Slytherin: Clan Snape

 Snape

"always"

Sigil: the lily and doe, silver on black

Skills: Potions (expert) | Curses (basic) | Herbology (basic) | Stealth (basic)

+1 Courage

The Snapes are a small and rather poor clan, but all know them as bitter enemies of the One Enemy - indeed, their family words "always" are said to be a reference to how long the Snapes intend to oppose Him. Their seat is at Spinner’s End, where they own a watermill built into the brick ruins of an old pre-war muggle mechanical one.

Inspired Action – Everything I Own is Poisoned

You can spend Inspiration to retroactively declare that any object within your power or possession that someone has just interacted with was actually poisoned. The person who touched it must save or take 1 Poison damage. If the poison was on something they ate or drank, they take 3 Poison damage instead. If the poison was on a weapon that you just struck someone with, convert the weapon's normal damage to Poison damage (don't add any bonus damage).

Flaw – Bitter

The Snapes never let go of a grudge. When you put yourself or your companions at risk by acting out of malice or spite, you gain Inspiration.

Starting Equipment –pick two–

1. Portable cauldron and common potion ingredients (ud6)
2. Bezoar
3. Batwing cloak – allows you to glide gently to the ground while falling. Flutters menacingly when you walk.
4. Bottle of veritaserum (ud3)
5. Dagger made of antler (L) – can deal +2 damage once but breaks afterwards
6. White lily (Ward 6) – wilts after one use

Names

1. Segundus

2. Salazar

3. Severian

4. Selena

5. Septima

6. Silence

Design Notes: This is a possibly over-sentimental interpretation of Snape, considering that I think Rowling did a bad job of his redemption after book 1 (initially he's just an unpleasant man who turns out not to have been a villain - that's a good twist and an interesting lesson for a children's novel. After that I'm not sure that "loved Harry's mom" is a good enough justification for "was a huge piece of shit to his students for 10+ years"). But legilimency didn't make the cut for the skill list, which leaves the Snapes with "loves Lily" and "is good at potions and curses" and we make do with what's available. Mechanically the Snapes are the most hyper-specialized of any clan.

I got the Snape special ability from Against the Wicked City's excellent Gothic Hero class. The whole thing is very funny. I really wanted to work some adaptation of Joseph's "Dark Secret" ability into one of the clans, but more than that I wanted to keep each clan's writeup to a single page that could double as a handout (the Rookwoods are the only one to break this pattern, due to their madness table).

Names: I simply selected several sinister sobriquets with similar sounds to Severus Snape.