Nehebkau

Also called Neheb-Kau, Nehebu-Kau, Neheb Ka.

The primeval Egyptian serpent shown with human arms and legs, whose name means the one who harnesses the ka-spirits.

Tradition: Egyptian mythology
Region: Egypt (place of origin)
Symbols: Snake

Near this figure

Kelpie Supernatural binding

Symbols

Judged against the description by a model. Meanings are our own paraphrase.

Snake is Snake is a broad serpent symbol of creation and guardianship; South American traditions name Snake a primordial earth-maker and giver of hunting arts.
why
Nehebkau is a primeval snake god of Egypt, and the single detail the corpus supplies about him is a genuinely good one: his image could carry a snake's body fitted with arms, or with legs.

Traits

Read from the figure's description, which a model wrote. Open "why" for the sentence a trait came from.

Behaviour

Judges souls at threshold of underworld
why
A being whose name is effectively a job description of that kind belongs to the machinery of the afterlife rather than to any narrative cycle, and that is roughly where the wider Egyptological literature places him: dangerous and primordial in the Pyramid Texts, subdued by Atum, and afterwards in attendance at the judgement of the dead.

Offensive powers

Supernatural binding
why
It is read as the one who harnesses, or equips with, kas — the ka being the aspect of a person that distinguishes the living from the dead.

Roles

Judged from the works' own entries, not from the description. Carries: the figure holds the role. Meets: the role is in its stories, held by something it meets.