The Stalking Game

The Snake-Headed Man is a Khezvaran boogeyman whose story has been around for hundreds of years. According to legend, the creature visits Khezvaros at particlular times to steal children for some sinister purpose. The Snake-Headed Man's schedule and his designs for the chilren he steals varies with the telling. Upon finding a suitable victim, the Snake-Headed Man releases a pair of snakes form his sack and sends them slithering toward his victim, where the wrap themselves around the child's waist and sink their fangs into the victim's flesh, binding them to the Snake-Headed Man's will with a steady flow of magical venom.   The remedy for protecting a child from the Snake-Headed Man is to twist two thick cords or ribbons of different colors around one another and tie them around the child's waist. The Snake-Headed Man will interpret the two different colored ribbons as two of his snakes and assume that the child is already under his control. As long as the child doesn't do anything to indicate otherwise, they can make their escape as soon as the Snake-Headed Man gets distracted or stops paying attention to them.   As belief in the Snake-Headed Man waned, the children of Khezvaros turned the tradition into The Stalking Game. Initiially, the children would gather on nights when the Snake-Headed Man was said to be active and each would cut one end off of their "snake belt" and place it in a bag. Once every child had done so, each child would reach into the bag and remove one of the cord ends, being careful not to let anyone else see what they had. As soon as a player had their cord end, they would speed away through the neighborhood and begin making their plans for winning the game.   The goal of the Stalking Game is to steal the belt from the player whose end you drew from the bag. If you manage to do so, they give you their cord end and their former victim becomes your new victim. This continues until one player captures all the belts and wins the game.   Over time, the game became less and less associated with the Snake-Headed Man, with children making their own snake belts out of whatever materials they were able to find. Today, it is played throughout the the year. In some neighborhoods the game is introduced to children or encouraged by members of local gangs and similar organization, who use it as a way of locating potential recruits.