Merfolk

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Merfolk are mythological creatures that have the upper bodies of humans and the lower bodies of a marine animal. They are prominently featured in MTG, RPGs, and even 40k had a minor aquatic race at one point. Merfolk are also major races in many videogames such as the Zora from Zelda, the Naga from Warcraft, and the Slithereen from Dota2. /tg/ has had a spattering of threads dedicated to merfolk over the years where it has discussed how an underwater civilization would develop, and many people have wished to use merfolk characters or merfolk cities in their campaign. Unfortunately most settings have rules that are not conducive to using merfolk as player characters, fluff that does not include merfolk as a major power, and a lack of effort to describe a thriving merfolk civilization. This page serves as a hub to organize and advertise all the merfolk content that the community has created to solve this problem. It is an attempt to create rules and fluff for PC races of merfolk that can be used in any campaign. If you like merfolk or other underwater themes, feel free to create anything you want and make a link for it on this page.

Merfolk Races

The Merfolk are the mysterious and secretive people who have populated the world’s waters, and they are as widespread as humans are on land. Communities exist in mountain lakes, coastal reefs, kelp forests, rivers, and even inside polar ice shelves. They are an ancient species with many subraces. The vast expanse and depth of the world's oceans conspire to keep many of these races undiscovered.

• Coastal Merfolk - Standard merfolk that mostly live on the continental shelf. They are a physically diverse and cosmopolitan race which is especially focused on commerce and trade.
• Coral Merfolk - Tropical merfolk with naturally magical blood that makes them excellent spontaneous casters.
• Abyssal Merfolk - Deep sea scary and octopus/squid merfolk that live in a theocratic militaristic society and regularly raid the surface.
• Arctic Merfolk - Live under ice sheets and in glacial lakes and rivers. large size? dolphin/whale?
• Selkie - half seal, halfing size +dex +con?
• Crustaceids - Crab People +str +con?
• River Merfolk - lakes swamps rivers

Merfolk Locations, Kingdoms and Cities

Merfolk settlements are as as varied and widespread as the merfolk themselves.

• Ataropolis - An upstart mercantile city state that is undergoing rapid expansion and a cold war is brewing with a nearby kingdom of elves.
• Glacial Lake - arctic mer town
• Barony of Dagobus - religious abyssal mer empire. ocean canyon extends into continental crust, serves as raider outpost.

Merfolk Culture & Technology

The Merfolk's unique aquatic environment has resulted in different solutions to social and technical problems.

Materials

Common materials are not practical for use in marine environments. Steel and iron rust within days and bronze is too soft to be competitive. For this reason, Merfolk have developed their own metallurgy tradition which has resulted in a distinct set of alloys.

• Bronze - a lesser quality but inexpensive metal that resists corrosion
• Orichalcum- a rare metal dug from out of Seamounts Orichalcum has a golden or coppery color. Orichalcum shares many properties in common with Iron such as strength and magnetism, however it does not rust in salt water. The only thing preventing it from being more widely used, is that it is rare and expensive. Large Orichalcum (and iron) deposits can be found by observing where Hammerhead sharks congregate due to there magnetic senses, the large number of sharks also makes extracting the ore difficult at best and further increases the rarity of this much sought after metal.
• Stellite - Stellite is easily identifiable by its iridescent sheen which bends and splits light into different colors. It is known for being harder than steel, equally tough, highly heat resistant, and highly corrosion resistant. It was developed over several centuries, and is now is a staple metal for merfolk equipment. Stellite is an alloy of cobalt and chromium with higher quality varieties including small amounts of gold. The most exceptional and sought after type of Stellite uses a unique process to infuse magic into the metal. A merfolk sorcerer will perform a ritual to infuse a set of pearls with blue mana. The pearls are then dropped into the alloy while it is in a molten state. The pearls serve as a catalyst to allow mana to permeate the metal and improve its magic properties.
• Pearlite - a mysterious and very rare type of metal that is found in some oysters and clams. A merfolk version of the dwarves' adamantite and elves' mithril
• Byssus/Sea Silk-strong fibers from mullosks that are immune to water degradation and can be woven into fabrics to make clothing, rope, nets, and other tools.
• Sharkskin - Leather made from the skin of sharks. it is very tough.

Weapons

Many weapons suffer reduced effectiveness under water due to hydrodynamic drag. Merfolk therefore use weapons that are specially designed to eliminate drag and increase ergonomics for submerged use. Some weapons are unchanged but the techniques for their use underwater is radically different.

Name	Damage	Crit Threat	Crit Damage	Size	Damage Type	Skill Type	Special
Partisan	2D6	19-20	X2	twohanded	slashing/piercing	Martial
Great Trident	1D12	20	X3	twohanded	Piercing	Martial
Mersarissa	1D12	20	X3	twohanded	Piercing	Exotic	Reach
Chain Net	1D4	20	X2	onehanded	slashing	exotic	see text
Katar	1d6	20	X2	onehanded	slashing	simple
Cestus	1d6	20	X2	one handed	crushing	Simple

• Partisan - A partisan is a pole-arm similar to a spear but it has a much larger spear point and prongs on either side of the blade. it could accurately be described as a sword on a pole.
• Great trident - This trident has 3 large bladed points and is capable of delivering grievous wounds.
• Mersarissa - A very long spear for use in underwater army formations. it has a large blade and reach.
• Chain Net - A net made of fine chain links or cable instead of rope. it follows the same rules for a normal net but has a stronger break DC of 35, escape artist check of 25, DR 5, and 20 hit points. It has small barbs that cut a trapped creature as it struggles.
• Katar - A short sword that attaches to the forearm instead of being held by the handle
• Range weapon: most range weapons have a range of 3d6 feet rather then there stated range and for every six feet there projectile travels they lose D4 damage. if the damage they inflict turns to 0, then the arrow arcs mid flight and points harmlessly to the ocean floor.

Armor and Shields

There are several considerations to make when using armor underwater, drag and buoyancy. Merfolk armors are usually form fitting and flexible. Medium and heavy armors usually use some form of buoyant material for padding such as kelp pods or cork. Shields are designed to have as little drag as possible when moving them laterally and also have small buoys distributed to the inner surface. Tower sields are extremelly rare in the underwater world because they are simply too unwieldy and the reduced danger from ranged weapons. They have been reduced to specialty applications.

• sharkskin leather armor - Basic leather armor has the same properties as land based leather armor.
• Padded - This padded armor uses aquatic fibers to give its wearer some protection.
• chain shirt - Chain shirts built by merfolk smiths tend to be tighter fitting than those on land to reduce drag.
• Scale mail - Scale mail is more popular with merfolk than chain because it has less drag.
• breastplate - Breast plates are very popular in in the underwater world for their ease of manufacture, good protection, and freedom of movement
• chain halberk
• Lorica Plumata - This armor is a combination of chainmail and scalemail. It consists of metal scales that are attached to a backing of tight fitting chainmail. It is expensive but gives excellent freedom of movement, low drag, and good protection.
• platemail

Buildings

Merfolk structures often incorporate unique materials and features which results in distinct a architectural style. Wooden materials are uncommon due to the effect of woodworms. Instead, Merfolk make use of a variety of durable marine building materials:

• Kelp - Many merfolk buildings are made by weaving living kelp into a hollow ball that floats in the water while anchored to ocean floor. There can be several rooms arrayed in a daisy chain, one above the other, all constructed from only a few plants.
• sea grass - Sea grass is used as a filler material in thatching and living sea grass is planted on the roofs of buildings as an anchor or decoration.
• Coral - Coral is tough easily workable, and abundant in tropical climates. It is used all over the aquatic world.
• Stone - Used in alone or in combination with hydraulic cement, stone is one of the best materials for durablity
• hydraulic cement - hydraulic cement is a building material in use since ancient times and is known for its ability to harden underwater. hydralic cement is combined with sand or other materials to create concrete structures, or is used in mortar to create masonry buildings
• Giant bones - The bones of giant sea creatures such as whales and sea serpents are and strong and durable enough to be excellent building materials
• giant shells - Some sea shell are large enough to be used by themselves as rooms in buildings. smaller ones are used in "shell masonry"
• wood - freshwater merfolk often use wood to build their structures, because woodworms do not live in freshwater.

Merfolk Magic

The Merfolk have a divergent tradition in the magical arts. Some marine spells accomplish the same objectives as their land counterparts, but in a different way.

• Merfolk Blood - Some types of Merfolk have blood that has vague magical properties. Evil races often wish to kill merfolk to harvest it. Merfolk blood has a number of uses depending on the source species.
• Spell Shell - Many merfolk wizards choose not use spellbooks. Instead they use magical sea shells that store spells in sound form rather than in writing. To memorize a spell for the day, a wizard listens to the song inside the spell shell. To add a spell to the shell, the wizard etches magical runes and symbols into a precious stone which is then placed into the shell. These stones are analogous to the more traditional paper that other races use to store their spells.

Spells

• Crush - creates magical water pressure in an area that crushes creatures in its area effect
• Shape Metal - shapes metal
• decompress - Decompresses the area around the target causing wracking pains in his joints and body
• Resonance - creates very intense sounds that resonate in the water, does.... something
• Freeze - Freeze the water around the target which traps them in a solid block of ice
• Salmons lessons- Fourth level druid spell, component vocal, focus, target-one creature, saving throw Will-Spell Resistance-No: effect: target creature can now Enter (and breath if it has gills) either salt or fresh water depending on which version of the spell was cast. This spell affects all animals that live in water since with out the proper adaptations a animal will suffer damage for being in the wrong environment. Arcance Focus: A vial of fresh or salt water depending on which version of the spell is being cast.

underwater spell casting

(Feel free to alter this section if you come up with new ideas how a spell would work differently underwater) Elemental spells:

• Spells that inflict fire damage do work under water, think like underwater wielding, but the DC for casting these spells goes up by 10 points.
• Electrical spells have there DC go down by 5 since water conducts electricity, however electrical spells are also much less controllable. Each time a electrical spell is cast: roll a DC 10 check against the casters level, on a failure the caster shocks her self and suffers half the damage the spell inflicts. Additionally: all non touch spells that inflict electric damage inflict one D6 of damage to targets that are (caster level) feet away from the target
• Spells that use cold damage work as normal, however creatures hit by a cold spell lose five speed (does not stack) as ice forms that inhibit motion.
• spells that inflict sonic damage require creatures hit to pass a Fortitude test with a DC of 10+level of the spell cast or be stunned for caster/2 rounds.
• Acid damage: When a spell that inflict acid damage hits a target: roll a D20 dice. on a natural 1-5, the acid is diluted by the water and inflicts half as much damage. on a natural 15-20, the acid is swallowed or enters the gills, doubling the damage it does. on a 5-14, the spell does the normal amount of damage.

Other spells

• Spells like Flesh to Stone or Iron body adjust the density of the subject and cause them to sink downward.
• Spells that create Atmospheric effects such as Fog Cloud do work under water, but with altered effects. Flog Cloud for example would not be a fog cloud, but a local version that worked the same way mechanically but instead crafted a cloud of silt to obscure vision, or Gust of Wind conjures a swift rip tide forexample.
• Time Stop: water's incompressibility renders moving under water, while under the effects of a time stop impossible.
• other spells: unless other wise noted: all spells work the same under water. An illusion under water works just as well as one on land, necromancy still raise the dead and ectra. A few may be worthless (such a jump buff, or summoning magic horses) but they do work if a Merfolk wizard casted them.

Familiars

• octopus +2 stealth
• flying fish +3 fly
• crab +2 fortitude saves
• lobster +1 natural armor
• salmon +3 swim
• sea anemone +3 Hp
• Tiny shark +3 perception in light
• Lanternfish+2 Perception in dark
• jelly fish +2 will
• mantis shrimp +2 Spot
• Carp (fresh water only)+2 jump
• temperate fish +2 acrobatics
• Tropical fish +2 initiative
• Sea Star +2 survival
• squid +2 sleight of hand
• Nautilus +2 diplomacy

Merfolk Artifacts

Ancient and legendary items in the underwater world.

• Pearl Trident
• Bubble Band - This magical headband creates a bubble of breathable air around the head of the user. Merfolk use these bands to allow non water breathing individuals to freely travel underwater. The magic used to create these bands is a closely guarded secret.

Merfolk Religion

The merfolk worship some of the same gods as other races, but they also have their own unique racial pantheon.

demigods

many gods in the merfolk pantheon physically exist or have avatars which wander the unfathomable depths.

• Dagobus - deep sea demigod, patron of abyssal mer
• malron
• Nesoi - Primordial Demigods of islands. each island is said to have its own personification.

Creatures

• Carcharodon - 4 legged beast with huge shark head running around eating people
• Placoderms - fish with naturally evolved bony armor around there heads and backs.
• Kaiju - A merfolk name for Deamons and other Chaotic evil creatures from other planes.

Merfolk Characters and NPCs

• Aramis Corselle & Ishka Amosa
• Slithice

Merfok Gallery

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External links

Cerulean Seas Campaign Setting (Pathfinder compatible)