Alright, so as the Lamias began forming their society (see How Would Lamia Defend Themselves From Each Other?), they came upon an idea that would eliminate the potential of Maraliths; an acceptable outlet!
Basically, the Lamia take a certain area and build a wall or fence around it. Then, the Lamia ritually slice themselves in half and put their serpent halves in the enclosed area, then their human halves are tied up and blindfolded by the Lamia who aren't participating What follows next is essentially a game of slither.io: the snakes slither around, telepathically controlled by their human half, trying to swallow whole other snakes. There are two ways to do this:
- Sneak up, bite the tail, and swallow bit by bit, and 2. Get up in the other snake's face, open your jaws, and then charge. This is called a Serpentmaw Duel, and it happens every few years.
If a snake consumes another snake, that snake is absorbed and the "victor" of that meeting mutates into a slightly higher form. The rituals involved in this ceremony cause the highest level snake to become a Queensnake, and once this happens, the ceremony ends and the Lamia who chose not to participate untie the former participants; at this point, the participating Lamia absorb and are absorbed according to what happened to their snake.
If that doesn't make sense, let's say there are two Lamia: Rachel and Rayna. Rachel's snake successfully evades and consumes seven other snakes, but Rayna's level thirteen snake sneaks up from behind and swaloows her snake. When the Serpentmaw Duel ends, Rachel will absorb the human halves of the Lamia whose snake halves were consumed by her snake, only to be absorbed by Rayna. In the end, Rayna will become a level twenty Maralith.
The Lamia have formed special choker-type bands of Ether (solid Mana) to bind them to the rules of their society, which means the Serpentmaw Duel is the only way for a Lamia to become a Maralith. This also means that the Lamia who don't participate are implying consent to be enslaved by the Maralith. Since Lamia aren't likely to take this lying down, each year there are two Serpentmaw Duels: one for the Lamia, one for the Maraliths.
So, my question is How Feasible Are These Serpentmaw Duels?
Please Note: I am not asking how feasible the magical elements are; magic is magic and that's that for me. I'm asking how feasible it is that the Lamia not only come up with this idea (that's perfectly feasible, ordinary people come up with crazy ideas all the time) but implement it in their society (which is a whole lot more unfeasible). Basically, without Serpentmaw Duels Lamia who wanted to become Maralith had to find or come across a Lamia who had been split in two, or split them in two themselves; low reward, low risk. (Think about it; after being split in two, how likely is it that you can fend off an attack? Chances are you'd be stunned and confused, and therefore vulnerable to attack. However, this only works on one individual; try it and two, and chances are one will recover and fight back.) The Serpentmaw Duels are high reward, high risk situations: they make it easy to become a Maralith, but it's hard to do that without being absorbed into another Maralith yourself. Finally, is it that feasible that lack of ambition and courage in Lamia (not participating in a Serpentmaw Duel) will be punished by slavery?