her for much of the failure in the original fic. She regains a little respect, at least from some of them.
- Signature Card: Evil Dragon Ananta in her original deck. In Soulscape, the card is a representation of what Hebi-Na used to do: the cruelty that she used to inflict towards others. By the end of Soulscape Hebi-Na officially forsakes the card in favor of her Serpent Knights.
- Starter Villain: She was the first major antagonistic Shadowkind to appear in the series, and was responsible for Ember's Awareness to kick in, which in turn, began the plot.
- Suicide by Cop: Tries to pull this off when Ember refuses to kill her herself. Fortunately Wilhelm has a better alternative.
- Sympathy for the Devil: At the end of Power Primordial, after she is inflicted with the cruel curse the Bells of Baphomet and forced into an eternal slumber to protect her from it, Jalal issues her a pardon for her crimes on sympathtic grounds.
- Too Dumb to Live: What was likely the biggest the mistake of her life was confronting the aboleth. Granted, she wanted to die when she did so, but what it did to her was far more cruel.
- Took a Level in Badass: Compare her from the original fic to Power Primordial and Soulscape.
- Wild Card: Has gone through the most number of deck changes in the series until Ben and Dante are introduced. By the end of Soulscape, she has her Serpent Knights as her permament deck.
Taramanda
The ophidia empress, who rules the race mostly by default, given the fact that she has been given a blessing and the form of an anathema by their dark goddess, Seghulerak.- Big Bad Wannabe: During Power Primordial she is manipulated by the true Big Bad into fighting the Shadowchasers for much of the fic, and then disposed of when it is clear she is about to be apprehended.
- Disc-One Final Boss: The Shadowchasers thought that she was the Big Bad for the first half of "Power Primordial"
- Half the Woman She Used To Be: She meets her end this way when the Demonic Guardian attacks her with his weapon, cutting her in half in the process.
- High Priestess: Of Seghulerak, naturally. Secretly, Seghulerak is a goddess whose power is in a steep and steady decline; one of the biggest duties of anathemas like Taramanda is to keep other ophidia from knowing that, and to make them thing that their goddess is still powerful. Taramanda goes so far as to forgive Hebi-Na when there is risk that the secret will be revealed.
- Hunter of Her Own Kind: She doesn't truly hunt other ophidia, but her usual method of executing an underling who has failed her is to devour him.
- Irony: After her death, the Demonic Guardian says to Jinx that it is possible that she is doomed to be Seghulerak's slave forever, saying that she was a ruler in life but a slave in death. Jinx doesn't find it funny one bit.
- Killed Off for Real: The Demonic Guardian kills her after her second duel with Jalal.
- One-Winged Angel: Her usual form looks much like Hebi-Na. Her true form is so horrific that it frightens even other ophidia.
- Pragmatic Villainy: She shows this in one very important scene. After Ember escapes from their Neo Domino base, and Hebi-Na fails to recapture her, which requires their clan to abandon the whole base, her advisor Hssim tries to pin all the blame on Hebi-Na (as he has done for most of the fic). However, Taramanda sees it differently: the entire crisis could have been avoided if Hssim had not, numerous times, come up with stupid ideas and given bad advice. Hssim is lucky to escape with his life after this, but he does lose his job as her advisor.
- Signature Card: Hundred Eyes Dragon in her first duel with Jalal. Sun Dragon Inti and Moon Dragon Quilla in her second one.
- Something Only They Would Say: Calls Jalal "wyrm-waste" during their first duel, which only confirms to Jalal that the ophidia were in charge of the Dark Synchros on the loose.
Hssmim
- Break the Haughty: Later on in Power Primoridal, Taramanda starts realizing that their plans have been failing because of his prioritizing of getting Hebi-Na blamed, and as a result loses his position as her advisor. And in his last appearance, he loses the last of pride and dignity when he is defeated and arrested by Gears.
- Jerkass: And how!
- Light Is Not Good: Is forced to use Edmund's Worm Deck during his duel Gears.
- Noodle Incident: We never really figure out why he and Hebi-Na have a grudge with one another in the first place.
- Smug Snake: Both figuratively and literally.
- Treacherous Advisor: Not to Taramanda, but sometimes he tends to do things that could ruin their plans just so that he could get Hebi-Na in trouble.
- Why Don't You Just Shoot Them?: Played with. He asks Taramanda at one point on why should they bother dueling the Neo Domino Shadowchasers when they can just hire a professional gun instead. Taramanda then tells him that due to an alliance Jalal made with a group called the Knights of Domiel, any assassination attempt on any Shadowchaser (except Jalal himself) is thwarted and the would be assassins disappear without a trace.
Cssmith
- Married to the Job: Magdalene claims the reason he's stressed is because he hasn't taken time off in so long.
- Properly Paranoid: After being forcibly taken to another planet and made to duel Gears, he's so concerned that he might be losing his mind that he talks to Magdalene on his own initiative, despite the fact that having her agree with him and being labeled insane would be a Fate Worse than Death.
- Straight Man: To Hssmin
Msskim
- Dumb Muscle: But not quite as dumb as he looks.
- The Legions of Hell: Uses an Archfiend Deck
- Signature Card: Zera the Mant
Magdalene
- Not Evil, Just Misunderstood: Being declared insane by a monitor reduces an ophidia to a status that is barely better than a slave in their community, and while Taramanda technically can override this decision, she never does. As a result, the ophidia are more afraid of Magdalene than they are of Taramanda. However, among the ophidia of Neo Domino, she seems the least malignant, and acts pretty much like any psychologist does. On the other hand, she seems to have no objections to Taramanda's plans.
- Our Zombies Are Different: Uses a lich-themed Zombie Deck during her duel with Gears.
- The Shrink: She's something called a "monitor", an ophidia who is trained to determine if an ophidia is mentally ill and control the ones that are.
- Signature Card: Fushioh Richie.
