Finfolk

Finfolk are one of four types of divine beasts living on Eldara. They have an intrinsic connection with the element of water, which allows them to shape currents around themselves in the water and travel faster while expending less energy.
All finfolk have an instinctive wanderlust. Some are solitary while some live in pods or schools, but all will move frequently from area to area, sometimes cycling through a few well-known feeding grounds and sometimes as true nomads of the open seas.

Basic Information

Anatomy

The finfolk family is a very diverse group of creatures, but they all share some distinctive features. They are all vertebrates, all of them have scales, and all species share the same basic fin structure, although exact placement may vary: A dorsal fin, double emarginate tail fins or flukes, pectoral fins, and two pelvic fins. Finfolk are also aquatic by necessity - although they can leave the water for periods of time which can last up to several days depending on subspecies, they must eventually return or they will suffer severe ill effects on their health.

Sirenia Lacertopinna

The largest and most mysterious subspecies of finfolk, the sea serpents are carnivorous fish with heads and jaws that resemble slender-faced lizards, a frill surrounding their faces, and eel-like bodies. The frills protect and move water over a sea serpent's gills as they swim. On the end of their slender tails are two double emarginate tail fins, with the top fin fused to the dorsal fin to create one long ribbon-like fin along the sea serpent's spine. Their pectoral fins are quite long, and typically lay flat against their body, but can be flared out into a crescent or semi-circle shape as a threat display or to help the sea serpent stop their momentum suddenly in the water. The dual pelvic fins assist with steering the sea serpent's back half.
Sea serpents utilize their water magic to help equalize the pressure within their bodies as they dive and surface, as well as to lessen the pressure of the water at immense ocean depths. They are also able to redirect currents similar to their surface-dwelling relatives, but this is less useful in the deep places of the oceans.
In their shapeshifted form their top half shifts to gain a torso, they gain a set of amphibious lungs, and their pectoral fins shapeshift into arms with hands and sharp, spiney claws on the ends of their fingers. However, sea serpents very rarely choose to shapeshift and prefer to live out their lives as solitary nomads of the deep oceans, living in the ocean's twilight zone at roughly 300-1000 meters below the surface. Their size makes them exclusively oceanic creatures.

Sirenia Pelagiarchos

Leviathans are massive fish that range between 30-45 feet long. They have an ovoid body shape and a long, narrow jaw full of sharp teeth. Their fins are more solid than most other species of finfolk, with stronger bones and a fleshier composition, more closely resembling flippers than fins, with their two pectoral fins and two pelvic fins arranged in a plesiosaur-like configuration. Their dorsal fins are long and pointed like a shark's, and their scales are silver or blue in wavy stripe patterns on their backs and white on their bellies, to assist them with camouflage as they hunt near the water's surface. They prefer sunnier, warmer waters at shallower depths.
Leviathans primarily use their water elemental magic to help them move quickly through the water in pursuit of prey, directing water currents and riding them through the water quickly. They are some of the fastest-moving creatures in the water as a result, with extremely sharp underwater eyesight.
In their shapeshifted form, leviathans gain short, squat necks to differentiate their heads from their torsos and their pectoral fins shift into short, muscular arms with two thick fingers and a thumb. They cannot remain out of the water for more than a few hours at a time, as without water buoyancy the pressure of gravity becomes too much for their large bodies.

Sirenia Litoranoma

Merytons are shallow-water, pod-dwelling creatures that are equally comfortable in fresh and salt water. Typical merytons are 7-9 feet long and weigh between 200-300 pounds. They are herbivorous, eating mainly water plants. The front halves of their bodies resemble deer, with slender faces, forelimbs ending in cloven hooves. They have fins in place of visible ears, that can be flattened to protect their earholes underwater. The earholes and nostrils can also close while diving, and they possess a second eyelid for underwater vision. Each half of a meryton's hoof can be squeezed together for rudimentary grasping, which is often used to hold plants in place underwater for grazing. Male merytons possess lyrate antlers that grow backward from their skulls, and have several pointed brachiations sprouting from the main antler. Their bodies become far more fishlike below the ribs, with powerful tails that propel them through the water. Their dorsal fins begin at the base of the skull, but remain diaphanous and unsupported until between the whithers, where it is supported by spiny rays and continues down the spine to fuse with the large tail fin. Their pectoral fins are located just below the shoulder joint of their forelegs, and the pelvic fins on either side of the ventral slit. Meryton fins are colorful, gradiating between deep blues, purples, pinks, and reds. Merytons are one of two species of finfolk that possess lungs and can surface without shapeshifting. This ability is variably used to leap out of the water or to temporarily beach to reach plant matter that has washed ashore.
Meryton magic is utilized both to direct and deflect currents. When a meryton pod is grazing near the lakeshore or in an oceanic kelp forest, their collective use of magic will keep the waters calm around them while they graze, but they can also redirect the current rapidly to support the pod's escape from danger.
A shapeshifted meryton's tail will split into digitigrade legs with cloven hooves. Their fins remain in their shapeshifted form and can be flared as a threat display on land or relaxed to drape around the meryton. Their hoofed forelegs shift into three-fingered hands, granting them greater dexterity.

Sirenia saltoptera

Gillyfins are the smallest most populous and social of the finfolk subspecies. The average gillyfin will usually be between 20 and 50 inches long, although particularly aged specimens of several centuries in age may reach up to 6 feet. They live in large schools and prefer freshwater - they can survive in brackish or saltwater, but it is a more difficult existence. Their faces resemble axolotls, with three pairs of external gills, a wide mouth, and small eyes. They have forelimbs with webbed hands, but no rear limbs. Instead, they have a thick tail with a high dorsal fin and large tail fin to propel them through the water, with their smaller pelvic fins for steering. Their pectoral fins are highly modified and have shifted to be located on their back. They remain closed against their body while swimming or walking, but when the gillyfin builds up speed and leaps from the water, they spread out into gliding fins that can carry the gillyfin several feet. Gillyfins come in a variety of colors and patterns. The most common base colors are white, black, or dark green, but patterns (including spots, thin stripes along the body like skinks, irregular cross-body striping like lionfish, or multi-color gradients, typically with the lower half of the body exhibiting a bright color) can come in many bright colors like green, blue, red, purple, orange and yellow. Gillyfins live together in schools and are extremely social. Out of all varieties of finfolk, Gillyfins are considered truly amphibious. 
Gillyfin water magic is primarily used to aerate stagnant pools. Since gillyfins prefer shallow freshwater, especially when raising their children, they often find themselves in pools that have been separated from the main waterflow. They will then utilize their water magic to create artificial movement in these still pools, ensuring that the water remains oxygenated.
When shapeshifted, gillyfin tails also split into legs, ending in a pair of webbed feet. Their gliding fins are largely useless in this form as they cannot support their weight and gillyfins are not skilled climbers.

Genetics and Reproduction

Like most marine animals, finfolk reproduce via spawning. In a period that can happen once every two decades or once every fifty years depending on subspecies (gillyfin and merytons with more frequent spawn periods, sea serpents and leviathans with slower reproductive rates), finfolk will feel an instinctive pull back to their spawning grounds. After what can be a months-long journey, certain protected coves, pools, or other ideal places in the water are ceremonially marked out as sacred spaces. Finfolk who wish to spawn will enter these spaces and engage in complex group courting dances that can last days. Once all eggs and fertilizing material has been released, the finfolk will retreat from the spawning pools.

Growth Rate & Stages

Newly hatched finfolk are all referred to as fries. They are tiny compared to their adult forms, most often resembling tadpoles, and lacking the developed fins or limbs as the adult stages. Unlike most other divine beast species, this life stage does not last long - within months, the fries have developed fins, grown exponentially from their tiny hatchling forms, and have begun to communicate with their parents.
In a year these finfolk children grow into a new stage - leviathan calves, sea serpent pups, meryton fawns, and gillyfin finlets. They have grown to resemble small versions of their parents at this stage. Leviathan calves and sea serpent pups now leave their nurseries, even though they are only in their first year of life. Although they begin to hunt for themselves, they still remain close to their parents. Fawns and finlets of merytons and gillyfins begin to travel with their pod or school at this stage, joining the migratory lifestyle.
Unlike other divine beasts who take time to master their elemental magic, finfolk instinctively use their water magic from birth to support them in their aquatic environments. It is shapeshifting that comes slower to the finfolk - until they near 30 or 40, most finfolk are not able to shapeshift and leave the water. For this reason, many finfolk have some variation of a "dry walk" as a rite of passage from childhood into adulthood. Gillyfins must leave the water and journey for three days away from it before turning around and going back. Merytons will shapeshift as a pod and leave the water alongside their coming-of-age children, spending a day and a night on the shore in their bipedal forms before returning. Leviathans, with their massive size, go through the ordeal of pulling themselves out of the ocean onto the shore at dawn and enduring the pull of gravity until the sun sets and they can return. Sea serpents will find a river mouth and journey upstream until they reach a place where not enough water passes over their gills and they are forced to shapeshift to survive. They are meant to remain in this place until they are able to find a specific constellation in the stars (the constellation varies from family to family, and a parent sea serpent will know the time of year and location where their child is expected to find it).
After becoming adults, leviathans and sea serpents fully separate from their parents and begin the solitary, nomadic lifestyle of their respective species. Merytons and gillyfins will typically remain with their birth pods or schools, but may choose to join another pod or school when several converge at the next spawning.

Behaviour

Because finfolk species are so varied, and range so widely between deep oceans and bodies of fresh water, their behaviors are as varied as their subspecies. However, all share the common trait of nomadism. Finfolk live in almost all waters across the globe, with the exception of the interior of the Kingdom of Aetheli, where they were driven out. They have infrequent contact with land-dwelling species and limited trade. Gillyfins craft some limited tools such as fishing spears or nets, and all species of finfolk adorn themselves piercings made of bone, shell, or coral.
Sea serpents are highly solitary and typically do not converge with other members of their kind until spawning season, and with other species of finfolk even less. A mother sea serpent raising young is the only exception to their solitary lifestyle. They are extremely knowledgeable about the deep oceans and, on the rare occasions they are sought out, can be employed to recover shipwrecks or lost cargo from the ocean floor, unless the area is exceptionally deep. Sea serpents are aggressive with their own kind if they feel their territory has been breached and decidedly standoffish to others who may approach their territory.
Leviathans are also solitary and come together during spawning season. Parent leviathans take turns raising their offspring, with one leaving the safer waters of the nursery to venture into the open ocean and hunt, while the other remains behind to guard. However, after the leviathan pups are grown, they will go their separate ways. They are far more tolerant of crossing territories than sea serpents, and will sometimes converge in areas where large schools of fish are present for feeding frenzies. These are often celebrated by singing, which can echo through the waters of the ocean for miles.
Merytons are social, living in pods that are led by elders, typically elder females. The elders will guide the pods between shallow water feeding grounds to ensure that they don't deplete the supply of vegetation. They will also lead the pod back to their spawning grounds when that time comes, and assist with raising fawns once they leave the nursery and join the pod on migration. Hierarchy within the pod is complex and is determined by a combination of age, number of successfully raised children, and between males, dueling. Duels are conducted by opposing males swimming at each other head-on and clashing with their antlers. The loser is typically determined as the one who is unable to maintain stability in the water, usually resulting in being rolled on his back. Meryton males who are more successful duelists are able to enter the spawning pools first, which give them a greater chance of siring more offspring.
Gillyfins are extremely social, and being the only true amphibians of the finfolk, conduct as much of their lives on the banks of rivers and ponds as they do within the water. Their societies are highly democratized, with all full adults in a given school being considered voting members. Gillyfin schools vote on where to migrate next, when to go, and who will lead the journey, as well as on how to resolve social conflicts and a myriad of other issues. Votes must be carried by a two-thirds majority - if the voting margin is not enough to carry, the gillyfins will then begin nominating members of a deciding committee, the final number of which varies (depending on how many gillyfins manage to drum up two-thirds vote for their confirmation). The commitee is then in charge of the issue, and their decision is considered final. Gillyfins raise their children communally, and most gillyfins do not know which member of the school is their biological parent, or even if their parents came from a different school, as many schools typically come together during spawning season.

Civilization and Culture

Courtship Ideals

Courtship rituals vary widely by subspecies, with commonalities being courtship displays, ritualized duels or combat, and communal spawning seasons.
Prospective sea serpent mothers begin spawning season by fighting for the right to claim ideal sea cave locations to lay their eggs. This ritual combat is rarely to the death, and additionally involves bioluminescent displays to indicate the location of a claimed lair to converging males. Once the female sea serpent has claimed her lair, she will spawn her eggs inside the protection of the sea cave and begin considering prospective fathers. Male sea serpents will approach the mouth of the lair and engage in flashy courtship dances, flaring their wide pectoral fins, flashing bioluminescent coloration, and showing off difficult maneuvers in the deep water. If his display is acceptable, he will be invited inside the lair to fertilize the eggs. If unacceptable, the female rejects him by emerging from her lair to chase him away. Female sea serpents will protect their eggs during incubation and their young fry during their year in the nursery. Once old enough to emerge, the sea serpent pups will then follow their mother for several decades until they master their shapeshifting enough to undergo the dry walk.
Male leviathans begin singing at the beginning of spawning season as they journey back to the pools where they hatched. These songs, similar to whalesong, communicate the singer's size, health, and hunting prowess. Females will listen to these songs to mark out potential mates to add to their breeding harem. When the group of leviathans converge on the food-rich waters around the spawning pools, weeks of ritual feeding frenzies, group songs, individual courtship displays, and retellings of leviathan history and myth will follow. Leviathan females will slowly build a harem of males throughout this process until they are ready to lay their eggs, at which point they will wait for low tide and mark out protected tide pools and sea coves. They will beach and drag themselves over land along with their harem, who will protect the female while she lays before fertilizing the eggs. The males of the harem then hunt for the female while she guards the location, although at times she may select one male from her harem to take over at the guard position while she hunts for herself, ensuring her continuing health. When the fries grow into calves and emerge from the nursery, the female will typically take the two or three strongest, largest calves with her when the harem dissolves. Each individual father will then raise one of their own offspring with them to raise into adulthood and eventually leave at the shore for their own dry walk.
Several meryton pods will converge during spawning season, where spawning pools are carefully cultivated into communal nurseries. The females of the converged pods will lay their eggs in one large group in a sheltering forest of kelp or other large area of water plants. Male merytons will then engage in formal duels for the favor of the females, charging at each other in the water and clashing with their antlers. Defeated males are those who are unable to maintain their stability in the water and can be flipped onto their backs. Successful males can be invited by a consensus of the females to enter the spawning pools and fertilize the eggs. Many males will be judged successful during the season and allowed to enter, with only a small number of usually young merytons unable to secure breeding rights. The pods then remain as a converged superpod in the area as the eggs hatch into fry and then develop into fawns. At this time the pods will begin to separate into their own family groups and wait for the fawns to emerge from the nursery. Fawns will typically gravitate to their biological mother's pod, but may occasionally find themeselves leaving the spawning ground with their father's pod to continue growing in that community until adulthood.
Gillyfins are entirely communal in their spawning practices. Multiple schools will journey upstream during spawning seasons to stiller pools and small ponds, where they pack the populations together. Older members of the community will entertain the children. The adults will gather together in the spawning pools for a two day long period of water acrobatics, mutual courtship dances, and voting on the best patches of mud to shelter the eggs. The spawning itself is not selective, with eggs and fertilization material released into the spawning pool at the conclusion of the celebration. The schools will then join together and remain in community while the eggs hatch. Another festival marks the hatching. Fry are then divided among smaller pools and tended by separate schools, the beginning of the communities beginning to grow apart once again. At the end of the first year of growth, the finlets are able to follow the school out of the spawning pools. Gillyfin children therefore may or may not be raised by a school that contains either one of their parents. Some gillyfins upon reaching their coming of age choose to travel between schools, seeking out a "better fit," although most never know if or when they meet their biological parents.

Common Etiquette Rules

The oceans, rivers, and lakes of Eldara can be hostile to the finfolk, and so in most cases it is important to give safe passage across territory when resources are not in conflict. The exception to this rule are the sea serpents, who give each other a wide berth in all cases except spawning. A pod of merytons, however, will for example allow a leviathan who happened to be hunting in coastal waters pass through their pod without challenge.
Dry land away from water is considered a mysterious, harsh environment by most finfolk. The journeys taken during each finfolk's coming of age rituals are highly personal, and it is not polite to ask about events that occurred on these journeys unless the individual in question offers. In addition, if for any reason a given individual chooses to shapeshift and go onto land for however long they can tolerate it, their reasons are not to be questioned.

Common Taboos

Finfolk do not predate on each other. Leviathans will not hunt a meryton pod or a gillyfin school, and although sea serpent territories rarely overlap with these other finfolk, they also do not see leviathans as possible prey when they cross depth ranges.
Although safe passage is common courtesy, consuming resources that have been marked out by another individual, school, or pod is an affront commonly punished with violence or other methods of driving the offender out.

Scientific Name

Sirenia