Merfolk

Civilization and Culture

Beauty Ideals

Merfolk are an amphibious race, born and at home in the water but comfortable on dry land. Humanoid in form, they have skin of ivory, silver, russet, blue, or deep purple. Long fins extend from the backs of their forearms and calves, and their fingers and toes are webbed. The hairlike growths on their heads are either thick and bristly like the needles of a sea urchin, or long and wavy, resembling fine seaweed. In either case, these growths typically range in color from red to warm brown to black. Male merfolk have similar growths extending down from their cheekbones.

Major Language Groups and Dialects

Aquan

Common Etiquette Rules

Merfolk can be herbivores, omnivores or carnivores and so it considered part of basic hospitality to offer both vegetables and meat dishes at every meal with a stranger regardless of what your own family might eat.

Common Dress Code

Merfolk wear little clothing unless they are armored for battle. Even then, they drape themselves with nets and a minimum of cloth, wearing armor crafted of large, bleached seashells and augmented with leather.

Culture and Cultural Heritage

Merfolk civilization is organized into city-states in the waters around Aerenal. There used to be settlements further to the west, but they were destroyed during the Incursion and the creation of the Border Continent. Borders between the city-states are not very strict or well defined and people and goods flow easily between them. A city's laws apply only to that city and areas within site of its walls, but merfolk are typically peaceful with one another and conflict in the in-between lands is relatively rare. Should any merfolk have a gripe with one another they can travel to the nearest city and ask to apply that city's laws to their conflict.

Common Customs, Traditions and Rituals

Each city has their own individual celebrations, usually timed to the migration of that city's chosen animal.

Interspecies Relations and Assumptions

The merfolk, whose home is in the sea, rarely interact with the other races for extended periods of time. They find the landfolks' customs odd, but are generally willing to work with them and hold no particular animosity for those that live on land.