Endless Blue – Week 18 -Yaun-Teel

Biology

Yaun-Teel – The Dependant Slavers

The Yaun-Teel would be utterly avoided by the intelligent races of the Known World if not for the fact the Yaun-Teel have built up such a lavish and productive country.  Over the centuries they have maneuvered themselves into a position of mercantile power, producing goods, services, and revenue to the other bodies of water that they have become dependant of Yaun-Til interests.  Their economic influence is vast, and even the most remote colony feels the unblinking gaze of the Yaun-Teel.

Personality: Much like the eel they take their form and name from, the Yaun-Teel are a suave and cunning species.  They are calculating in their dealings with other races, and will develop complex stratagems to reach their goals.  They will send the weakest into battle first, to wear down an opponent, before stepping into the fray themselves.  They view all other life as expendable, usable at their discretion for whatever need or want imaginable.
Physical Description: Yaun-Teel look almost identical to Merfolk except for the slight eel-like features that betray their true ancestry.  Their eyes tend to be a little slanted and almond-shaped, and their tail flukes less pronounced.  With lithe bodies, they exude grace and poise in even the most ruthless of punitive acts.
Relations: Relations with the Yaun-Teel are always tense and unpredictable.  Despite their legal and thriving trade in sentient slaves, they are an economic force to be reckoned with, and many governments simply look the other way concerning the detestable practice in order to procure Yaun-Teel goods.
Alignment: Despite their civilization having a draconian system of laws, the true basic drive of a Yaun-Teel is to be chaotic evil.  Each individual will break the laws to their own benefit, and expect the same behavior from their brethren.  It is only a thin veneer of civility that any Yaun-Teel wears; beneath the false front, they are vile, sadistic creatures.
Homeseas: To the west of the Chelon Sea and the Mer Currents, the Yaun-Teel Bights are scattered, shallow bays with dotted outcroppings of land.  So shallow are these bodies of water that tourism seldom occurs out of fear of the aberrations that luck above the surface.
Religion: Yaun-Teel are devoutly evil, indulging in piscean sacrifice of fattened livestock and even slaves to the Pantheon   These revolting ritual take place in every community, sequestered behind locked doors and the traditional communal temple hidden from outsiders.
Language: The Yaun-Teel speak a soft, lilting language with its roots in ancient Elquan, perfectly suited for whispering.
Names: When naming a Yaun-Til slave, the name of the master comes first, then a hyphen, followed up by the appellation given by the Yaun-Teel owner (usually skill-related, and always in lower case).  It is a matter of practice to give newly captured slaves a new name, in an attempt to divest them of their previous identity as quickly as possible.
Male Names: Benoit, Einar, Esbjorn, Moander
Female Names: Cilla, Ingemar, Majsa, Synnove
Slave Names: Benoit-bigvay, Ingemar-jorie, Moander-kenaz, Synnove-paian
Adventurers: Yaun-Teel adventurers are plotters and planners, and as such make good tacticians or strategists.  However, the notable self interest will tend to place the risk of any plan on the shoulders of others.

Racial Traits
Ability Adjustments: +2 Dexterity, +2 Charisma
Automatic Class Skills: Intimidate
Skill Bonuses: So ingrained into the Yaun-Til way of life is the use of intimidation that they enjoy a +4 racial bonus to all Intimidation checks as well as any Handle Animal check that uses negative reinforcement as a motivator.
Bonus Hit Dice: None.
Natural Armor: The toughened skin of the anguiliformes form grants a +1 natural armor bonus.
Natural Weapons: None.
Movement: Medium creature (1 cube tall), base speed 30 cubes.
Senses: Darkvision
Buoyancy: Shore (adjustable)
Improved Initiative (Ex): Yaun-Teel are quick to anger, and even quicker to react.  They possess a +4 racial bonus to all initiative rolls.  This ability stacks with the Improved Initiative feat.
Spell-Like Abilities (Sp): Once per day, a Yaun-Teel may cast one of these spells: animal trance, cause fear, or suggestion.  Treat these spells as if cast by an 8th level sorcerer.
Favored Class:
Social Flaw: Sadistic
Base Height: Male: 5' 10” (+ 2d6 in.).
Female: 5' 7" (+ 2d6 in).
Base Weight: Male: 175 lbs. (+ height mod. x 2d4 lbs.)
Female 155 lbs. (+ height mod. x 2d4 lbs.)
Automatic Languages: Yaun-Tish
Bonus Languages: Elquan, Chelon, Sahaguin
Level Adjustment: +1 Level

The key to Yaun-Til success throughout history has always been due to slavery.  Economically it has capitalized on the crafting skills of it's slave populace to produce the same products and services the other races offer, but undercutting their prices significantly due to the relative cheap costs of owning slaves.  Militarily as well, the use of masses of conditioned slaves -- tortured to the point of beserker madness -- has made Yaun-Til forces into something out of the most crazed imaginations.  As a result of this,  it is possible to procure most anything in the bazaars and storefronts of Yaun-Til society.  Non-Yaun-Teel can expect to pay exhorberant prices, as if using the black market.

Yaun-Til slaves are indoctrinated through torture and mind-altering drug to cling to a convoluted "code" called the Principles of Service.  The slave is made to believe in this code, that by adhering to its strictures brings him closer to civility.  A slave is an animal, a brute of nature with no soul.  Living the principles brings him divinity, raising him above the level of a beast.  However, the rules are so controlling and contrary that it is impossible to fulfill one of them without breaking one or more other precepts.  Convening the laws results in punishment, and any Yaun-Til citizen has the right by birth to punish a slave at their discretion.  This usually equates to their decadent whim, unfortunately.

The hidden truth of the Yaun-Teel is that they are not an actual race at all.  Yaun-Teel are dependent on the Mer to keep their species propogating.  Yaun-Teel bloodlines only seem to remain viable through two or three generations before becoming sterile with others of its own kind.  Soon before this happens, Yaun-Teel will used their reserve of Mer as breeding stock, giving them another generation or two of genetic viability before the whole process must be repeated.

“Beware the Yaun-Teel that takes an interest in your well-being...”
A old Elquan adage, wiser than anyone realizes

Endless Blue - Week 17 - Sahaguin

Biology

Sahaguin – Last Tyrants of the Sea

All the piscean races of the Known World learned a lesson from the Kraken Occupation, but not all learned the same lesson.  Whereas most learned folly of not bracing for the coming maelstrom. one race learned to make their own storm.  They are the Sahaguin, an opportunistic, aggressive race of predators that due only to location and happenstance have not become the dominant species on their own.

Personality: Aggression and confrontation are the hallmarks of the Sahaguin paragon.  Passivity is a sign of prey; a true predator actively pursues his objective.  Nothing worth having is given -- it must be taken, and taken now.  This lack of patience is perhaps the single most reason for the lack of organized Sahaguin invasions. Sahaguin crave alpha status, and will repeatedly challenge authorities that they believe are acting out of passivity or cowardice.
Physical Description: The Sahaguin share many of the same physical traits as the Locanth and the Kouton, but are individually much larger than either.  They range from 6 to 7 feet long and heavily muscled, sporting the extended fins on their arms and tail like the Locanth, but a more predatory mouth lined with fangs like the Kouton.  Sahaguin eyes are large, like dark onyx, with an almost hypnotic stare.  Their hands and fins are webbed to the finger tips, and the tips of their pelvic fins and tail flukes end in chitinous manus.
Relations: There is little love lost with the Sahaguin, especially with the Mer, whom have suffered border incessant aggressions where ever the two races colonize.
Alignment: Sahaguin are unapologetically evil, with strong lawful tendencies expressed in a convoluted code of honor that stresses success above all, conflict whenever possible.
Homeseas: The Sahaguin Lagoons are a large series of temperate lagoons to the south and east of the Kraken's Maw.  If not for this no mer's land barrier, the rest of the civilized races would suffer Sahaguin incursions on a frighteningly frequent basis.
Religion: Sahaguin are on the cusp of becoming monotheistic, revering their scaled goddess above all others of the Elquan Pantheon.
Language: Sahaguini is a robust tongue, loud and proud, well suited for battle cries and death wails.  It's written form uses a system of logograms -- a system of symbols derived from basic pictures to represent ideas.  Unfortunately, as a strange by-product of the Sahaguin trait of  pugnacity, over the generations these symbols have drifted from their original meanings and new ideogram have been added.  At the present time, there are numerous variations of the lexicon, varying sharply regardless of distance between settlements.  As a result, reading Sahaguini requires a Speak Language check at DC 15 unless the item was written by the very Sahaguin reading it.
Names: Sahaguin naming is an uncomplicated, almost simplistic system tied strongly to their logographic language.  Sahaguini children are given an ideogram for their name, usually one that exemplifies some positive trait the Sahaguin prize.  "Warrior", "conquest", or "success" are typical concepts used as names.  The culture does not use surnames, but will sometimes identify other Sahaguin by the name of the settlement in which they were born.
Male Names: Ekunda, Githinji, Olwenyo, Qinsela
Female Names: Boipelo, Lungile, Onyeka, Ulaya
Adventurers: Dealing with a Sahaguin adventurer is difficult.  The natural behavior of Sahaguin is to take what they want.  While they understand the concept of fairness and equal shares, a Sahaguin that covets something will become almost belligerently stolid until he gets his way.  They will require an explicit and  inviolable chain of command, detailing who is superior to whom and why it is so.

Racial Traits
Ability Adjustments: Strength +1, Dexterity +1, Constitution +1, Charisma -2
Automatic Class Skills: Knowledge (nature), Profession (hunting)
Skill Bonuses: Sahaguin enjoy a +4 racial bonus on all Profession (hunting) checks.
Bonus Hit Dice: None
Natural Armor: Sahaguin benefit from a +2 natural armor bonus due to their thick-scaled hide.
Natural Weapons: Sahaguin pelvic fins and flukes are taloned, and can in conjunction make a single Rake attack at 1d4 points of damage.
Movement: Medium creature (1 cube tall), base speed 30 cubes.
Senses: Low Light Vision, Blindsense
Buoyancy: Shore (adjustable)
Blood Frenzy (Ex): Savage fighters, a Sahaguin can enter a blood frenzy once per day per point of base Constitution bonus (race and level bonuses to Constitution only).  The uncontrollable frenzy is triggered when the Sahaguin takes damage in combat, and begins on the Sahaguin's next action.  The Sahaguin gains a +2 to Strength and +2 to Constitution (this does not apply to the number of time the Sahaguin can blood frenzy) and will concentrate all his attacks on the opponent that harmed him until one of them are dead or the opponent escapes
Blindsense (Ex): Sahaguin can sense tiny movements in the currents caused by the smallest movement, such as respiration.  They can always detect when a creature is within a 30 foot radius of themselves, though they cannot identify or differentiate one intruder from another.
Light Sensitivity (Ex): Sudden exposure to bright light such as that produced from a daylight spell or sunlight will blind a Sahaguin for one round, and they will thereafter be dazed until they are given the opportunity to rest.
Favored Class: The hunter/warrior dynamic of Sahaguin life makes them well suited to become Rangers.  As a culture, the species tends to stress the basic classes of fighter, rogue, and cleric, and push their citizens towards concentration on single classes.
Social Flaw: Pugnacious
Base Height: Male: 5' 11” (+ 2d6 in.).
Female: 5' 9" (+ 2d6 in).
Base Weight: Male: 280 lbs. (+ height mod. x 2d10 lbs.)
Female 265 lbs. (+ height mod. x 2d8 lbs.)
Automatic Languages: Sahaguin, Elquan
Bonus Languages: Locanthic, Koutonese, Yaun-Teel
Level Adjustment: +1 Level

Life survives through conflict, life ends through conflict, life is conflict for the Sahaguin.  Competition is a fundamental cornerstone of the culture, and the relentless hounding for alpha male (and female) status is pervasive in their mythology and oral literature.  Sahaguin have a surprising skill at relating every aspect of life beneath the waves to conflict, through simile, analogy, or metaphor.  Survival of the fittest is perhaps gross overgeneralization of their society, but their dedication to improvement through combat is hard to ignore.

There is one subject that is sure to get a nosy individual slain immediately, and that is the subject of Sahaguin children.  There seems to be no physiological change to Sahaguini females before the appearance of offspring, and no one has ever seen their childbirth process.  While the reason for this is unclear to the Known World, the Sahaguin have a significant reason to hide it.  Once every hundred or so births, a Sahaguin infant is delivered that looks completely like a Mer.

Perhaps it means Mer and Sahaguin evolved from a common ancestor, but that would not explain why the Sahaguin give birth to offspring in the current Mer physiology instead of some kind of proto-missing link.  Identical in every aspect, even the coloration, these malenti are indistinguishable from true piscean sapiens, even by divinatory means.  A malenti can swim among the Mer Currents and no one would suspect it, a fact that the Sahaguin use to their advantage.  So Sahaguini children are hidden from sight until adolescence, when they take their place in the pack as a novice hunter.

“Only a coward wonders `Is it safe?'
A true Sahaguin only wonders `Will it be glorious?'"
Unquestionable wisdom shared from Sahaguin experience

Endless Blue - Week 16 - Kouton

Biology

Kouton – Explorers of Ancient Seas and Forgotten Secrets

Far beyond the borders of the Periphery, the Kouton are off... searching.  Delving into the unknown, exploring waters deemed unsafe or inhospitable by the other races, they have broadened their perspective of Elqua far beyond that of the Known World cluster.  What was found out there, among the silent silt and the foreign coral, is something no Kouton seems willing to share.

Personality: Secretive by nature, Kouton are not a suspicious race.  Their lack of open dialog is due to their own belief that knowledge is power, that to understand something is to have dominion over it, and to share dominion is to lessen one's self.  A Kouton would never volunteer information about himself; instead he would answer minimally any question posed to him.
Physical Description: Kouton have bulging eyes with nictating membranes that move independently of each other (and constantly at that, making it difficult for a Kouton to meet anyone's gaze).  Their pug faces are flat, perched over a sagging neck enshrouding a mouth full of needle-like teeth beneath, leading to a reedy body with a paunch belly.  Their hands and fins are only partially webbed, to about the first knuckle of their elongated, triple-jointed digits.
Relations: Koutons find relations with other races poor, as their general tendency to hoard information makes them seem untrustworthy and selfish in the eyes of others.
Alignment: The diabolic Kouton are a neutral evil race.  The do not subscribe to the lofty notions of generosity or mercy, believing firmly that everyone gets what is coming to them.
Homeseas: The Bay of Kouton lies northward and to the west of the vast Cetacean Oceans.  They have used this fact to prevent direct dealings with most of the other pisceans, and instead have run raids around the edged of Orcan waters.
Religion: The Kouton are firmly entrenched in Pantheon worship, with special reverence given to the Source as the birth-mother of the gods.
Language: Koutonese is a strange, guttural language punctuated with wet, bubbling noises from their loose lips.  It is the antithesis of cetacean whalesong, crude and cacophonous, like the gurgling of a clogged pipe.  Its written style is pictographic, with a large lexicon of symbols to draw from.  More complex ideas are expressed through the combination of characters around each other in the ordinal directions.
Names: Kouton use the sinospheric method of nomenclature, placing the surname first.  It is this name that non-familiar people are expected to call a Kouton.  This arrangement, though generally helpful in communicating with other races that tend to utilized first names more, is merely coincidental.
Surnames: Araki, Kimura, Inoue, Maeda
Male Names: Kisho, Natsu, Tsuke, Zakuro
Female Names: Firisu, Imari, Lumoi, Uriko
Adventurers: As adventurers, Kouton are typified as not able to operate fairly with other members of a party.  While they do not actively work against the group, they do withhold everything short of the most pertinent information when pooling forces.

Racial Traits
Ability Adjustments: None
Automatic Class Skills: Bluff, Gather Information, Sense Motive
Skill Bonuses: Kouton enjoy a +2 racial bonus on all Search, Spot, and Listen checks.
Bonus Hit Dice: None
Natural Armor: None
Natural Weapons: The bite of a Kouton causes 1d4 points of piercing damage from all the tiny sliver-sized incisors lining its gums.
Movement: Medium creature (1 cube tall), base speed 30 cubes.
Senses: Low Light Vision, Darkvision, Ultravision
Buoyancy: Shoals (adjustable)
Light Blindness (Ex): The highly sensitive eyes of a Kouton are aptly designed for life in darker waters.  Abrupt exposure to light such as the daylight spell inflicts a -1 circumstance penalty on all attack and damage rolls, saves, and checks for one round per level of the light producing spell.
Slippery (Ex): Constanly excreting from the skin of all Koutons is an oily film of sweat that makes grappling or ensaring them difficult.  Webs and netting, be they magic or mundane, do not affect Kouton, as they simply wriggle free.
Sticky (Ex): The oily sweat of a Kouton can be collected and mixed with other alchemical components to produce a sticky adhesive.  The Kouton use this mixture for masonry and other construction.  It can be added to a shield as an non-magical property at the time of item creation that will hold fast any weapon that makes an unsuccessful melee attack against the Kouton.  The attacker must make a successful Reflex check at DC 14 or have its unguis stick to the shield and yanked from his grasp.  Attackers using natural weapons are considered grappled if they fail this save. A Kouton can only produce enough oily sweat to maintain this ability on a single shield, and prevents them from using their Slippery ability for a day (when the character must choose to reapply the concoction).
Favored Class: Rogue is the favored class of the Kouton, especially when focused towards exploration and information gathering.
Social Flaw: Self Serving
Base Height: Male: 4' 6” (+ 2d6 in.).
Female: 4' 6" (+ 2d6 in).
Base Weight: Male: 115 lbs. (+ height mod. x 2d4 lbs.)
Female 130 lbs. (+ height mod. x 2d6 lbs.)
Automatic Languages: Koutonese
Bonus Languages: Elquan, Locanthic, Sahaguin
Level Adjustment: None

Kouton have a marginal chameleonic ability to their skin.  While no where near the sophistication of the Ceph's camouflage, a Kouton's pigmentation reacts to the creature's mood, flushing the skin with color dependent on emotional state.  Kouton need to make a Bluff check at DC 15 to stifle this reflex, and a second check at the same DC to produce a false flush.

While the other races were content with clustering around the Crèche of Civilization, the Kouton embraced exploration outside of the Known World.  Their  practice of exploration has given the race a reputation of harboring illicitly-gained secrets, and their cartography is beyond reproach in its accuracy and range.

There still exists a lot of poor regard toward the Kouton since the Kraken Occupation.  It is generally understood the frog-like pisceans colluded with occupiers, minimizing the devastation to their own race.  Whether this ill will was fairly earned has never been resolved conclusively, and understandably the Kouton themselves do no wish to dwell on it.

“Seeing forward, seeing back
Knowing secrets others lack
Telling no one, sharing none
Keep their mouth shut, every one.”
A childhood nursery rhyme

Endless Blue - Week 15 - Locanth

Biology

Locanth – Nomadic Craftsmen of the Shoals

Leather with a luster of a thousand fathoms, carvings of such life-like detail it fools the naked eye, netting so fine it must be made of gossamer...  These are the products created by the noble craftsmen that wander the Shoals of Elqua like migrating herds.  To glimpse such perfection is a boon, to own one simply a fevered dream, for treasures like these are by the Locanth, for the Locanth.

Personality: Rich with tradition and history, Locanth are the noble artisans of the Endless Blue.  They believe deeply in the wisdom of their elders, and will rarely let an opportunity to hear tales of adversity overcome or challenges solved from any one venerable enough to have knowledge to pass on.  However, life has taught them that the unknown is to be feared, to be avoided, lest they fall victim to its appetite or wrath.
Physical Description: With eyes widespread to either side of the cranium, dim ovals with a look of half-sleep drooping over them, the Locanth appear more fish than piscean.  Their wide, gaping mouths lacking any form of teeth sit underneath sagging jowls the same umber-like hue as the rest of their scaly bodies.  Long, thin fingers adorn their hands with webbing to the talon-less tips, and long fins sprout from their arms and tail.
Relations: There is little in the way of trade between the Gulf of Locanth and the rest of the Known World.  Their nomadic lifestyle meets most all their needs, so only when times are difficult and the weather has been unkind do the Locanth trade their works of art to outsiders in exchange for rations and tools.  While not actually expansionistic, they do follow the schools of fish their forefathers hunted for millennia and if that migration takes them into the territory of other species, so be it.  The Locanth pay little heed to borders, believing themselves to be the chosen of the Pantheon and by deific right may cross the world as they see fit.
Alignment: Usually neutral, Locanths prefer to retreat from conflict rather than risk facing it head on.  Live and let live is a core mantra to Locanthic life.
Homeseas: The Gulf of Locanth serves as the roaming grounds for these nomadic pisceans.  They form no permanent residences, instead relying on collapsible cocoon-like tents that are spiked to rock or coral to prevent their sleeping bodies from drifting along the currents or rising to the surface as they sleep.
Religion: Pantheon worship dominates the Locanthic religious belief system, expressing in the carrying of carved fetishes.  While any one Locanth can worship more directly to a specific deity, all eight of the Pantheon gods are given reverence.  These small, cylindrical totems are attached to a strong string or chain, and will be found in a pocket or pouch that is easily accessible at all times.
Language: The Locanthic tongue has been likened derogatorily to the yapping of a small animal, with short, clipped syllables that have the same duration regardless of stress.  The language is not as bestial as is attributed, and can be quite beautiful with its rolling r and diagraph consonant pairs.  It is one of the more simpler languages to learn, with a minimum of conjugation and a consistent methodology of noun gender.
Names: Locanth names have origins in the various crafts the race produces.  Just like people with names like Smith and Baker are descended from laborers in those fields, so to have the Locanth.  Further, lineage is noted in naming childred, with names of one of the direct ancestors used as a "middle name".  Not limited to a single middle name, it is common practice for a Locanth child to list back his heritage with multiple middle names following this convention.
Male First Names: Agapillo, Emigdio, Joaquin, Quique
Female First Names: Benigna, Lourdes, Nereida, Techa
Last Names: Baros, Guerrero, Herrera, Molinero
Adventurers: Locanth adventurers are an anomoly.  It is seldom that one overcomes his instinctual fleeing reflex and venture out for fame and glory, but not unheard of.  Locanth are not cowards, but simply prefer the maxim of "the path of least resistance", meaning whatever methods lead to the least amount of risk.

Racial Traits
Ability Adjustments: +2 Dexterity
Automatic Class Skills: Handle Animal
Skill Bonuses: Their innate ability for tool use gives all Locanth a +2 racial bonus on any Craft (all) or Profession (all) skill checks that they have invested at least one rank in.
Bonus Hit Dice: None.
Natural Armor: Locanths posses a scaly skin that provides them with a +3 natural armor bonus.
Natural Weapons: None.
Movement: Medium creature (1 cube tall), base speed 50 cubes.
Senses: Low Light Vision
Buoyancy: Shoals (adjustable)
Fleet of Fin (Ex): Locanth maintain their Dexterity bonus to AC when swimming at maximum speeds: up to five (5x) times their normal swim speed when carrying a light or nor load, or up to four (4x) times with a medium or heavy load.  Healthy Locanths can push this limit by making a Fortitude save at DC 15 + number of pervious attempts to push themselves to move up to six (6x) times their normal swim speed when carrying a light or nor load, or up to five (5x) times with a medium or heavy load.  They must make this save every round they are pushing the limit, but subsequent successful saves do not increase the multipliers above 6x/5x.  Failing these saves simply means the Locanth moves at 5x/4x for that round, and may try to push themselves again the next round.
Favored Class: Their reclusive nature results in an experience point penalty whenever multi-classing with anything other than NPC classes, and a Locanth may multiclass freely in any of these classes without penalty.
Social Flaw: Isolationist
Base Height: Male: 4' 6” (+ 2d6 in.).
Female: 4' 1" (+ 2d4 in).
Base Weight: Male: 105 lbs. (+ height mod. x 2d46lbs.)
Female 94 lbs. (+ height mod. x 2d4 lbs.)
Automatic Languages: Locanthic
Bonus Languages: Elquan
Level Adjustment: None

Locanth handiwork is undeniably of superior excellence.  Their hunting nets are of the strongest weave, their longspears have the strongest blades, and their leatherworking is exquisite.  Even if a Locanthic artisan fails at crafting a masterwork item, the exceptional quality of his work grants the item a +1 circumstance bonus on any save it must make.  These items usually fetch twice listed value in the black market, and three times or more if the item is also masterwork.

The culture is rich in traditional festivities, paying homage for most every aspect of life on Elqua with some type of celebration.  From somber occasions such as death to the frivolous like a daily intake of sustenance, the Locanth are seriously dedicated to honoring those that did the work, and those that died to provide the benefit.  Most notable is the short nap taken after the noon-day meal.

“Respect the beast whose skin you tan;

revere the reef whose coral you carve.
Showing honor will be repaid with beauty and life...”
The Locanthic approach to art.

Endless Blue - Week 14 - Ceph

Biology

Ceph – Vermin of the Known World

Eventually when enough of the races in the Known World of Elqua banded together, they were able to over-throw the tyrannical Kraken Empire.  Perhaps that victory made the occupiers lose face with their eldritch gods and were abandoned, even cursed.  Since then the one mighty, one massive race has devolved into the cephalopods known today as simply "the Ceph".

Personality: The Ceph continue to suffer abuse and scorn on a daily basis, and their station as second-class citizens has an effect on their outlook.  They are a hard working people, taking the thankless jobs, dangerous work conditions, and pitiful reward that they can in order to eek out a continued existence.
Physical Description: They are the only race in the Known World to not possess the easily identifiable piscean form -- head, torso, arms, and tail -- and instead look simply like larger versions of their aquatic ancestors.  The race actually has three ethnicities, but few except other Ceph can clearly tell them apart.  They have eight tentacles, two of which are slightly longer than the others and end in a wide pad.  Above those are pair of golden eyes with a unique "w"-shaped iris, one widely situated on either side of their bulbous bodies.  They lack any form of a skeleton, except a sub-dermal plate over what would be considered their foreheads.  This plate is ridged and forms a rippling of the skin that overlaps it.  At the nexus of their radially arranged tentacles is there mouth, protected by a sharp but flat beak.  Their skin is covered in tiny pigmentation cells that change color at will.
Relations: Relations with other races are completely on a per individual bases.  The one thing the Ceph have learned is that despite how they are treated, they know other races are individuals, each with different urges, goals, and drives.  They will often overlook personal attacks by any one stranger, knowing that as a rule the whole race is not as judgmental.
Alignment: The fall of the Kraken was swift, and the degeneration into the Ceph even more so.  A history of prejudice and persecution has caused the need for the Ceph to adopt a more chaotic life style, never knowing if at any second everything about their life could be irrevocably shattered.
Homeseas: The Ceph have no homesea.  Though their ancestral home would be the Maw, no one still sane inhabits the Ruins of the Kraken Empire.  The Ceph have dispersed throughout the Known World, and settled down where ever they discovered a niche to be filled.  There are no pure Ceph settlements, but it is rare to ever find a city that doesn't have some level of Ceph in its populace.
Religion: Their abandonment by their eldritch gods has not spoiled the Ceph on worship,  Now, instead of making sacrifices to unknowable entities, the devote their souls to Olyhydra, the stern mistress of Law.  The understand her dogma that life is toil and only hard work will be rewarded..
Language: The Ceph speak a pidgin language, combining words from surrounding settlements into a patchwork language.  It is difficult, even for other Ceph, to speak with a Ceph who learned to speak too great a distance away, as it could almost be considered a different language.
Names: Names are of great importance to the Ceph, usually chosen by the individual.  Having been called racial slurs for so very long, they have taken to keeping nicknames given to them, answering to them instinctively.  A well travelled Ceph could have dozens of these bestowed names, and he would answer to each and every one of them.
Nick Names: Bait, Squid, Sucker, Wiggler
Formal Names: Ika, Onag, Surume, Tako,
Adventurers: Ceph treat adventuring just as they do survival.  If any race had a more honest viewpoint of the adventuring lifestyle, it would be the Ceph.   They treat it as a job, a means to an end, a way to keep them alive, keep their families alive, just another step in the never-ending cycle of work and rest.

Racial Traits
Ability Adjustments: Dexterity +2, Strength -2.
Automatic Class Skills: Disguise and Hide in Shadows
Skill Bonuses: Disquise +4, Move Silently +2.
Bonus Hit Dice: None
Natural Armor: None.
Natural Weapons: The beak of a Ceph can be used as a natural weapon, inflicting 1d3 points of slashing damage on a successful hit.
Movement: Small creature (1 cube tall), base speed 20 cubes.
Senses: Ultravision, Low-Light Vision
Buoyancy: Shore (adjustable)
Camouflage (Ex): Pigments saturating the Ceph's rubbery skin are malleable, and with a successful Disguise check a Ceph can blend in with its surroundings.  This gives the Ceph the Hide In Plain Sight feat and adds a +10 racial bonus to Hide checks.  The Ceph must maintain his concentration while using his camouflage ability to maintain this effect for more than a round, however failing the Concentration check does not result in the Ceph breaking its camouflage, just losing the racial bonus (he failed to adjust his coloration to take into account an observer's movement, etc.).
Multi-Tentacled (Ex): Most Ceph use their major tentacles (the ones with the flat pads at the end) as their grasping apendages, to holding ungues and nautiluses for example.  The other arms cannot be used for combat unless the Ceph takes the Multiattack feat, meeting all the prerequisites for it first.  This allows for a second pair of tentacles to be used just like the first pair, and taking the feat subsequent times adds another set of two tentacles, to a maximum of four pairs of arms.  The Ceph must still follow the same proceedures to accomplish two-weapon fighting to use both arms of a set in combat.
Favored Class: Rogue is the favored class of Ceph, employing their natural camouflage and stealthiness to the greatest extent and is what has made the Ceph so adaptable.
Social Flaw: Self-Depreciating
Base Height: Male: 2' 8” (+ 2d3 in.).
Female: 2' 7" (+ 2d4 in).
Base Weight: Male: 30 lbs. (+ height mod. x 1d2 lbs.)
Female 26 lbs. (+ height mod. x 1d2 lbs.)
Automatic Languages: Ceph, Elquan
Bonus Languages: Chelon, Koutonese, Locanthic, Sahaguin.
Level Adjustment: None

Life as a Ceph is life as an untouchable.  As prolific and ubiquitous as they may be, they spend lives of never been noticed, never included, never praised.  If anything, they take the brunt of the other races' historical ire.  It has never been forgotten that these seemingly simple and honest people were once blood-crazed tyrants who called the Known World their own, even though generation after generation has come and gone since then, leaving no one remaining alive that lived through the tragedy of Kraken occupation.  But the Ceph typically do not let this prevent them from integrating themselves into society and eking out a living as society's lowest class.

Their own practicality enables them to ingrain themselves into cultures in almost any capacity.  They are the ones willing to do the demeaning work, the servitude to an erudite community.  Ceph lack the hubris and racism of the ancient civilization, and know that if they are to survive as a people they must adapt to the new order or die completely.

“Despite their universal revilement, Ceph have an unerring knack
for getting themselves into positions of indispensability...”
A shrewd observation of Ceph survival skills

Endless Blue - Week 14

Biology

Amoeboids – Microscopic Life at the Macroscopic Level

Evolution took an interesting track with the Amoeboids.  Instead of becoming more complex, specializing function, and forming organs, these cell-based life forms simply grew in scale.  Amoeboids are little different from the floating amoebae that creatures on the lowest rungs of the food ladder feast upon, except on a more massive scale.

Personality: All Amoeboids begin exactly the same as the one before them at the moment of mitosis.  It is the trials and tribulations that the Amoeboid experiences from that point in time onward that will shape their personality.
Physical Description: Essentially a single cell organism magnified to the same size as a small Piscean, Amoeboids are a coherent glob of protoplasm holding its internal structures aloft inside a thin membrane.  Their bodies are transluscent, with shades of light and darkness tracing out the internal workings of their biology.  A darker patch, the nucleus, hovers towards what would be the creature's head, and in many ways operates as the organism's brain.
Relations: First glace Amoeboids would seem to be just like the Lumulans -- distant and uncaring.  However nothing could be further from the truth.  They are immensely loyal to those they have a familiar bond, and are always willing to put themselves on the line to serve the greater cause.
Alignment: At their most primitive state, Amoeboids are typically true neutral,  But as the learning process of life begins to shape their personality, they can take on any alignment in the moral and ethical spectrum.  Having other creatures around them, going about their everyday activities, has a profound effect on the formation of Amoebiod scruples.
Homeseas: Much like the plentiful phytoplankton that drifts lanquidly throughout the seas of Elqua, Amoeboids do not call any one place home.  The ultimate expression of the zen concept of "living in the now", the creatures allow the fates to guide their path, carrying them across the globe on the myriad currents.  They can be found anywhere food is plentiful and predation is rare.
Religion: Amoeboids believe fully in the Source, the single beginning of all life on Elqua.  They worship this origin point as almost a collective Gaia, with each Amoeboid representing another cell in the embryo that is the Source..
Language: Lacking any form of a mouth or vocal cords, Amoeboids communicate through a completely physical means somewhat like sign language..
Names: While Amoeboids do have the concept of self, the expression of it through their epidermal language is impossible for outsiders to pronounce.  So instead, most give an Amoeboid some type of cutesy nickname, usually linked to their gelatinous consistency.
Nick Names: Gleep, Gloop, Inque, Knid, Odo, Protty
Formal Names: Blancmange, Dralasite, Plasmoid, Vernicious
Adventurers: Amoeboid adventurers are curious things, learning about themselves and the world around them at the very instance they experience it.  They can fill most any adventuring niche with just the right kind of encouragement from a charismatic party member.

Racial Traits

Ability Adjustments: Constitution +4, Charisma 0 (Amoeboids are such a primitive lifeform that they lank any type of interpersonal skill and have a Charisma score of 0).
Automatic Class Skills: Escape Artist, Sleight of Hand, Tumble
Skill Bonuses: Escape Artist +5, Sleight of Hand +3, Tumble +4.
Bonus Hit Dice: None
Natural Armor: None.
Natural Weapons: The amorphous shape of an Amoeboid means it can sprout a bludgeoning appendage (1d4 subdual) from any angle at any time as a free action..  As such, Amoeboids should be treated as always being armed.
Movement: Medium creature (1 cube tall), base speed 30 cubes.
Senses: Blindsense
Buoyancy: Shelf (adjustable)
Gooey Body (Ex): The physiology of the Amoeboid makes it impervious to grapples, constriction, or being caught in a net.  Always treat an Amoeboid as if it was under the effects of a constant freedom of movement spell..  Further, with no internal organs or endoskeletal system, Amoeboids ignore sneak attack damage and do not risk dying from massive damage (50+ hit points from a single attack).
Favored Class: Amoeboids have no favored class, and instead always suffer an experience point penalty when they choose to multi-class.
Social Flaw: Inhuman
Base Height: 4'4” (+ 4d2 in.)  This is a rough approximation of the space an Amoeboid occupies when it is in the shape of a sphere.  An Ameoboid can make itself as thin as its height modifier at the maximum.
Base Weight: 200 lbs. (+ height mod. x 4d2 lbs.)
Automatic Languages: Amoebic Sign Language
Bonus Languages: None.  Without the ability to speak or the facility to see, Amoeboids cannot take Speak Language to either speak or write.  The best an Amoebiod can produce would be basic shapes and lines written crudely in the silt of the sea bed.
Level Adjustment: None

Amoeboid settlements are non-existent due to the wandering lifestyle the race possess.  They will recognize others of its kind as kin, but will hold no special regard or attachment to them than if they had just met a stranger.

An amoeboid can produce a number of pseudopods equal to the number of itterritive attacks it has gained in its class.  These tentacles have a reach of 5 feet, but an amoeboid can extend that reach by 5 more feet for ever pseudopod it does not create.  For example, an Amoeboid with a BAB of +15 can get three pseudopods with a 5 foot reach, two pseudopods -- one with a 10 foot reach and the other with 5, or one pseudopod with a 15-foot reach.  Creating or absorbing these tentacles is a free action  as part of the Amoeboid's normal movement.

“Having an Amoeboid around is great for cleaning up a campsite,
until it starts to multiply like the red tide...”
The entirety of Amoebic sociology

Endless Blue - Week 13 - Lumulus

Biology

Lumulus – Alien Minds from the Ocean’s Floor

Swarming along the floor of the Lumulus Basin, between the weeping chemical seeps and bellowing thermal vents are the strange crab-like race of the Lumulus.  Avoiding interaction with other races, they keep behind their side of the border, and keep others on theirs.  Through strange rituals and enigmatic practice they dip into the volcanic apperatures that dot their homesea and produce wonders of art and war that the Known World covets.

Personality: Familiarity from any other source but another Lumulan is offensive to them, and could result in an immediate assault or a later planned ambush.  Otherwise, they tend to keep to themselves, vacillating between periods of slothful inactivity and bursts of manic activity.
Physical Description: Short, squat, and wide bodied, the Lumulans are covered from head to tail in a natural chitinous armor that must be molted every year.  Their hands are a peculiar radial arrangement of three powerful digits, and a series of three more primitive digits alternate between their gill slits.  It is exceedingly difficult to distinguish between male and female Lumulans and gender-confusion is common, so the Lumulans themselves preferred to referred to as the neutral “it” in a further attempt to keep the promiscuous piscean races at a distance.  What is easily discerned is which of the subspecies a Lumulan belongs, by simply noting the coloring of their chitin: the red r’hakol’va (rakova), the blue j’hastog’ke (jastog), and the black m’horst’ki (morski).
Relations: Most other races of Elqua are treated as somewhere between untouchable and feared.  Inter-racial dealings are avoided at most times, with this instinctive avoidance being ignored in brief spurts of trading.  Metals are rare beneath the waves, and those that do not corrode due to the saline water even more so.  This gives the Lumulans a huge economic advantage as they produce metal and glass items for general consumption.
Alignment: The thought processes of the Lumulus are so different than those of other pisceans that they may seem to be chaotic in nature, but the truth is that they lean more towards the lawful part of the spectrum.
Homeseas: The Lumulus Basin is a deep basin buttressed against the Spine of the World.  The floor of the basin is covered in geothermal vents that spew heat and chemicals into the stagnant waters of the lowest levels.
Religion: As hard as it may be to glean the mind of a Lumulan, it does become pretty clear that they view theology as much an alien concept as other Elquans view them.  If they have any faith at all, it would be in the power of science.
Language: Lumulans speak their own complex language, guttural in nature and punctuated heavily with clicks and chirps.  Learning the language is so difficult for non-Lumulans that they must spend two skill points each to learn how to speak and write it, but will be utterly incapable of becoming fluent as the manner in which Lumulans converse is cryptic and obfuscated.  A Lumulan can always tell when a non-native attempts to communicate in this tongue, and it is a dead give-away for individuals trying to disguise themselves as a Lumulan.
Names: There seems to be no gender bias in Lumulan nomenclature.  There are only eight clan names in the entirety of the Lumulus, but sharing the same surname does not indicated close relation.  An apostrophe (‘) in Lumulan is a gulping click from the back of the throat produced by slapping the vocal cords together.
First Names: A’klan’tlo, G’qwash’u, N’kos’zna, T’thikol’she, U’ua’ka
Forgeclan Names: G’dlu’mauex, J’warh’abvo, K’honk’coshe, M’zims’he, N’dlan’gisa, Q’oma’ithi, T’dlang’athi, X’hamel’af
Adventurers: Lumulans make strange party members.  They are difficult to relate to, work alongside, or even communicate with.  For a group of adventurers willing and patient enough to put up with the strange quirks of Lumulan existence, the pay off can be immeasurable.  The few Lumulans that achieve some kind of synergy with non-shellback races still keep them at arm’s distance.

Racial Traits

Ability Adjustments: Dexterity -2, Wisdom +4, Charisma -2
Automatic Class Skills: Decipher Script, Intuit Direction, and Speak Language.  Additionally, Lumulans are the only species with access to Profession (metalsmithing) and Profession (glassblowing), but they are not automatically known.
Skill Bonuses: Appraise +2, Decipher Script +2, Innuendo -2, Sense Motive -2.
Bonus Hit Dice: None
Natural Armor: The shell back of a Lumulan affords them some resistance to damage in the form of damage resistance 2.  This resistance will stack with any other form given by items or situation.  Shed shells are usually kept and consumed in a special ceremony commemorating the experience gained in the past year.
Natural Weapons: They hands serve as crushing claws, dealing 1d6 crushing (bludgeoning) damage as the Lumulan’s fingers constrict and crush whatever is caught between its digits.
Movement: Medium creature (1 cube tall), base speed 20 cubes.
Senses: Ultravision
Buoyancy: Shelf (adjustable)
Trance (Ex): The physiology of the Lumulan brain is so utterly different than that of other pisceans, and that fact is expressed most succinctly in their need to trance. Lumulans do not sleep; instead they enter a meditative state where they are completely aware of their surroundings, but completely incapable of acting on that knowledge.  It is impossible to rouse a trancing Lumulan from its meditative state and they are considered helpless until the required period of trancing elapses.  After any strenuous or extended activity (exiting combat initiative, taking 20 on a skill check, or spending any power points), a Lumulan must succeed a Will save DC 10 plus their level or immediate slip into their trance for a period of time equal to event that triggered the save.  For example, after a combat of four rounds, a 10^th-level Lumulus must make a Will save DC 20 or trance for four rounds.  Events that overlap (such as using psionic points during combat) will not cause the trance to trigger until all qualifying activities have ended.  Otherwise, a Lumulan must trance for four hours to achieve an equal rest to that of a Mer’s eight hour rest.
Improved Grab (Ex): Whenever a Lumulan makes a successful unarmed attack, it may immediately start a grapple as a free action that does not invoke an attack of opportunity.
Favored Class: Lumulans are the only race of the Known World with the ability to affect the waters around them with mere thought.  As such, they can take psionic classes, and do not count any such class against their multi-class levels.
Social Flaw: Xenophobic
Base Height: 3”9” (+ 2d4 in.)
Base Weight: 130 lbs. (+ height mod. x 2d6 lbs.)
Automatic Languages: Lumulan
Bonus Languages: Any.  Lumulans are so adept at languages that they can achieve the epic level feat polyglot as soon as they meet the prerequisites.  They still pay any extra skill points necessary to learn the foreign language.
Level Adjustment: None

The whole nation of the Lumulus Basin is divided into eight smaller states called forgeclans.  More than a family or a nation, all species of Lumulans co-mingle in the populace but maintain a clear respect of individual class and relation.  Each forgeclan specializes in a different aspect of national infrastructure, such as defense, agriculture, health, and so on.

Lumulan individuals are free to belong to any forgeclan they wish – heredity nor wealth play any part in the determination of their forgeclan surname, and a Lumulan may change affiliation multiple times in its lifetime.  This switch may illict ill feelings between individuals on a personal level, but socially it is as common as starting a new career is for other races.

Along with the Chelon, the lobster-like Lumulans are known as shellbacks, and an ongoing hostility has existed between the two races for as long as most can remember.  The Lumulans are just as much the aggressors in these wars as the Chelon, but more due to economic taxation than territorial annexation.

Their natural xenophobia is practically foremost in their unfathomable minds, and they will even relocate a settlement rather than co-exist with other species.  This extends even to themselves, as no Lumulan ethnicity would ever mate with a different one.  Keep in mind, this xenophobia does not originate out of fear or hatred for other races.  The closest it can be explained is that Lumulans cannot “think right” around others.

“Nothing natural is ever seen by looking into the eyes
of  a Lumulan, let alone through them…”
A common Chelon racist remark

Endless Blue - Week 12 - Chelon

Biology

Chelon – Elqua’s Caretakers of the Coral Reefs

The Chelon are a race in its twilight, a species of piscean more concerned with their own insular ideas and convoluted knowledge than the status of the races around them.  Egalitarian and deeply entrenched in process and Chelon-centric needs, they view themselves as the true piscean and all others of the Periphery as second-class races and those of the Hinterseas as no better than savages.  Despite their self-absorption, it was the Chelon that gifted the world with the ability to manipulate arcane magic.

Personality: Chelons are an obsessive people, obsessing on themselves, their exploration of self-created magic, and their eventual fate.  Generosity is hardly a quality attributed to the species.  They spare more mercy for the precious coral reefs of the Endless Blue than the species that live in them.  It is this strange, seemingly magnanimous dedication to preservation that belies the hidden compassion of Chelon.
Physical Description: Chelon are descended from shelled reptiles.  Their skin is wrinkled and loose, with hardened growths along the edges of their flippers and a collar of folded flesh around the neck.  Their skulls appear as if squeezed in on both sides by the jaws of a toothless predator and their round eyes are heavy lidded, giving them a look of distraction and a lack of lucidity.  Their upper lip has hardened into a vestigial beak over a down-turned lower lip and weak chin.  A hardened shell forms around their shoulders, extending down their backs to the mid of their pelvic bones, from which their stunted, leathery tail extends.  While genetically analogous, Chelons do have some variation on par to hair or eye color.  Terrapins tend to have more segmented shells,  Turtle shells are usually a single sloped carapace, and Tortoises shells are more bulbous, actually expanding outward before covering the back.
Relations: Chelon treat most all other races as unrefined.  This inherent racist bent does not express itself in hatred or fear, but instead as a dismissive demeanor of ambivalence, as if they could not be bothered to interact with other pisceans.
Alignment: Chelon can be any alignment, though their society tends to nurture more lawful minded individuals that conform to the expected behaviors best becoming a Chelon.
Homeseas: Chelonite settlements are usually located on the intersection of imaginary lines of natural energy that criss cross the sea bed of Elqua, and are camouflaged in well tended coral reefs that the citizens have cultured for generations as a matter of civic pride.  Admirers of the natural beauty are welcome among the Chelon, but they should not forget their lesser place.
Religion: Chelon believe themselves above such things as worship and supplication, and have developed a deity-free version of the Source, the same Source that fuels their magic, which they revere.
Language: Chelon speech is soft and well-mannered. While easily learned, writing the language is exceedingly complex, and requires non-Chelon to devote an additional skill point to Speak Language to learn the intricate script that Chelon used to eventual discover magic.
Names: Chelons receive their names by community consensus, with all members of the local settlement able to suggest names and debate their merit.  It can be a long, arduous process in more densely populated areas, but so important are progressive generations that it is one of the few things they willing let drag their attention away from mystic research.
Male Names: Aulus, Decinus, Gnaeus, Tiqus
Female Names: Appia, Malia, Quilia, Vibia
Family Names: Cloelius, Lartius, Sapvius, Vilsanius
Adventurers: While not reclusive, it is uncommon for Chelon to leave their homes without some purpose that furthers their race in some way.  It can be as simple as sending funds back home, as patriotic as protecting national interests, or as direct in advancing along the path of magic.

Racial Traits

Ability Adjustments: Intelligence +3, Dexterity -1, Charisma -2
Automatic Class Skills: Knowledge (arcana), Spellcraft
Skill Bonuses: +2 racial bonus on Decipher Script, Knowledge (arcana), and Spellcraft.
Save Bonuses: Chelon have a +2 racial bonus to saves against spells and spell-like effects due to the race’s intimate link with magic.
Bonus Hit Dice: None.
Natural Armor: The shell back of a Chelon affords them some minor resistance to damage in the form of damage resistance 1.  This resistance will stack with any other form given by items or situation.
Natural Weapons: None.
Movement: Medium creature (1 cube tall), base speed 30 cubes.
Senses: Low-Light Vision
Buoyancy: Shoals (adjustable)
Coralcutting: Chelon gain a +2 racial bonus on Search checks to notice unnatural alterations to coral growth such as those made by animals using severed branches as cover or shelter, or any warping made by magic.  Any Chelon passing within 10 feet of a creature in concealment or cover behind coral is entitled to make a Search check to notice it as if they were actively searching.  Further, they enjoy a +2 to Tracking checks through areas of coral growth, just sensing the agitation of the coral polyps in the wake of a passing creature.
Favored Class: Due to their intrinsic link to the arcane arts, Chelon excel at any class that is based on arcane spell-casting.  No arcane-based class counts against a multi-classing Chelon.
Social Flaw: Racist
Base Height: Male – 4’9” (+ 2d6 in.)
Female – 4’1” (+ 2d6 in.)
Base Weight: Male – 225 lbs. (+ height mod. x 2d6 lbs.)
Female – 175 lbs. (+ height mod. x 2d6 lbs.)
Automatic Languages: Chelon, Lumulus

Bonus Languages: Elquan, Koutonese, Locanthic, Sahaguin
Level Adjustment: None

Chelon life is in every aspect graceful and delicate, just like the coral they life amongst.  Xanthellae is the Chelon method of deriving magic from the natural world around them.  By tapping into the vital life essences of the world around them, Chelon spellcasters have learned the art of growing calcium carbonate – coral – into usable forms.  It is the fundamental building block of Chelon construction, and not only comprises most of their shelter, but also their ungues and nautiluses.  These growths of still living coral are permanently attached to the Chelon’s flesh and remain with them all their lives should they choose not to alter or remove them.

Should a Chelon reach a significant venerable age and not have succumbed to the dangers of living on Elqua, they bequeath their worldly belongings and take on a final pilgrimage to an unknown area of the Creche of Civilization.  This migration is one full of sadness and feelings of loss, as the departing Chelon is never seen again, and no sane Piscean would dare travel into the ruins of the Kraken Empire to discover this racial graveyard.  What goes on during this trek is unknown, but conjecture is that those that are not consumed by roaming predators or destroyed by hidden, left-over evils of the Kraken are rewarded with ascendance.

Bringing additional sorrow, for far too long – far longer than any Chelon is willing to admit even to themselves – the death rate of their species has outstripped their frequency of births.  With each succeeding generation the number of offspring halves, and there seems to be no slowing of this decline  This has made children a valued communal commodity, and offspring are treated as if the whole community gave birth instead of just the parents.  Heavy emphasis is placed on the greatness and accomplishments of the nation’s progenitors to such a degree that no Chelon child ever wishes to achieve less.

“The pulse of coral is the tide of life.”
Chelon explaining true xanthellae

Endless Blue - Week 11 - Orcan

Biology

Orcan -- Poet Warriors of the Endless Blue

Orcans are a contradiction in piscean form – massively built but essentially peaceful, unfathomably wise yet explosively rash.  They consider themselves the first civilized race on Elqua despite their barbaric origins, and take pride in the fact they converted their original savage ways into a strict martial lifestyle that married with their artistic and philosophical minds to become a race of contemplative poet-warriors renown across the oceans of the Endless Blue.

Personality: Usually reserved and patient, Orcans find spiritual fulfillment in investing extensive effort over long periods of time.  Forward thinkers, they have an astute ability for visualizing goals and taking the necessary steps to achieve them.  They are perfectly suited for tasks that require prolonged dedication and delayed results.
Physical Description: Orcans are a Large race, reaching 9” to 10’ long.  Their skin is thick with blubber, yet their bodies are well toned.  Their heads are somewhat bullet shaped, with their faces extending into a curved snout.  Instead of conical ears, the Orcans possess a tympanic membrane on either side of their head just above where their jaws meet their thick necks.  Ruffled bands of muscle extend from their lower jaw to just above their solar plexus, and their chests are barrel-shaped.   Their pelvic and tail fins evolved into flippers and a fluke, and their hands consist of three fingers and a thumb each.
Relations: Orcans view the other intelligent races as bickering children, and will often chide them for their behaviors, yet will resolutely not interfere.  They have allowed the Shellback War between the Chelon and Lumulus to rage for countless centuries despite their homesea laying between the two antagonistic bodies of water.
Alignment: Orcans are usually lawful, even those of the Narwahl that still cling to the old Cetacean Barbarian ways.
Homeseas: The homesea for the Orcans lies in the northern and western section of the Periphery around the Core.
Religion: As one of the “civilized” races, Orcans have abandoned the practice of Pantheon worship.  However, they still cling to the old ways of ancestor deification.
Language: Orcans speak Cetacean, a complex language perfectly suited for their vocal flexibility that at its root puts more emphasis on the pitch of speech than on the words spoken.
Names: In contradiction to their physical presence, Orcan names tend to consist of soft consonants and extended vowels, with a melodious sound well suited for singing.  Males tend to be named after their grandfathers (patriarchal, then matriarchal), while females are named after their grandmothers (matriarchal, then patriarchal).  On the off chance parents conceive of more children than the convention allow, the granduncles/grandaunts are then honored, descending in age.  Family names are the same as that of the pod.

Male Names: Anzaan, Ensho, Fuyoo, Sunyan
Female Names: Enmei, Farahl, Issoh, Lulesh
Family Names: Fushin, Hoyun, Mumol, Zenish

Adventurers: Adventuring Orcans have a little more of that hereditary wanderlust that drove the Cetacean Barbarians warring across the waves of Elqua.  They will enjoy venturing to new places, meeting new people, learning new things, and fighting new foes.  The race as a whole has an almost rapturous viewpoint in all things, be it lethal combat or uproarious camaraderie.

Racial Traits

Ability Adjustments: Orcan – Constitution +4, Charisma +2, Dexterity -2
Narwahl – Strength +2, Constitution +4, Wisdom -2
Automatic Class Skills: Listen, Perform (sing)
Skill Bonuses: +2 racial bonus on Intimidate and Innuendo checks.
Bonus Hit Dice: Orcans and Narwahl start with +1 Hit Die at 1^st level
Natural Weapons: Orcans have a Bite (1d6), while Narwahl instead use their dental tusks to Gore (1d6).
Movement: Large Creature (2 cubes tall), base speed 40 cubes.
Senses: Echolocation
Buoyancy: Shelf (adjustable)
Toughness (Ex): Orcans of both varieties posses damage reduction equal to their Constitution modifier from non-lethal damage.  This ability applies to non-lethal damage regardless of the source, be it from subdual attacks, environmental hazards, or biological stress.  However damage can never be reduced to less than 1 point.
Favored Class: Orcan – Monk (Monk Orcans can multiclass, ignore the restrictions of the Monk class).
Narwahl – Barbarian (Narwhal do not need to meet the non-lawful alignment criteria to become a barbarian).
Social Flaw: Hubristic
Base Height: Male – 9’1” (+ 2d6 in.)
Female – 8’5” (+ 2d6 in.)
Base Weight: Male – 500 lbs. (+ height mod. x 3d6 lbs.)
Female – 450 lbs. (+ height mod. x 3d6 lbs.)
Automatic Languages: Cetacean, Elquan
Bonus Languages: Chelon, Lumulus, Koutonese
Level Adjustment: +1

Orcan society is ritual based, and beginning essentially from birth the young are trained, tested, and re-trained in every facet of their society.  It is rare that an Orcan will pass these tests on the first try, and their civilization acknowledges this fact by incorporating a belief that failure is not catastrophe.  In a savage world like Elqua, failure results in damage and death, and as a result of their embracing failure as a lessoned learned, scars have become a bragging right. Scarification has become ingrained into the society, comparable to what tattoos are for ours.

One of the most important rites of passage for a young Orcan is mastering their pod’s school of martial combat.  Nothing means acceptance to an Orcan than knowing they have mastered the same fighting prowess as their father and mother, aunts and uncles, cousins and siblings have for generations before them.  It is common to find the entirety of a pod possessing the same feats, wielding the same ungues, armored in the same nautiluses as their brethren, unified in belief, in skill, in blood – a communal martial family.

This does not mean their style of fighting is rigid or antiquated, incapable of innovation or adaption.  Indeed, Orcans are very open to learning new ideas and techniques, and successfully incorporating them into their established methods.  It is of particular honor to have one’s innovation officially incorporated into the pod teachings, to be taught to subsequent young warriors on into eternity.  This most frequently happens with marriages, where one of the two bonded chooses to join to the other’s pod, and as a sort of dowry contributes a part of their original pod’s style to his or her new family.

But might is not all that defines an Orcan.  They challenge their minds as well as their bodies, and many of their martial teachings also teach philosophy and reason.  Claiming spirituality rather than religion, Orcan revere their ancestors as guiding spirits that watch over the lives of an Orcan and help guide it towards prosperity and happiness.

Leadership over a pod is usually assumed by the most hale and healty, eldest male still of functional age.  The pod’s alpha, this is not just a matter of whichever Orcan can best the previous alpha in combat.  There are traditional rituals both Orcans must test themselves with, and though there will always be physical trails due to the harsh surroundings on Elqua, wisdom and charisma are just as important to a leader as strength is.  Most alphas are aware of their progressive age and dwindling faculties, and will usually accept the challenge to their leadership thankfully, for the better of the pod.  But they will still insist on the completion of the trials to prove the new leader’s abilities.  No alpha would pass on the mantle of command to an unfit successor and still live.  And even if a new challenger deposes the established alpha, the pod can refuse the usurper’s status of their free will.  It is inconceivable for an Orcan pod to be controlled by a tyrant unless the majority of the pod shared in his cruelty.

“Life began in water; today it ends in blood…”
Warcry of the Cetacean Barbarians

Endless Blue - Week 10 - Species of the Endless Blue

Biology

Species of the Endless Blue
Scholars divide the races of Elqua into the civilized and primitive nations.  Claiming enlightened criteria, this dichotomy forced on intelligent species in actuality is an arbitrary and elitist separation based on homeogenic qualities that the societies among the Periphery and Crèche of Civilization share in common: namely a non-representative alphabet, an educational system, a lack of ethnic diversity, and an abandonment of Pantheon worship.  Some hypocrisy remains in this division of higher evolved grouping, as two of the four Civilized races still reproduce oviparously (via egg production) instead of viviparously (live birth); conversely, two of the primitive races carry their children to term.

Civilized Races of the Periphery

Chelon [kappa sapien] – The Chelon are a race in decline, having long ago reached their nation’s height of power and now suffer through the long, agonized slide into obscurity.  Chelon live to great age, but for far too long their birth rate has been outstripped by their natural death rate.  So old is the race that whatever ethnological variation they may have had homogenized into the sole race known of today.   Aristocratic in nature, they gave the Known World many of its inventions, and the Chelon Sea is believed to be the birthplace of magic.  They have chevron-shaped heads with a flat cranium, with small, inset eyes on either side of beaked mouth and a weak chin under that.  They possess a shell from their stooped shoulders that covers their back and most of their notably short tail.  Their skin, while not a bony as the shell on their back, is toughened with calluses.  Along with Lumulus, they are sometimes referred to collectively as “Shellbacks”, and the on-again/off-again war between the two distant nations has been coined after that appellation.
Pl. Chelon; adj. Chelonite

Lumulus [rakovica sapien] – Xenophobic and withdrawn, the Lumulus are the most alien of all the sentient races of Elqua’s Known World.  Masters of heat and the rare metals and glass of the ocean societies, these beings from the Lumulus Basin participate in a detached yet heavy commerce with the other bodies of water.  They possess a haunched, banded exoskeletal shell that they must shed yearly to grow.  Lumulus never stop growing, but only the rarest specimen has ever grown nearly as large as a Mer.  They have two main arms that end with three fingered hands that are heavily yet naturally armored, and a series of three “digits” interspersed between their gill slits.  Their eyes are completely black, and they possess long, fine, wiry hairs from their upper lip.  Perhaps the most notable feature of the Lumulus is their blue blood.  Their society is broken down into eight forgeclans, with their three ethnicities (rakova, jastog, and morski) freely intermixed.   Even though they are separated on either ends of the Known World, the Lumulus and Chelon nations have engaged in hostilities for most of their history.
Pl. Lumulus; adj. Lumulan

Mer [piscean sapien] – A race in ascendance despite some truly tragic self-induced calamities, the Mer are coming into their own.  Half-mammalian and half Piscean, the Mer were the most varied in appearance and were organized into thirteen tribes called “currents”.  These currents each form their own autonomous yet interdependent state under the banner of the Mer species.  At the present time, only eight of those original ethnicities still exist.  Despite this seeming turn toward extinction, the remaining currents are thriving, and now consider their expanse of the known world to be claustrophobic and have begun to look outward for more breathing room.  The Merfolk are perhaps the most diverse coloration (which determines in which current they belong), with a myriad of patterning that varies from family to family.
Pl. Mer, Merfolk (antiquated); adj. Mer

Orcan [cetacean sapien] – Considering themselves to be the first race of Elqua, the Orcans are warrior poets descended from the once marauding Cetacean barbarians.  Their skin is smooth, yet thick, with a rubbery texture that belies the practiced lethality of their martial history.  Ridged folds of skin contract from their where their lower lip would be down over their broad, barrel chests to their solar plexus. Strict vegetarians, this ruffled skin expands on their distendable jaws to swallow massive volumes of water, and the plates hanging from the back of the throat strain the great amounts tiny plankton they need each day to survive.  This does not mean the race is toothless, as they posses a series of similarly spaced out, pointed incisors that can inflict a vicious bite.  Indeed, one of their two subraces – the Narwahl – still feature the pair of dental tusks that jut from the upper lip which the Cetacean Barbarians were so well reknown.
Pl. Orcans, Cetacean (antiquated); adj. Orcan

Ceph [vulgaris sapien] – These are the degenerate descendants of the dominating Kraken.  Considered lower than the Primitive races of the Hinterseas, yet found collectively among even the most effluent societies, the Ceph have proven they are survivors, if anything.  They fill any niche they can, desperately trying to eek out a living in the face of the bigotry leveled against them.  Heightening this estrangement is the curious fact they are the sole intelligent race that does not share the torso/tail morphology common to the sapient races, and instead appear as larger, more advanced octopi capable of speech.  They also posses three subspecies, differentiated by the ridge patterns formed on their foreheads by their cuttle bones.  They all posses the eight limbed form and strange “w”-shaped pupil form of their forefathers, but at a greatly reduced stature.  Ceph do have an interesting natural camouflage ability that helps them hide even in the brightest lit waters of the Shore.
Pl. Ceph; adj. Cephic

Primitive Races of the Hinterseas

Kuoton [kaeru sapien] – The Kuoton are an old race that has harassed the other intelligent races for millennia, using many forgotten secrets of dangerous evils that dwell in the oceans beyond the Known World.  Their form is roughly amphibian, resembling a frog, with slimy skin hanging loose around inflatable jowls and a mouth filled with tiny, needle shaped teeth, giving the species an appearance of having it face smashed flat.  Their blunt snouted head is diminutive in proportion to their bulging, wide-spaced eyes that each posses a sideways nictitating eyelid.  Their arms and tail are thin, but strong, and their hands appear webbed like their tail flukes.  Over all, their oily bodies are reedy except for a paunch around their pelvic flukes.
Pl. Kouton; adj Koutonese

Locanth [peixe sapien] – The Locanth are still a nomadic race, just as their ancient forefathers were, migrating around the Gulf of Locanth in pursuit of their traditional meals.  They have dim, oval eyes on either side of the skull like herbivores, yet they maintain a mostly carnivorous diet.  Since their gaping mouths lack any teeth, and their slender fingered hands do not end with claws, the species on the whole are not aggressive and tend to distrust outsiders.  Large fins sprouting from their arms and sides of their tail work in conjuction with their pelvic fins, making Locanths perhaps the fastest intelligent race on Elqua.  There is little to tell the difference between the male and female of the species other than the dark markings around the female’s egg sacs.
Pl. Locanths; adj. Locanthic

Sahaguin [vis sapien] – Sahaguin are a primitive race, larger than any other of the Known World races save the Cetaceans.  They also have extended fins along their arms and tail like the Locanth, but the more predatory eyes and mouth like the Kouton.  There is little to no fat on the body of a Sahaguin, and the muscles underneath their heavily scaled skin are visibly rippled, like coils traveling from the head down to the tip of their tail.   Over all, they are superbly fit for their predatory lifestyle, and their aggressiveness knows little restraint.  They have maintained a constant animosity to the Mer to such an extent that the two cannot co-exist in the same living area for long before hostilities break out.  They are deathly secretive about their children, and any inquiry about their noted absence results in violence.
Pl. Sahaguin; adj. Sahaguani

Yaun-Teel [anguiliformes sapien] – Originally thought to be an offshoot of the Mer, the Yaun-Teel will usually be mistaken for Mer with a casual glance.  However, upon closer inspection, their subtle eel-like features betray their origins.  Their bodies are lithe and agile, with slender necks and tapered fingers.  Perhaps the most telling feature of their form is that their eyes never blink.  They are a guileful and manipulative race, believing without exception in the superiority of their bloodline.  As such, any adept race other than themselves is considered fair game for slavery, including their close cousins, the Mer.
Pl. Yaun-Til, adj, Yaun-Til

Keep in mind, while these are the races of the Endless Blue setting, they do not define the nationalities beyond the area of the Known World the races first began.  Outside of physical limitations (i.e., the Shelf of the Cetacean Oceans) and national dogma (the xenophobic Lumulus Basin), there are cross border bloodlines: Mer that have lived in the Chelon Seas since the original thirteen currents, or Narwhal in the Sahaguin Lagoons, and the Ceph in nearly every body of water.  Individuals of these multicultural upbringings will have mixed their biological heritage with their societal surroundings to form towns, even metropolises, of unique character and vision.

Endless Blue - Week 04 - Cooking without Fire

Biology

      Most animals of the world can eat their meals raw, be it chewing up plant matter or gulping down other animals in parts or in whole. Humans are different, however. While we can eat many things raw – such as salads and sushi – we actually thrive better on cooked foods – like potatoes or roasts. Cooked meat is easier for the body to process the vital proteins and vitamins necessary in the large dietary intake required for development of the brain. But in a world where water surrounds you everywhere, you cannot light a match and set the campfire necessary to cook a pot of stew or roast a coney. Further, our smaller jaws, mix of teeth, and narrow larynges make swallowing things whole difficult at best and dangerous at worst. And even if such harder foods could be swallowed, our dedicated digestive system is ill prepared to efficiently break these hardy products down into usable bits we can easily assimilate.

      Where as we cultivated fire, the civilizations of Elqua instead developed a method of food preparation based more directly on chemistry than as a result of physics. Cooking produces an irreversible change in food with the intention of making it both easier to digest and more palatable to the consumer. Raw meat changes from red to brown when baked, and the transparent whites of an egg turn opaque after it is cooked. It was discovered that foods immersed in citric acids become denatured in much the same manner as normal cooking – essentially becoming pickled in a cooking process independent of heat. This way the foods are sterilized from bacterial infection and also preserved for storage (an essential need for civilization to flourish) just as their temperature-processed parallels become with normal cooking. With high-calorie food transformed into a state that is easier to masticate, we spend less calories chewing cooked food rather than raw. Spending less energy collecting energy means more can be spent else were, giving us a surplus of caloric energy to devote to cultural growth.

      One of the drawbacks of chemical cooking is one of time – it takes hours for a meal to finish “cooking” before it reaches its most edible state. In our own world, cuisine such as ceviche is prepared via citric fruits like lime, but require significant lengths of time for the food to marinate – from a little as four hours to as long as overnight – to allow the chemical process the opportunity to permeate the meal. As a result, mealtime has become an event that must be planned around to such a degree that it is intimately ingrained into society. So much so, that cooking has become the basis of time measurement in zones of Elqua’s ocean depths where light cannot penetrate.

      Another drawback to cooking is again the medium in which it is prepared. Water currents are constantly moving, be they gentle trickles or dangerous torrents. Biting into a plant or animal breaks the outer skin and allows its inner fluids to escape, bleeding into the surrounding water that is dragged along with the flow. The very act of eating leaves traces of food in the currents that can be carried for long distance and still be picked up by predators and prey with tracescent. With an animal’s attention piqued, it will not be long before the individuals that just recently fed may themselves become a meal for something else.

      In terms of the D20 rules set, Alchemy replaces Craft (cooking) as the skill to denature food. Advances in alchemy led to the development of consumable catalysts that aid and speed up this process, called kelaguen, and is a vital portion of the culinist character class’ abilities.

Acari

      One of the rare contributions to modern society by the undeveloped races (the northern Locanth and Kouto), the acari is an aquatic vine that produces a grayish fruit with a translucent, rubbery skin and gelatinous insides. While the melon fruit possesses a poor, gruel-like taste, the plant’s benefit stems from an innate ability to absorb nutrients that will affect the pulp of the fruit. It’s this ability that makes the acari fruit indispensable to culinists. Through alchemical and agricultural means, nutrients can be mixed into the fruit pulp, providing a storage medium for later consumption.

      A mer trader is given credit for its discovery, but the truth is he procured it by trading with the primitive races, which had used it for millennia as a luxury indulgence. It flourishes best in the shore due to the unfiltered sunlight, but can also grow (albeit, with tougher consistency fruit) around sources of heat such as the thermal vents of the Lumulus Basin.

Ricelqua

     The food staple of the world, ricelqua is a hardy, short plant that produces a grain full of vital nutrients. However, the plant can only grow in shore areas, where sunlight can shine down almost directly on the broad, lily-like leaves that float just beneath the surface of the water. With its root system deeply entrenched in the shallows’ soil, it’s supple stalk uncoils upward and spreads it’s broad leaves just below breaking the surface. The crop will sway in a mesmerizing pattern as the gentle action of the tides sweep the plants back and forth.

     Ricelqua requires little in the way of active cultivation other than protection of incursive fauna until harvest time a scant three to four months after planting or ratooning. This makes ricelqua farming a dangerous endeavor, as predation by surface abominations becomes a significant threat. So shallow are the waters in a ricelqua field that there is barely enough room for a mer to swim, with is belly along the fertile loam and his back skimming the water’s edge, that they are vulnerable to any passing land-based predator that turns it’s attention to the paddy.

     Refinement of ricelqua produces a mash with alcoholic properties. It can be chewed raw for a slight inebriation (though this is considered extremely crude in many elitist circles), or further refined and used as a base ingredient for various intoxicating acari-based concoctions. Subsequent aging of these alcoholic fruit can bring out exotic flavors, but storage and protection of these luxuries is the province of the affluent.

Endless Blue - Week 03 - The Piscean Form

Biology

Unlike the world we know, life on Elqua mostly remained in the oceans. This results in a few common traits that are universal to all creatures, player and non-player characters alike. These “genetic constants” are just that – traits that evolved into the species from the first single cells that populated the planet’s waters.

Water breathing is the primary genetic constant. Never emerging from the palpable fullness of the seas into the intangible emptiness of air above the waves means the organs that extract oxygen from the atmosphere and infuse it into our bloodstream never developed. The lack of true air-breathing will result in some slight re-definitions of the various animal phyla and orders. Amphibians, for instance, are mainly defined as life forms with a water-breathing larval state and an air-breathing adult state. With the genetic constant of water-breathing only, amphibians may be relegated to a sub-class of reptile whose main differentiating aspect is the lack of scaly skin. The extent of these changes is perhaps better addressed at another day.

Not having evolved lungs means native life kept the pre-existing method of aquatic organs known as gills. Gills are an anatomical structure of microscopic filters that extract oxygen from the water and excrete carbon dioxide out of the body. Of the sea creatures we know, most vertebrates (biological organisms that posses a spine) have their gills located either side the larynx, with the “gill slits” exposed to the environment. To breathe, the organism opens its mouth and swallows an amount of water, which is then squeezed out through the gills by the muscles in the throat instead of the peristaltic push downward into the stomach as with the eating process. This is what the well-known gaped, gulping action of the mouth is that we associated most vividly with fish.

This would be simple enough to translate into the biology of an aquatic humanoid. Instead of respiration being dependent on a diaphragm in the torso, it would rely on thicker neck muscles. The problem, though, comes from volume. Compare the size of the chest cavity that houses the lungs to the small surface area of the neck. The lung has a network of divergent structures called bronchioles that terminate in alveoli. These work just as the filaments in a gill do, but with immensely more volume. If a humanoid was dependent on such smaller gills for respiration, they would constantly be gulping water to keep up with their cellular need for oxygen.

A further drawback to this form comes from a more artistic perspective. This form of respiration would make small things we recognize in our own behavior that convey great amount of emotion quite difficult, such as simply sighing. Strangulation would also prove nearly impossible, as the grip of the would-be attacker would need to press down and shut all the gills on either side of the neck, instead of simply shutting the wind pipe. Choking an opponent is such a primal, visceral image that it would be a great shame to lose that narrative tool, so some kind of change had to be made.

To resolve this, humanoids of Elqua will instead have “embedded gills”, a form of lung/gill hybrid. The bronchioles will connect to the gill fibers in lung-like organs that are controlled by the diaphragm. This wall of muscle will contract, forcing the water through gill exits located on either side of the rib cage. These groups of three gill exits will be lined under the bottom three ribs, with the muscle flap anchored to those ribs allowing the slits to be closed in cases where the individual will attempt to hold his breath. With this arrangement, putting pressure around the neck will still block the intake of water and result in strangulation, and the slow exhalation from the chest still achieves the non-verbal sigh.

With this second pair of bodily orifices, the need for a nose is greatly diminished. Thematically, the structure we know of as a “nose” will not exist in the evolution of Elquan life. This will not diminish the sense of smell’s role in the setting. Our sense of smell is strongly linked to our sense of taste, and it greatly enhances our experience when eating. Anyone with a strong cold or the flu can attest that food tastes much blander with their sinuses are clogged and preventing the odor receptors from interacting with the scents wafting in the air.

Scent and taste are intertwined for many denizens of our oceans. Sharks are notorious for their ability to detect the faintest trace of blood in the currents from far away. Elquan life will smell things much the same way, expressed by abilities like tracking by tasting trace elements in the sea currents.

What now comes into question is the ability to communicate through sound. Speech is an invaluable tool for the evolution of civilization, and without the ability to convey even basic need or emotion most animals would be helpless. Roars to frighten off encroaching challengers, whinnies to panic other herd animals, mating calls to facilitate reproduction are all facts of life dependent on the ability to not only produce sound, but to also hear it. This is where the lung/gill hybrid will help, by acting as a resonance chamber.

Much like the hollow body of a guitar, sound enters a resonance chamber and bounces off the internal structures, amplifying the intensity (volume) of the sound. With a stronger intensity, sound waves can be propagated through the water’s natural quality to impede motion. Humans do much the same thing when singing “from the diaphragm” – their chest cavity acts like a resonance chamber, aiding in the projection of sound. Despite the fact that the air is being pushed out the mouth (or out the rib cage in the case of Elquan natives), the sound is still intensified by the reverberation back into the body. The vocal chords of humanoid Elquan life will remain in the larynx, but speech will posses a slight triphonic aspect – much like a surround system’s left, right, and center speakers -- as sound will escape not just the mouth but the gill slits on either side as well. Some intelligent species, such as the Orcans, will be able to take advantage of this to a great degree, giving them echolocative abilities and a unique mode of speech.

With this in mind, the image of aquatic humanoids begins to solidify perceptually. The removal of the nose serves as a visual distinction in the look of the Endless Blue setting that will hopefully add a level of alien-ness without losing the sense of empathy from the players. The position of the gills gives a reason to realistically leave the sides of the body relatively bare, playing well into the artistic interpretation that aquatic life would tend towards being scantily clad. Still identifiably human but sufficiently distanced by biological evolution, life on Elqua begins to take on a shape that will allow players to explore this new blue world.