Embodiments of prophecy and protectors of divine secrets, couatls ensure fate unfolds as it should. They resemble serpents with rainbow wings, and each is a manifestation of a divine edict, a truth or fate that a righteous god decrees must hold true for all time. Most couatls appear in places of ancient power, where they guard hidden magic or ensure foretold acts do or don’t come to pass. Rarely, couatls watch over communities or travel lands in disguise, interpreting omens or manipulating factors to set fate on its proper course.
Motivated by eternal mandates, couatls sometimes behave in inscrutable or antagonistic ways. They are inflexible and uncompromising, as their existences are fundamentally tied to their divine directives, but they harm other creatures only when absolutely necessary to achieve divine goals.
Each couatl goes through a period of renewal at the end of an age. In a couatl’s lifecycle, an age might correspond to a celestial calendar or some divine chronology. Near the age’s end, the couatl lays a wondrous, rainbow-hued egg. When the age ends, the couatl dies. For a period—perhaps a single day, perhaps until an annual solar event—the couatl’s work is unattended. Once this time passes, the same couatl that laid the egg hatches from it, fully grown and renewed to serve for another age.
