Quetzalcoatls

Quetzalcoatls are a strange mix of snake, bird, human, and a dash of the divine. They are able to manipulate objects with their claws. They are amazingly strong, quick, and amazingly hardy, but quite stupid and impious (despite the dash of divinity). However, they are strongly magical in nature and usually have a vast reservoir of mana with which to cast any spell they're not too stupid to learn. Often, they're only able to grasp one basic fire spell.

Their strongly draconic nature makes them immune to fire and helps them with fire spells, but they are vulnerable to cold. They can grasp weapons, but their bizarre body shape prevents them from using body_armour, helmets, and other items of apparel intended for bipedal creatures with two arms, two legs, and head. Their inability to use armour comes back to haunt them when they compare themselves with other races: highly enchanted armour is usually more beneficial than dragonhide! The wings come in handy: they can use them to levitate, and their hide gets thicker as they gain power, compensating them somewhat for not being able to use armour.

The quetzalcoatl is selectable by players as their race. It has the following modifications:

• +100 fire
• -30 cold

• No armor, no shields

• Attuned to fire spells

• Clawing

Their unusually low Int and Wis scores makes learning new spells and prayers difficult, but their Pow stat along with all their other physical stats boast top-tier maximum values, so once they actually learn spells they have plenty of Mana and Grace points to use them with. Unlike serpentfolk who get a wide variety of low resistances along with a cold weakness, quetzals get one massive immunity instead, making them extremely resilient in fire themed areas, but susceptible when cold attacks are present. Their restricted equipment slots compared to serpentfolk makes it tricky to build up cold resistance though. The option of a race that can start with an immunity and can use weapons effectively is interesting, and if you find the lack of weapons or the ghost weakness fireborns have to be too much, quetzals are a fine, if unpopular alternative option.

Dragons tend to be much more popular because the ability to eventually hit 95% resistance in multiple stats is better in the long run than having one immunity and a weakness (both to fairly common elements), but a Dragon's inability to use weapons means they never get to use slaying weapons that deal massive bonus damage to specific enemy races. There's also a lot of interesting and effective artifact weapons in the game you can't ever use if playing Dragon or Fireborn, so if you want something that feels draconic but can still use the various two-handed artifact weapons in the game, Quetzals are an option, just not one that's recommended for newbies.

Fire immunity is extremely helpful for many of the fire-themed areas of the game, meaning you can sit happily in a dragon's flames, in hot lava, and so on without being damaged. That cold weakness is always a massive concern though, but by stacking Potions of Cold Resistance and using them liberally when dangerous enemies appear, it's possible to handle ice themed areas of the game as well.

Various religions work well with Quetzals. Some interesting considerations include Ixalovh, which loses your fire immunity but grants cold, physical, and magic protection while still keeping your fire resistance at a solid 70%, or Valkyrie as a strong if difficult option if you're okay with being limited to spells via scrolls, wands, staves, and rods. You get a massive number of slaying types as Valkyrie, your body is more than strong enough to haul corpses around, and it's an option that gives you immunity to both Fire and Magic. A lot of high tier cone spells don't count as magic though, so Magic immunity comes less into play than you'd expect.