Merfolk

The merfolk are an aquatic race of half-elf, half fish people who live for adventure and exploration. While they do have the power to turn their tails into scaly, webbed legs, they prefer to spend their lives underwater, and only venture to the surface to explore and meet new people. They are generally friendly, but they believe that their oceanic home is the best, and want everyone to see it and live there.

Basic Information

Anatomy

Merfolk have an elven torso, and a tail like a fish. They can turn said tail into a pair of scaly, webbed legs for land travel at will.

Genetics and Reproduction

Merfolk gestation periods last for 6 months, after which they lay their eggs, usually about 3 at a time. The eggs usually hatch in a month or two.

Growth Rate & Stages

Merfolk tend to live up to age 150, and reach maturity at age 17. They enter old age at age 130.

Civilization and Culture

Naming Traditions

Merfolk generally name their children after things found in and related to the ocean, like "Pearl" or "Seabreeze." Their last names don't really have any traceable source.

Beauty Ideals

Merfolk have roughly the same beauty standards as Humans, although only for the top half.

Gender Ideals

Merfolk generally expect the females (mermaids) to be good at magic and healing, and the males (mermen) to be strong and good in a fight.

Courtship Ideals

Merfolk mostly go swimming during the courting, during which time they get to know one another a little better. Most merfolk dates tend to involve complex underwater acrobatics.

Relationship Ideals

Merfolk believe that the females should take care of the children until they become around age 10, at which point the fathers teach their sons hunting and fighting, while the mothers teach their daughters how to cook, use magic, and sing.

Average Technological Level

Merfolk have access to space travel, and have figured out how to set the Terraforming Ritual to give them a planet full of underwater caverns, and nearly nothing else.

Common Dress Code

Merfolk generally wear enough clothes of seaweed or other oceanic materials to cover their private bits, and even then only because the other races were insistent about it.

Interspecies Relations and Assumptions

The merfolk have generally good relations with most races, being extremely friendly. However, they can come off as a bit preachy when they talk about how good their ocean homes are.

Merfolk

Archetype Abilities

2 2 2 1 2 3

• Starting Wound Threshold: 9 + Brawn
• Starting Strain Threshold: 10 + Willpower
• Starting Experience: 105
• Special Abilities: Merfolk can change their tails into scaly legs with webbed feet and extra fins as a maneuver during a combat encounter, and as much as they like out of combat.

• Amphibious: Merfolk can breathe underwater and suffer no penalties for swimming or traveling through water.

Average Height

5 ft 9 in