Stone-scale Viper

The Stone-scale Viper is a serpent of the forests, found in Noxus and other wooded parts of Runeterra. It is a carnivore, and it is both prized and feared for its venom, which can kill a grown adult within minutes. The only known remedy is to eat a Stingsalve Fungus, which counteracts the poison before it takes hold. In the tale Gift of Venom, a stone-scale viper appears among the forest creatures who look to Ivern, the Green Father, for protection. Like the other animals of his glade the vipers can speak, and they are said to be wise beyond their years. When Ivern investigates an eight-tusked shagyak slain by hunters for its pearlescent tusks, he finds a frightened baby stone-scale viper slithering away from the scene. The story gives the vipers a peculiar habit of speech. Snakes were once embarrassed by their hissing lisp and avoided any word with a sibilant sound, until Ivern urged them to embrace the very words they feared most. They took the lesson to heart and now speak almost entirely in words that begin with the letter s, which is why the young viper can only manage a hissed question, Safe, as it flees. Ivern comforts the little serpent and asks it to coil up and keep watch over the fallen shagyak while he gets to the bottom of the hunters' work.