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HomelandPavitantis |
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CultureAround Varlonan, these are the typical aspects of this race's lifestyle preferences.Weapons: Tridents are the primary weapon underwater since they can also be used to capture food. On surface they are not quite as useful, but tradition typically holds strong. Armor: None. Their pride and sometimes lack of knowledge on surfacers customs leads them to often battle without protection. Currency: Trade, Pearls Diet: Omnivore. Typically water plants and fish. They use squid ink, and certain clays to season some food. Attire: As a proud species, they typically keep themselves dressed only with necessities or adjust to local "proper" customs when travelling. Females use decorative items such as shells or sea plants and flowers to cover up the surfacers idea of "improper" areas. Underwater they find no need to do this unless it is to show off collections of items (shark teeth are popular with the males as a sign of strength when taking on a shark.) Environment: Underwater. |
RelationshipsPartners: Merfolk the majority of the time will partner with their own kind. It is much easier this way, as surfacers often cannot perform or understand the ways of the merfolk. The mating ritual between merman and mermaid is a dance in the water, with tender touches and words to reach the moment instead of the body to body ritual most surfacers portray. When pairing with anyone however, it takes a lot of patience and work, but can be rewarding to each with the exchange of knowledge and experiencing new things.Friends: A sign of friendship in the underwater world is the exchange of a prized possession. By giving each other this token, it shows trust and a desire to give happiness to the other person. Once friends, many ventures will be shared together as the vast oceans and lakes are explored much like the quests on the surface. Foe: When merfolk consider you an enemy, the gesture of a tail flick is shown. The varied underwater cities and societies mean that just like the surface world, there are many who do not get along. Usually disputes are over territory or the rights to a treasure discovered. Children: While eggs, communities of adults will work with each other to assign different "baby sitters" to guard the eggs from predators. Once hatched, the primary parents take over once more. The infants hatch from the eggs the same size as a human child and can swim (though awkwardly) moments after they free themselves. They will then stick side by side with one of the parents until hold enough to start venturing further and further away. As they get old enough to begin safely being separated, training on how to find food and necessities begins. Each life is treasured as vital by the merfolk and they do not kill needlessly, so children only have to fear natural predators like whales and sharks. Territory: Underwater is the place where the merfolk rule. They share their territory with Water Elves, but rarely run into them unless it is for doing trading. The Water Elves have an easier time getting onto land, so the merfolk resent them and rarely welcome them into their cities. |
HistoryGenerations ago, when Varlonan w as still fairly young, there was a race of humanoids called the Symbion. Symbion had the ability to compel any creature they chose to approach them and complete a merge, in the early days every kind of animal imaginable was chosen. Myths and legends tie the Symbion to almost every human hybrid appearing race, but most races vehemently deny this lineage. Only one can be tied back for certain, and that race is the Merfolk. The island the Symbion inhabited was lost to the oceans in a violent tremor, and all of the Symbion who had permanently merged with a land based animal drowned. The ones who were too young to have already decided on what creature to merge with compelled the local marine life to come to them, which allowed them to make a new life underwater in the ruins of their destroyed cities, now in a variety of beautiful new forms. The Symbion hid from the rest of the races that were coming into the world as much as they possibly could, and for generations they simply addressed each other by name and no longer addressed their people by a common name, and the Symbion race finally faded into history as another extinct race. As newer, younger descendents started to interact more with other races, they were renamed by outsiders to be “Merfolk,” and the name stuck from then on. Merfolk males are fierce and highly competitive, often killing sharks, giant squid and other monsters of the deep in order to curry favor with the lady of their choice, but rarely get involved in wars with other races. The males who do get involved in the seaborn wars between two nations or races are highly coveted for their ability to kill large numbers aboard the ship while slipping back into the water to regroup, and drown, any victims. | |
