"I know sisters that you are not used to such aggression, but you must understand that this hall must be protected, and unlike your meager communities, there are many who would see it torn down."

-The Military Archon of Mermaidis Conclavis, Isabella Montoyana

Mermaiden Culture

Voyagers of the Depths

It is said in the moon-pools of old, sacred caves that met with perfect alignment under the heavenly bodies, a melding of fey and water-elementals took place. What resulted from their union was a new kind of Eldar, feminine fey creatures that were perfectly adapted to the sea, though capable of taking to the land as well. These were the Mermaids. These Mermaids lived a nomadic life in the sea, gathering in conclaves, usually among vibrant coastal reefs, and travelling from reef to reef throughout the year. Uninterested in crafts themselves, they were adept at taking the form of land-walkers, where they would go to steal, cajole, or barter for tools, crafts, and provisions they couldn't easily find in their native biomes. They also came to the land to court mates, for they could not reproduce among their own kind (not to say romance among their own kind didn't take place, for it did). The land-walkers did not take well to trickery, and upon a community discovering the true identity of a mermaid, they were often hunted down and burned at the stake or beheaded. Some people, in particular many coastal peoples and some island communities, took to hunting voyages, in which they would move to plunder and destroy nearby conclaves. This forced many mermaids to leave the reefs, and seek shelter far below, in the crushing deep where no land-walker could ever voyage. Others moved to harsher climates, safe away from any significant population of land-walkers. As mermaids spread across the wide oceans, they desired to keep links between all of the disparate communities. They therefore agreed to send representatives from each conclave across the oceans to meet at one giant conclave, Maidis Conclavis, and this body would make broad decisions for mermaid-kind, with their word being absolutely final for their people. This great body would meet once every 10 years, but in the interim, many would remain to help resolve disputes and issues in the meantime. The body met in the old husk of the dead god Golek, a place feared by land-walkers, but one that didn't bother the irreverent mermaids. Today, mermaids are not as feared as they once were. That is to say, they are not marked in the same monstrous category as, say, a mind flayer. However, they are still feared by a large segment of most populations, or at least misunderstood. It doesn't help them that a related creature to their kind, sirens, do plague coastal settlements with their violent trickery. Therefore, mermaids continue to struggle for broader recognition from the major civilizations of Adra, hoping to enter into more congenial relationships with the land-peoples, though they have struggled to make any significant headway here for hundreds of years now.

          The Mermaiden people are rivaled only by the Aarakocrans in how widespread and diffuse their culture is. And yet, they are able to maintain a united culture, by way of their speed at traversing the oceans, and also their constant unification by the Mermaidis Conclavis. However, unlike the Aarakocrans, while they are semi-nomadic, they are not radically nomadic, and mermaids from a conclave will be unlikely to leave the wider area where their conclave tends to inhabit. Mermaids tend to be familial and extremely social creatures, forming complex networks of sisters, cousins, aunts, mothers, and friends that spread across a conclave, and sometimes in-between conclaves. Due to the biological requirements for mermaid reproduction, biological mermaid families tend to be very small. Therefore, most mermaids supplement their biological family with those in their community they feel have earned a place as 'sister', 'aunt', 'cousin', etc. Mermaids have complex relationships with their fathers, many never knowing who their father was, some keeping tabs on them from afar, and a not-insignificant minority that maintain relationships with their fathers. Mermaids also have differing relationships with the land, depending on their upbringing and conclave, but on average, mermaids tend to be curious of the land and its people, while usually maintaining a healthy fear or suspicion of both. In some conclaves, a coming of age ceremony involves taking a month-long trip onto the land to experience what the land-walkers are like, though in some others, going on land is strictly forbidden. Mermaids are familiar with magic and its effects, with them all having some level of innate magical power, though when mermaids practice magic professionally, there are more than just sorceresses among them. To non-mermaids, mermaids are often heralded as some of the most beautiful creatures in Adra, but among the mermaids, because they are all so uniformly beautiful, beauty tends to lose its value, at least as traditionally construed. Instead, those mermaids which take on unique styles, or those with scars are often thought to be far more aesthetically interesting. Mermaids tend to hold important places with the biomes of their oceans, serving as tenders of the ecology, as they not only often have the wisdom to protect the creatures of the deep, but they are also able to communicate with them effectively. Pacifism is considered a virtue among mermaids, favoring conflict resolution over brute force. When violence becomes the only way to solve a dispute, mermaids utilize a system of duels, rather than instantiate a war between two conclaves. In almost all mermaids exists a deep wanderlust, a desire to discover the world, and reach across the horizon. What distinguishes them from each other is whether they choose ignore, fight against, repress, accept, or embrace this tendency.

          The Mermaiden people are most highly concentrated in the Wonderous Reef, a massive coral reef spreading over hundreds of miles in the Great Southern Sea, though mermaids dot reefs, coves, and vents across the seas of Adra, as well as occasionally inhabiting places on the land, and of course, the settlement of Mermaidis Conclavis. The races of the Mermaiden Culture are obviously most predominately mermaid, though there are occasionally non-mermaids taken in or adopted by mermaids, and raised in the culture. In the massively geographically spread out Mermaiden culture, there are adherents to multiple faiths, with Alas, Amarok, Gökotta being notably popular. However, for the majority of mermaids, and certainly for the Mermaidis Conclavis, the traditional Pantheon of mermaiden culture is Faetari's, with particular attention paid to the Moon Goddess Naewon, whom the mermaids consider their patron goddess. Mermaidens tend to be adventurous, loquacious, and caring. They also tend to be wary of outsiders, naïve, and overly-chummy. The dominant language among the Mermaiden people is Merspeech.

If you choose the Mermaiden Culture, you gain the following:

~Either a +1 to your Charisma score or a +1 to your Wisdom score~

~A -1 to your Strength score~

~As a known language, Merspeech~

~A Sub-Discipline in every knowledge skill on checks relating to Mermaiden Culture~

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