Deep Sleepers
The Deep Sleepers is a generic name given to what is most likely a family of related species which have not as yet been investigated with sufficient systematic taxonomic rigour to differentiate them into separate evolutionary lineages. They normally dwell on the ocean bed and prior to the Planar Conformation there are only a very few reports of surface encounters with these monsterous creatures.
It appears that some aspect of the changes wrought by the Planar Conformation, disturbed them and there was a long period afterwards when it became unsafe to travel the seas due to their hostile reaction to shipping which ventured far from the shorelines of the major continents.
Some scholars believe that they came to the world via the same sort of supernatural intrusion that created the Dark Domains but it is now widely thought more likely that they were always native species whose natural behaviour was simply altered in a most undesirable way.
Fortunately, after several hundred years, the Deep Sleepers began to calm down again and the discovery by Walthar Bass, the first Fisher King of Nephatar, that it was once again possible to sail safely between continents without waking the Deep Sleepers, allowed for the rise of the Water Kingdoms from 467 APC onwards.
There has been little to trouble human civilisations in the intervening years, although the reckless mage Pezulruth Veld did perhaps endanger the world again when he took control of Gorkull and Gurkull, two ferocious specimens he trained by magical means and used to attack Queen Shellesha at Nephatar in a failed attempt to gain control of the Net of Pruth. Luckily, the Battle of the Rising Deep (3324 APC) did not lead to a general awakening and resurfacing of the Deep Sleepers, as some feared it might. Neverthess, no recent culture has had the confidence to construct the kind of giant ships once favoured by the Old Pale Empire and even the mighty Trans-Oceanic Empire, fears any prospect that the Deep Sleepers might become active again.
Magicians' End - Battle of the Rising Deep - Gorkull by DMFW with Midjourney
Magicians' End - Battle of the Rising Deep - Gurkull by DMFW with Midjourney
Basic Information
Anatomy
All of the Deep Sleepers are tentacled and it is thought that they have between four and ten limbs. They possess monsterous mouths lined with sharp teeth and large eyes.
Behaviour
Usually, the Deep Sleepers are throught to prefer the ocean depths where they are thought to mark out large territories and patrol and defend them against their rivals. Except when disturbed by magic perhaps or by changes in the local laws of form, they seldom visit the surface but when they do they are invariably enraged by any human vessel they encounter there and will attack it without hesitation.
Additional Information
Geographic Origin and Distribution
They have been reported in every ocean on Magicians' End.
Lifespan
Thought to be several hundred years.
Geographic Distribution
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