Temperate Ocean

From the waist up, merfolk bear the torsos of well-built humans and delicate features reminiscent of elves and other humanoids tied to the natural world. A merfolk’s lower body consists of the fins and tail of a great fish. Depending on the region, the scales of merfolk vary in hue, including gleaming silver, pale green, or even blue with stripes of yellow and crimson. Merfolk typically measure 6 to 8 feet in length and weigh over 200 pounds, with females being slightly smaller than males. Although amphibious, merfolk move only with difficulty on land and rarely wander more than a mile from sea. It is quite rare for a merfolk to make contact with a creature not of its kind. In fact, many go to great lengths to steer sailors away from their lands, even resorting to violence if necessary. Ancient accounts hint at merfolk protecting a terrible secret bound to the depths, and though no reports mention what this secret is, the lengths merfolk go to remain isolated from other races highlight the importance of this safeguard. While merfolk outwardly appear to be a beautiful and powerful race, some sages and seafarers whisper that degenerate and mutated merfolk roam the deepest, most isolated regions of the seas and oceans. Some evidence states that this offshoot fell to the worship of twisted and sinister powers lurking in the darkness below, while other theories include all merfolk in this sinister agenda, holding that even those merfolk who believe they control their own destinies are, in fact, merely unknowing puppets of a sinister and unknown master race deep under the sea.

Named for its distinctive oblong shape, the coffin anemone is well-suited to swallow its favored prey: swimming humanoid creatures.

Skum are the most prolific and successful of the countless races created by the aboleths to serve as slaves. At the height of the aboleth empire, skum were legion and their armies waged many wars upon the land, yet now that the aboleths are in decline, skum have been set loose to manage on their own. For the most part, the skum have been less than successful at this endeavor, and today they exist in a shadow of their previous multitude, most of them dwelling deep underground in slowly crumbling ruins left standing only because their enemies have lost interest in pursuing the now-won war against these fish-like humanoids. Skum have even lost their own name—only the most erudite and wise of their kind remember that they were once known as the ulat-kini. Today, most identify themselves with the racial epithet applied to them by surface-dwellers—“skum.” Skum do not age, and barring death by violence or disease, they can live forever. Unfortunately, this near immortality is crippled by the fact that skum are incapable of reproducing among themselves, for all skum are male. The aboleths did not want their slave race to prosper without their permission. Yet terribly, this does not mean that skum cannot breed. Originally created from human stock, skum can impregnate humans, and the children issued from such unholy unions are invariably deformed. Those who are not born skum undergo gradual transformations throughout their lives, and when they would normally die of old age, such hybrids instead go through “the change,” shedding their wrinkled flesh and transforming into one of the ulat-kini. While most skum tribes lack the drive to perpetuate their race and would prefer to languish in their hideous sunken ruins, tribes settling offshore of remotely populated coastlines seem to be on the rise. Some such communities raid villages for breeding stock, but a few more insidious tribes form alliances with these desperate folk, providing protection and bounty from the sea in return for wives.

The crimson jellyfish is a blood-drinking creature whose red color comes from the blood absorbed throughout its body after it feeds. A large fish or sea mammal encountering a pack or bloom of these creatures can be drained of blood in a matter of minutes. Fortunately, a crimson jellyfish’s bright color makes it fairly easy to avoid under well-lit conditions.

Merrows are best described as the aquatic cousins of ogres. Although their green, scaled skin and webbed hands and feet make them appear different, merrows are just as cruel, savage, and wicked as their ogre relatives. The saltwater variety grows much larger than the freshwater variety, but the behavior and society of the two types are otherwise similar. Merrows are known for pillaging small fishing villages and towns under cover of night. Similar to ogres, merrows have a strong sense of family and typically hunt in gangs, preferring to grab a couple of villagers and head back into the water rather than sticking around and dealing with armed resistance. Merrows have a stronger sense of unity than ogres do, and rarely will the leader of a tribe be challenged. When they have chosen a village or town to plunder, they attack as a gang and share the spoils. A freshwater merrow is 12 feet tall and weighs 500 pounds. Saltwater merrows easily reach 20 feet tall and 4,000 pounds, and have been known to hunt whales. The two species do not often come in contact, but when they do, feuding and conflict are swift to develop.

With mottled scales of blue and green, water nagas’ serpentine beauty belies their deadliness. Although doubtlessly intelligent, these nagas have more in common with normal snakes than most of their kind, preferring to be left to their own devices and lashing out at any creatures that would disturb them. A typical water naga measures 10 feet long and weighs 250 pounds. Where many nagas claim particular lairs as their homes, water nagas typically have a number of retreats, migrating from one to the next with the changing of the seasons. These nagas keep elaborate summer and winter lairs, with several favored shelters positioned between these so they can make a circuit of familiar rivers and coasts throughout the year. Fiercely territorial when it comes to their lairs, water nagas typically attack any that intrude upon their sanctuaries, only bothering to question interlopers once such creatures have been weakened by poison, if at all. As their yearly treks make many water nagas especially well traveled, those who live near the serpents’ lairs— usually lizardfolk, fey, and human tribes—often court the snake creatures’ good graces with offerings of rich local delicacies, hoping to learn of nearby lands and pass on their own stories to distant neighbors. Enjoying flattery, exciting tales, and the adoration of those they see as lesser creatures, most water nagas take pride in their roles as travelers. However, while rarely malicious, they quickly grow bored of repetitive, mundane anecdotes and often embellish the stories they’ve heard with their own fictions—caring little for the repercussions such misleading tales might cause for their listeners. The congeniality of some water nagas does not extend to the entire race, and many unwary souls, even those with only the best intentions, face these serpentine creatures’ deadly bite.

Iku-tursos are hideous denizens of the deep sea. There, they venerate sinister gods of plague and contagion and torment victims plucked from ship and shore in special air-filled torture chambers. Disease is sacred to the ikutursos, and those who suffer from sickness are considered blessed—an iku-turso often chooses to leave obviously diseased victims to their fates rather than attempt to capture them.

Dragon turtles make their homes in both salt and fresh water, where they rank among the biggest threats to sailors and those who travel by ship through the waterways of the world. Skilled mariners know the territory dragon turtles claim and frequently make offerings of gold and magic for safe passage or avoid the area entirely. For its part, a dragon turtle quickly grows to appreciate and even expect such tithes and gifts, and a dragon turtle that expects gifts but is ignored is a dangerous foe indeed. A dragon turtle’s shell varies in color between individuals. Some have dull shells of brown and rust red, while others have carapaces of a deep green-blue color with silver highlights across the rocky ridges. The coloration of the head, tail, and legs is slightly paler than the shell and contains golden streaks along the crest and spines. Dragon turtles claim vast territories in the open seas, encompassing regions often in excess of 50 square miles. Here, these dangerous beasts capsize ships that fail to respect their territories, adding the sunken wrecks and their valuable cargoes to their lairs. Dragon turtles generally make their homes in deep caves only accessible through the water, and often decorate their lairs not only with the wealth seized from ships they’ve sunk, but the wrecks of these unfortunate ships themselves. Their territorial natures and fondness for these types of lairs put them in direct conflict with other undersea races such as merfolk and sahuagin. Large fish, such as tuna, sturgeons, and even sharks, rank among dragon turtles’ favorite foods, but being omnivores, they also sometimes feed on large undersea fields of seaweed. They certainly aren’t above supplementing their diets with the passengers of ships they sink, although such feeding is not borne of any intrinsic evil or cruelty. Dragon turtles possess shells 15 feet in diameter, with their appendages stretching a few feet further, and measure over 25 feet long from the tip of their noses to the ends of their powerful tails.