The merfolk are a race of marine-dwelling, amphibious humanoids which dwell in temperate to tropical waters. Merfolk have the torso and upper body of humans but the lower body and tail of fish. In fact, according to legend, the merfolk are closely related to humans, much as the centaurs are. Ironically, like the centaurs, the merfolk are distrustful of and beligerent toward humans, caring little for their ways. There is much bad blood between humankind and their sea-dwelling brethren. The merfolk avoid contact with the "surface world", instead living by herding schools of fish and harvesting the natural bounties of the sea.
Like their human cousins, the merfolk are the most prolific and far-spanning of the various undersea races. Merfolk are rather territorial with a strong sense of empire; it is they who have established the fabulous coral cities and marine nations so like those found on the surface world. Indeed, the similarities between humans and merfolk far outweigh their differences (although neither species would usually agree to such an assessment).
Merfolk society functions independently of other intelligent races, whether human ("rapacious fish-eaters"), locathah ("primitive scavengers"), sea elf ("visionless goodie-goodies") or sahuagin ("implacable sea devils"). The merfolk are quite intent of having their own culture and society free of external interference. Merfolk are not xenophobes, but prefer to be left to themselves with only very minimal contact with outsiders. They strongly desire to build a place for themselves in the seas without the aid of any other species. As a society, the merfolk usually reject proposals of friendship from other races, although alliances for mutual defense or trade are usually another matter. Ethically, the vast majority of merfolk are neutral in alignment, although individuals of all alignments can be found in a large population.
Merfolk speak their own language. At least half of the merfolk population also speaks at least one other language, usually locathah, although triton, sea elven, koalinth, merrow, Common, lizard man, storm giant, reef giant, ixitxachitl and even sahuaghin are not unheard of. Locathah are often trade partners of the merfolk and communities of both species commonly coexist peacefully in a given area. Tritons are often rivals for merfolk territories, although they are also occasional allies against the sahuaghin and ixitxachitl. Merfolk are rather friendly toward sea elves, although the merfolk are ever cautious of too much contact lest the elves of the sea overly influence the merfolk as the elves of the land have overly influenced the humans. Koalinth are both bloody rivals and welcome trade partners, a fact which annoys the sea elves to no end. Humans and lizard men are not common undersea visitors, but contact with both species in mutual environments is frequent enough that many merfolk learn these tongues. Indeed, while merfolk live underwater, they commonly surface to sun themselves on large rocks.
The merfolk society is heavily patriarchal. Males (mermen) hunt and herd fish, fight and explore. It is the mermen who rule merfolk society and it is mermen who protect merfolk territory. Females (mermaids) raise children and tend to domestic affairs. Mermaids are known for their creativity and artistic ability, usually functioning as the artisans within merfolk society.
Adult mermen are 5½ to 6 feet long (tall) and weigh between 150 and 225 pounds. Mermaids are slightly smaller, much as human females are. The merfolk are muscular, fit and resilient (AC 7), as befits a race adapted to the rigors of undersea life. Accustomed to a life beneath the sea, merfolk have a cooler body temperature than humans and are much more resistant to the chilling effects of water. Above the navel, merfolk are nearly indistinguishable from humans, save for the gill slits on either side of their neck and the webbing between the first joint of each finger. Below their navel, however, merfolk have powerful, scaled fish-tails with horizontal flukes, much like dolphins or whales. Using their powerful tails to propel themselves through the water, merfolk can attain speeds comparable to a running horse or wolf (18") although since the merfolk have no legs, they must use their arms to crawl on land at a very slow pace (1"). It is not unheard of for mermen to race through the sea, leaping up to six feet out of the water in order to grasp at the lines of an enemy vessel.
Merfolk skin tone ranges from fair to tan to bronze although pale blue, pale green and dark brown hues are not uncommon in certain regions. Scale colors range from greens to blues to silvers, with a rare gold or coral. Hair shades include blonde, red, brown, black and even green while eye shades are limited to blue, green and brown. Many mermen sport facial hair, usually a full beard.
The merfolk are omnivorous, with a diet including fish, eel, crab, lobster, squid, starfish, anemones, seaweed and the like. Naturally, merfolk do not cook their food, but usually fillet it before eating. The merfolk are not scavengers and thus are very distrustful of food which is stale or in any way different from their regular fair. While they can exist in fresh water, merfolk find this uncomfortable and will not remain in such regions longer than they must.
Merfolk have both gills and lungs and thus can breathe equally well in and out of the water. When using their gills, merfolk can speak and sing underwater without any difficulty. It is quite common for mermaids, however, to surface in order to sing using their lungs. Mermaids claim that the resonance of their voices change when breathing air. Most mermen claim that the females surface merely to cause conflict and chaos to humans who may hear their bewitching songs.
Merfolk can survive out of water indefinitely, so long as they keep their gills and skins moist. Most merfolk can comfortably remain out of the water for half their constitution score in hours (roughly five hours, or a long sunny afternoon). After twice this time (the merperson's constitution in hours) the character begins to weaken, losing one point of strength and constitution, with an additional point of each lost every hour until the merperson returns to the water or dies. Once again in water, the merperson rehydrates quite quickly, recovering one point of strength and constitution per round. Hit points lost due to constitution loss, however, must be healed, either naturally or magically.
The normal limit a merperson can dive is 1200 feet below the surface. It is rare, however, for any of the merfolk to venture below 600 feet as there is little to see and even less to eat at such a depth. These deep, dark, frigid regions are creepy wastelands to the merfolk, much as virgin forests and jungles are to humans.
While some merfolk have been known to sink human vessels, either out of piracy or revenge, there is very little direct contact between the two species. In deed, there are many highly sought after items which the merfolk cannot craft for themselves, such as gold jewelry (which is unharmed after prolonged marine exposure, unlike most other precious metals), which they treasure. Such items are commonly recovered from sunken vessels and it only for this reason that a merman would dive to such spooky (and sometimes undead infested) depths. Usually such areas are avoided entirely.
Merfolk have normal vision both above and below the water, although their sensitivity to motion and the blue-green end of the spectrum grants them double normal visual ranges underwater. Merfolk hearing is unchanged in either medium. While merfolk have an underdeveloped sense of smell, their sense of taste usually makes up for this.
Merfolk have the same life span and maturation rate as humans. Merfolk children are born alive, usually one at a time (although twins and even triplets are not unknown). Children are raised by their parents and reach majority at the age of 16. Merfolk normally mate for life.
Mermen commonly employ tridents and javelins as weapons, although spears, daggers and underwater crossbows are also common. Mermen usually do not wear any sort of armor as it greatly inhibits their movement, but if the situation requires extra protection, special shell and coral armors are sometimes used. Technologically, the merfolk are rather backward by human standards, given all the liabilities involved in crafting items in an undersea environment. The merfolk have worked out many clever inventions, however, for dealing with life beneath the waves. In general, merfolk and humans are on a even par both intellectually and physically; merfolk have no attribute modifiers and all attribute scores have the same range as humans (3 to 18 across the board).
As the "humans of the deep" merfolk have adapted themselves to a wide variety of roles and professions. Like most demi-humans, merfolk may multi-class (denoted with a *) and like other human-crossbreeds, merfolk enjoy a fairly wide variety of classes with reasonably high level limits.
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Merfolk character classes and life spans:
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(NO: Paladins, Cavaliers, Barbarians, Archers, Mariners, Alchemists, Thieves, Assassins, Monks, Acrobats)
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