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 09 - 3D Combat

Physics

Danger From All Sides

Despite the tranquil vista of oceans of the Endless Blue setting, Elqua is a very dangerous place to simply live.  Without solid boundaries to prevent the encroachment of other creatures, every cubic inch of the seas can hide a quick death in the jaws of a predator or by the passive defenses of prey.  To eat or be eaten is the basic law of nature, and on Elqua it is as true as anywhere.  Eventually, inevitably, sooner or later everything has to fight for its life.

The depth that combat takes place uses the table-top as an anchor point, just as if you were playing a game in any other setting.  However, being surrounded in other games only means having eight opponents ringed around you.  In the Endless Blue campaign setting, where a character’s buoyancy keeps him floating at a controllable depth in the water, becoming surrounded means twenty-six opponents boxing a victim in from all directions – eight around, nine above, and nine below.  With that many possible combatants, keeping track of three dimensional position on a two dimensional plane becomes problematic.

To address this, each model will need a special die.  At first glace it would appear to be a twenty-sided die, closer inspection of the faces reveals two sequences of 0-9 in two colors.  In the case of the examples here, the two colors are light blue and dark blue.  Each face signifies how many “cubes” (the 3D equivalent to D20’s “squares”) above or below the table-top the creature floats.  The lighter blue numbers represent altitudes higher than the models on the table-top, and darker blue means lower depths.  Each cube roughly equals 5 cubic feet of space.  This means a die set to 2 is approximately 10 feet above the table top, and 5 means twenty-five feet below the table-top.  When a creature moves, simply add (for ascending upward) or subtract (for sinking downward) the number of cubes moved from the die.  Becoming parallel with other creatures on the table-top is considered 0 (of either color).

So this:

...becomes this:

Remember that ascending any number of cubes greater than the creature's Constitution score results in a check for the pull.  Should a creature risk letting its natural buoyancy pull it upward in combat, attackers are allowed an attack of opportunity.  If an attacker is located directly above a victim, the victim cannot use its natural buoyancy to pull it out of combat.

Obviously, when a creature has moved more than forty-five feet (9 cubes) away from the table top in either direction, the die can no longer track their distance from the table-top.  Use the same methods as if the creature had passed off the edge of the table-top.  Opponents at these distances rarely matter in immediate combat due to the severely truncated ranges that weapons and spells can travel in the medium of water.

Not all creatures fit easily into a single cube.  For a rough estimate, creatures Small or Medium will normally take up one cube.  Creatures of Tiny, Diminutive, and Fine sizes take up less than a single cube, and multiples of these creatures can occupy the same cube.  Since creatures these sizes have no reach, they must enter the cube a victim occupies to attack, and there qualify as a participant of a flank in any direction.

Large and larger creatures will take up cubes dependant on their orientation.  For example, a piscean of Huge size will occupy a number of vertical cubes, where as a Gargantuan serpent will fill a number of horizontal cubes.  Keep in mind that some creatures, such as the above serpent, may very likely be able to twist up or below, and even bend back on themselves, filling cubes on both vertical and horizontal axes.  In these cases, multiple dice (for each cube of the creature’s length) are used to determine where each segment of the creature is located, their order determined by die color or size.  This is called a creature's orientation, and in an essentially gravity-less environment such as underwater "up" is just an arbitrary direction.

Flanking Bigger Creatures

Flanking rules are still the same as in D20, but now can be inflicted in three dimensions.  The character and the ally must still be directly opposite each other with at least one cube of the victim between them.  There may be multiple cubes of the victim between them, but the line of cubes must be in a straight line from the creature to the ally.  If you can draw an imaginary line between the center of the cube the creature to the center of the ally, and that line crosses the line between the center of the first cube and the center of the last cube any of the cubes the victim occupies, the flank is legal.

The blue line overlaid on the serpent is the line from the center of the first cube it occupies to the center of the last cube it is in.  The direct line between an attacker and an ally must cross this axis to qualify as a flank.

Red lines are invalid flanks; green lines are valid.  In the above example:

Ceph 1 flanks the serpent with Ceph 3 and 4.
Ceph 2 flanks the serpent with Ceph 3 but not Ceph 4.
Ceph 3 flanks the serpent with Ceph 1 and 2.
Ceph 4 flanks the serpent with Ceph 1 but not Ceph 2.
None of the Ceph flank with the Mer.

Note: A sufficiently long creature that occupies enough cubes to wrap around a victim (5 or more) can flank with itself if it possess a natural weapon(s) on both ends (a bite attack and a tail slam, for example).  In these cases, the intervening sections (cubes 2 through 4) qualify as an ally for any other attacker.

There are creatures on the face of Elqua whose size dwarfs even the most Gargantuan of creatures that ruled over other worlds.  These Immense and Tremendous creatures are simply too large to be flanked by any creatures, even others of their own kind.  To foolishly attack one of these beasts is as effective as striking the ground or swinging at a mountain.  They are like forces of nature, and natives of the Endless Blue setting pray they never cross paths with these legendary threats.

Endless Blue - Week 08 - Buoyancy

Physics

Buoyancy

Every child knows things either sink or float, but day-to-day existence in the oceans of Elqua requires a character to be able to maintain his level in the water.  Bedding down on ocean floor is of little use if when you sleep during the night you wake up to find you’ve risen to the surface as you slumbered.  Just as a hot-air balloon can maintain its altitude in the atmosphere, aquatic creatures can do much the same under water.

A body normally displaces water, and that water presses inward trying to refill that space. That produces an upward pressure that pushes a body to the surface and makes it float.  This is buoyancy.  Increasing a body’s buoyancy results in it rising to the surface, just as decreasing it causes the same body to sink.  The further down in the depths of the ocean you go, the greater the forces push a less dense body upward, so the greater effort needs to be spent to overcome buoyancy.  A body’s floating point is the depth at which it’s no longer floats upward or sinks downward due to autonomic processes in the body.  In the Endless Blue setting, this point is usually categorized by whatever zone of water constitutes the creature native habitat – the Shore, the Shoals, or the Shelf.

A creature’s buoyancy does not prevent it from rising higher or diving deeper, just that it takes active effort swimming to overcome the natural inclination to return to their neutral floating point.  It is a move-equivalent action to maintain attitude at a water level different than the character’s buoyancy point.

Below the Waves
Buoyancy is achieved in Pisceans with a several redundant systems.  As a rule of thumb, the primary means is how aquatic life forms evolved their morphology to posses a lesser density than the water surround them, thus producing an intrinsic higher buoyancy to aid their locomotion and survival under water.  As a result, a dead piscean will automatically rise to the surface unless it is weighted down (several burial customs involve wrapping a corpse in their belongings or even rocks and seaweed to cause it to sink down).  Conversely, terrestrial and avian life have a lower buoyancy, and so will sink toward the ocean floor when killed – though they rarely reach significant depths before predators and scavengers devour the sinking meal.
The second process is via an organ called the swim bladder, which functions by diffusing or infusing gasses from oils and lipids in the expandable sac.  Because these infused oils are not compressible from ocean pressure, the swim bladder helps regulate the buoyancy by exuding more gases (which are compressible) to sink and reabsorb them to return to their neutral buoyancy point.  Creatures able to adjust their own swim bladders consciously may do so once per round for free as part of a move action instead of at the normal cost of their movement. This can only be accomplished when the creature is either unencumbered or lightly encumbered.
The final method is by the pelvic fins located at the socket-like notch called the acetabulum on each side of the pelvic bone, like the hips of terrestrial creature.  These webbed fins act like the wings of a bird, inducing dynamic lift.  Flexing of the spines changes the shape of the fins, allowing the creature to travel deeper.

Not all creatures are built for all depths.  While the Ceph can survive at any level, many creatures from the Shore would be crushed instantly in the dark trenches of the Shelf, just as a jellyfish native to the Shelf that has lived all it’s existence under the extreme pressures of the on the ocean floor would rupture outward from its internal fluids pressing outward and die were it marooned along the Shore.
A creature can voluntarily release its buoyancy to neutral, essentially becoming weightless.  This results in immediate movement as physics and gravity try to push the individual to the surface.  These creatures move their full movement (they cannot move less) directly upward until they readjust their buoyancy (by either a move action or for free as part of one) and cease their ascent.  They may then move normally.

The danger with this movement is a condition called “the pull”, or decompression sickness.  Early Elquans believed the pull to be a curse by the evil aberrations above the waves to claim more souls.  Usually the victim would die and the body’s natural buoyancy would cause it to rise to the surface (where it would become fodder for predators0 instead of sinking all the fathoms towards union with the gods.  Myth aside, every body is under pressure in the depths of Elqua’s oceans, and as a result of this pressure certain gasses are harmlessly dissolved and dispersed throughout their body’s fluids.  As an individual rises, the pressure eases and the dispersed elements coagulate back into gases.  Rising too quickly results in the gasses forming more quickly than the body’s normal means of eliminating them.

The Pull

Individuals can always rise a number of feet per round equal to their Constitution score without a risk of incurring the pull.  Moving greater than that requires a Fortitude save each round of moving so to avoid becoming incapacitated and helpless.  The DC for this is a base save of 15 for the first round, with and cumulative penalty of +2 for every successive round spent rising via positive buoyancy.  If a creature moves more than its Fortitude score in feet, it takes an additional penalty of +2 when moving its full rate, or a +5 if performing more than a single move action.

Rise up to Fortitude score in feet                           No penalty
Move over Fortitude in a single move                    +2
Move over Fortitude in a full round action             +5
Each round rising beyond Fortitude score             +2 cumulative

Failing such a Fortitude save results in immediate spasms and wracking pain.  The victim of the pull becomes disabled and begins taking 1 point of temporary Constitution damage per round he continues to rise.  Should the creature’s buoyancy become neutral and he stops rising, the Constitution damage stops accruing.  The Constitution damage can be restored at a rate of 1 point per day spent at a lower depth, and the victim is allowed a new Fortitude save each of those days at a flat DC 15 to remove the disabled status.

Above the Surface

For native creatures, survival above the life-giving waves of Elqua is not unlike survival underwater for air-breathers.  An aquatic creature essentially holds their breath on the surface to avoid asphyxiation.  The muscles of the gill-slits press the flap down and seal the organ so gravity cannot cause the water to spill out, preventing speech but keeping water already in the lungs around the oxygen-extracting gills.
A creature can hold their breath for a number of rounds equal to twice their Constitution score.  After that period expires, the creature must make a Constitution check (DC 10) to subsume their semi-autonomic breathing reflex, with a cumulative +1 each subsequent round.  Failure is a little more torturous for an aquatic than a terrestrial, resulting instead with the creature passing out, becoming helpless, and automatically taking 1 point of permanent ability score damage to all abilities (Constitution, Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma) each round until they are submerged under water again.  Should any one of those abilities reach 0 before re-submergence happens, the creature dies.

Endless Blue - Week 07 - Shore, Shoals, and Shelf

Oceanography

Topographical zones

Despite its submergence beneath fathoms of water, Elqua is little different from any other world.  It has mountains and valleys, rolling hills and wide plains, shallow basins and expansive mesas.  The main difference between the more familiar world and the world of endless blue is that Elqua’s ocean level is far higher than most.  The tallest peaks of mountains in a normal realm appear as island archipelagos here, and what would be sea level for a more familiar world becomes a kind of underwater balcony before the drop into the darkness of the ocean floor.

Understanding the logistics of Elqua requires the acceptance that the oceans are comprised of three levels, layers that cut across the depths of the world’s water: the Shore, the Shoals, and the Shelf.

The first layer is known as the Shore, and it is composed of the sea floor that directly touches land at the water’s edge and extends approximately 200 feet from the surface.  Usually defined as “lit water”, the visible spectrum of light fully illuminates this layer along the coast of what little land breaks the waves.  Wildlife of vivid and varied color thrive as the Sun warms these waters thoroughly, allowing more traditional ecosystems to continue and flourish, and as such surface predators use these coastal areas as hunting grounds.  This area includes the waterline gained and lost by the complex tides of Elqua.

Next come the Shoals, or “dark water”.  This far down – to about 650’ – ambient light has begun to be absorbed by the expanse of water above.  Cooler colors begin to look muted and muddy, and the warmer colors are little more than black.  Shades and hues become washed out and indistinguishable.  With less light, the water is cooler here, and requires a modicum of protection to withstand the temperature.  The land begins to slant downward more aggressively, and can extend outward this way for miles and miles in all directions.  The sea floor here would be the equivalent of the plains on a dryer world, ie, large swaths of relatively flat land for as far as the eye can see.  The majority of life on Elqua inhabits this zone.

Finally is the Shelf.  Light has all but been swallowed up, and normal vision is useless.  Darkness is the norm here, and due to the complications of maintaining life at these depths, the few races that live here are the more varied and extreme.  Insulated from the heat of the sun, significant adaptation must be made to avoid hypothermia.  Here the continental plates take a sharper slope downward, forming the trenches and basins of the deepest oceans.

The races of the Endless Blue setting are scattered across these striped regions.  Some, like the Kouton, are tied closely to the Shore due to biological need.  Others, such as the Orcans, populate the Shelf almost exclusively.  Then there are the Ceph, whom are found everywhere, in a manner reinforcing the ancient bigotry that they are essentially vermin that have worked their way into every hidden nook and cranny of decent Elquan life.

Travel

Even a basic grasp of geography would tell you the shortest route between two points is a straight line.  While this is difficult to accomplish above water due to the curvature of solid land, it is much easier to achieve under the waves.

The seafloor is much like a valley, but on a vastly larger scale.  The tips of the hills would be the Shore, the slope of the hills the Shoals, and the valley bottom itself the Shelf.  Short of some kind of magic, to travel from hilltop-to-hilltop on dry land requires a traveler to climb down one embankment, hike across the valley bottom, and then scale up the opposite slope.  But underwater, the inherent tendency for matter to float (called buoyancy) allows travelers to simply swim straight across from hilltop-to-hilltop, avoiding the valley altogether.

However, there are dangers to this.  Foremost among them is “water blindness”.  Due to the light-absorbing properties of water and the particulate matter suspended therein, vision is often limited.  While in the Shores land is almost always visible, floating above the center of the hypothetical valley may put hilltops beyond visual range. With no point of reference, it is quite easy to become disoriented and lose one’s way.  Even rising to the surface is of little help in mid-ocean, where the endless horizon of rising and falling waves is rarely broken by a glimpse of land.

The next danger is the vulnerability.  With solid earth firmly beneath your feet, it is generally a safe assumption that nothing will burst up out of the ground and swallow an unwary traveler.  However, when afloat in the water, danger can approach in not just the hemisphere above, but from below as well.  With 360^o cube degrees of potential danger, it makes crossing “open waters” a risky endeavor.

The risk of cross-currents adds to the difficulty of travel.  While a body of water may appear as a languid pool, the flow of water layers can work against passage, dragging the helpless victim at immense speeds into danger.  These currents can be as weak as a trickle, or as strong as raging river rapids.  And when submerged in total water, visually discerning these tidal forces is nearly impossible as they are for all intents invisible to simple sight.  The development of infravision – seeing into the infrared spectrum normally given off by heat – has allowed some creatures to deal with this ever-present and quickly changing threat.

Finally, there is the effect environmental space has on the size that lifeforms can theoretically achieve.  With more space, creatures that normally would be expected to grow to a moderate size – like say a squid – can grow to a colossal scale.  With the volume of the oceans on Elqua, there is no gauging to what extremes a creature might reach.  Larger predators that may move faster, swim deeper, and consume huge groups of Pisceans like they were microscopic plankton.  Even animals thought as harmless due to their normal diminutive size become hazardous threats when their scale is multiplied by a magnitude or two.

In general, it is safer to skirt along the seabed when traveling.  It provides protection in the form of shelter and opportunities to hide that are simply impossible floating in the middle of the deep blue.  On the other hand, there are some risks in traveling along the ocean floor.  Traveling too deep runs the risk of dangers from ocean pressure – the weight of all that water overhead pressing down on a creature.  The deeper one sinks, the greater the weight pressing down on their body.  If they are not designed to resist these heightened pressures, the creature will literally be crushed from the forces.

Life beneath the waves of Elqua is difficult, but manageable.  It takes a different mindset to view what would normally be a boundary for a landwalker as the opportunity it is to a waterdiver.  The sharp, straight borders of our world are replaced with the gradual phasing of darkness, pressure, and cold.  But despite all this, societies flourish under the seas of the Endless Blue.

Endless Blue - Week 06 - Map of the Known World

Oceanography

There is a plethora of intelligence beneath the waves of Elqua, and like any peoples, they group together with their neighbors and form communities.  Communities in the Endless Blue setting are defined by the body of water that holds the society, or “homesea”.  While they may seem to consist of a single species, immigration over the centuries has not left a single one without some level of intermixing.

On this water world, the nations formed due to geological formations and historical conflict, and thus are now clustered around a central area in the Eastern hemisphere.  With little knowledge of beyond its claustrophobic borders, this known world is broken down into three concentric divisions.

The Core

The Core is defined as the ruins of the Kraken Empire and the Crèche of Civilization.  Once populated, the area is now considered cursed and blessed (respectively), and much of the politics of the aquatic nations revolve around either coveting or despising the Core.
The main geographical feature of the Core is the Maw of the Kraken, the actual homesea of the once mighty Kraken Empire.  The borderseas around this area once belonged to other nations but was usurped during the Kraken Occupation.  Now, even long after the fall of the invaders, the area around the Maw is avoided at all costs.
The Crèche is treated as holy waters, and nearly every race wishes to claim it as their own.  It’ sea-beds are the richest in agricultural and mineralogical resources that, due to the contention between the races, remains nearly pristine from the era of the Icht Dominion.

The Periphery

The Periphery is comprised of the four civilized nations, which are clustered around the Core: the Cetacean Oceans, the Chelon Seas, the Lumulus Basin, and the Mer Currents.  These nations have relatively favorable conditions for harvesting crops and raising livestock, and as a result are the more affluent nations.

The Hinterseas

The Hinterseas are the area loosely made up of the nations of the primitive races: the Kouton Bay, the Locanth Gulf, the Sahaguin Lagoons, and the Yaun-Teel Bights.  They surround the Periphery, effectively corralling the civilized races inward towards the Core or each other’s territories.  At the more climatic extremes, these nations have poor natural resources to sustain their peoples, and thus results in unavoidable poaching on the wealthier nations’ borders.

Bodies of Water
While nations maintain "no mer's seas" along their borders, this does not keep the natural encroachment of plants and animals across these imaginary lines.  With the primitive races that still maintain a nomadic lifestyle, following the herds on their instinctive migrations sometimes brings them into territorial conflicts with the indigenous denizens.

Cetacean Oceans
To the north and west of the Kraken’s Maw, the Cetacean Oceans are a deep double-impact crater that is claimed to include the deepest point on all of Elqua.  It is an expansive, fathomless place well suited for the Orcan race.  The phytoplankton (the lowest link of the food chain for the entire world) in this area is plentiful and varied, enabling the Orcan peoples to turn inward into the craters in their quest for new feeding grounds.  It is perhaps the best balanced area, with sufficient Shore, Shoal, and Shelf areas to keep the nation nearly autonomous and independent of imports from the other nations.

Chelon Sea
The Chelon Sea is nearly completely comprised of Shoals, a rolling sea-bed of rich silt and vital sediments.  Its gentle, dependable currents keep the sea temperate even at its most northern places.  Flora and fauna of the Chelon Sea is perhaps the most varied, if not the most beautiful, in all the world of Elqua.  It is referred to by its people as nature’s utopia, where the inhabitants live in harmony with the surroundings.  Here, amid the placid beauty, lies the Abyss, a sheer vertical drop in a vast plains area of the Shoals zone that stretches for miles.

Kouton Bay
To the north and west of the Cetacean Ocean, the Kouton Bay arcs around the Orcan homesea from the Locanth Gulf to the Yaun-Teel Bights.  It’s deep, cold currents are rife with wildlife.  The Bay of Kouton is the spawning waters for many of the main fish species that make up the diet of the civilized and primitive races alike.

Locanth Gulf
The Gulf of Locanth is the central populated area of the Locanth Gulf, and reaches northward to the Kouton Bay and southward to the Lumulus Basin.  The most westward of the aquatic nations, it is here that the plant ricelqua was discovered, where it grows more prevalent than seaweed.

Lumulus Basin
The deep, concave basin populated by the Lumulus is riddled with thermal vents that become more and more frequent the further south traveled towards a particularly volcanic portion of the Spine of the World.  With such little Shore and Shoal zones, agricultural imports are vitally important to support the Lumulite population.  It is the only civilized nation that has an outer border not blocked by one of the primitive races, butting out between the Bay of Kouton and the Gulf of Locanth.

Mer Currents
Perhaps the most densely populated waters on Elqua, the various Currents of Mer are loosely banded together as a single nation.  Bordering on the Crèche of Civilization, the Mer Currents benefit from species migration out of the untouched holy sea, and has allowed its tribes (each a “current” in the nation’s name) to explode with unparalleled success.

Sahaguin Lagoons
Located between the Crèche of Civilization and the southern ice cap, the Sahaguin Lagoons border on the ruins of the Kraken Empire and the Mer Currents.  It follows the Shade of the Sargasso Ring – the area wrapping around the globe of Elqua where the planet’s green rings cast an emerald twilight – quite closely.  It is comprised of a string of lagoons and other Shoal-level areas randomly dotted along the islands in that area.  At its south-most point it is suddenly truncated by the frozen barricade that is the southern polar ice-cap.

Yaun-Teel Bights
The Yaun-Teel Bights neighbor the Chelon Sea and the Mer Currents to the north, and dip down towards the Sahaguin Lagoons to the east.  Essentially barren due to the misuse at the hands of its own inhabitants, the Yaun-Teel resort to heavy raiding of the Chelon and Mer territories to sustain themselves.

What lies beyond the known world is a mystery.  Until now, there has been plenty of room for the races of Elqua to grow and develop.  A few – the brave, the ostracized, the insane – have traveled the seas beyond, but only tales and supposition remain as to what final fate awaited them.