Tirton

Tritons guard the ocean depths, building small settlements beside deep trenches, portals to the elemental planes, and other dangerous spots far from the eyes of land-bound folk. Long-established guardians of the deep ocean floor, in recent years the noble tritons have become increasingly active in the world above.
Long ago the Triton were one of the two dominant species on Ardicil. While the Saurian dominated the land, the Triton controlled the vast and deep oceans of the material plane. Many of their brightest founded great cities on islands that could both fly above in the clouds, and plunge deep into the ocean at the behest of the great Triton mages. Their society was boundless, and their power was nigh unrivaled. Many turned away from divinity, worshiping the great power of mages instead. 
However, there were many more conservative Tritons who saw the abandoning the divinity and their roots as an affront to their beliefs. Several sects of Tritons dove deep back into the ocean, nestling around the portals to the water plane. They believed their duty lay with the defense of the material plane from the elemental titans and their horrors. When the Saurians and Tritons of the surface were sundered by the gods, these small communities were all the remained. Some took it as a confirmation of their beliefs, and remained at the bottom of the ocean as protectors and defenders against the horrors of the water plane. A smaller amount of communities, those who may have fallen from the great islands of old turned to more dark worships, making deals with krakens and leviathans of old.
As a result of their isolation and limited understanding of the Material Plane, tritons can come across as haughty and arrogant. They see themselves as caretakers of the sea, and they expect other creatures to pay them deep respect, if not complete deference. This attitude might grate on others, but it arises from a seed of truth. Few know of the tritons’ great victories over dreadful undersea threats. The tritons make little allowance for such ignorance and are delighted to expound upon the great debt others owe them.
Tritons also have a tendency to emerge from their isolation under the assumption that other folk will welcome them as respected allies and mentors. Again, distance drives much of this attitude. The tritons’ limited view of the world leaves them ignorant of the kingdoms, wars, and other struggles of the surface world. Tritons readily see such concerns as minor events, a sideshow to the tritons’ role as the world’s true protectors.
Despite their off-putting manners, tritons are benevolent creatures at heart, convinced that other civilized races deserve their protection. Their attitude might grate, but when pirate fleets prowl the waves or a kraken awakens from its slumber, they are among the first to take up arms to protect others.
At times their fervor and ignorance of the world can lead them astray. Tritons encountering other creatures for the first time can underestimate them, leaving the tritons vulnerable to deception. With their strong martial tradition, tritons can sometimes be too eager to leap into a fight.
Given their isolation, most tritons have never been to the surface world. They struggle with the idea that they can’t easily move up and down out of water, and the changing of the seasons mystifies them. Tritons also find the variety of social institutions, kingdoms, and other customs bewildering. For all their proud culture, they remain innocent of the surface world. The typical triton protectorate is tightly regimented, organized, and unified around a common cause. A triton on the surface becomes easily confused by the bewildering array of alliances, rivalries, and petty grievances that prevent the surface folk from truly unifying.
At its worst, a triton’s arrogance compounds the tendency for the triton not to understand the ways of the surface world. It’s easy for a triton to blame baffling social practices on what the triton perceives as the barbarism, weakness, or cowardice of surface folk.