Triton/merfolk should be more prominent in fantasy. It doesn't make sense that aquatic factions are considered a footnote.
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Triton/merfolk should be more prominent in fantasy.
Triton/merfolk should be more prominent in fantasy. It doesn't make sense that aquatic factions are considered a footnote.
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They are because you find them only in the water.
They'd still be a factor, especially if a sufficiently large merling empire exists along the coasts. It'd be a barrier for sea trade against any faction that isn't on good terms with them
Athas is an edge case. Most fantasy worlds are at least somewhat similar to Earth
No it wouldn't, tritons and merfolk don't live along the coast they live deep in the ocean and have just as little reason to interact with the surface as most people have to interact with the bottom of the sea
Most games don't frick around with water. Which is good, because that means you can ignore swimming and the other xp draining shit that won't be useful elsewhere.
Since most characters can't breathe water, they're always a footnote because nothing of interest happens down there. It's like the Underdark. Nobody gives a shit about it unless you happen to live there.
>It's like the Underdark. Nobody gives a shit about it unless you happen to live there.
Underdark races are very far from footnotes, Drow, Illithids, and Aboleths are all very relevant.
I dunno bro, Athas seems like a pretty barrened pace for a Fishmen.
Most players don't want to venture underwater after media involving it as a setting has been hot dogwater for the past 30 years. Pathfinder 2nd Edition in particular HATES any races that can inanely interact in a medium humans can't and has some crazy bullshit like merpeople needing to take monster levels not to drown
there's a comic book that came out recently called "The Last Mermaid". the cover of it is a mermaid in a mech suit.
there's a pdf of a pathfinder/roll20 campaign setting that's good supplementary material called "Cerulean Seas"
you're welcome
What's stopping you from making them prominent in your games?
Oh right, nogames.
This.
I'm a neverDM. Always a player, never in the driver's seat
>a 'foot'note
The fish kingdoms will remember this...
Fish tails aren't sexy, leglet.
The reason why is because there's guarantee that players will ever spend much time at the coast or at sea. If you don't have a natural swim speed/the ability to breathe underwater, dungeoneering at sea is way more dangerous and inconvenient than dungeoneering at land. In my setting, deep ones (stolen directly & shamelessly from H.P. Lovecraft) are a superpower and are player race, but players don't seem to be too into playing as immortal psychic fish-people.
Everyone ITT should play Dominions. I felt the same way til it made underwater factions and shit seem cool.
Underwater nations in Dominions are peak cancer
>teehee I'll just raid you whenever I feel like and you can never retaliate landlet
Frick off
Git gud, pretender
I run a dominions ttrpg, building the underwater kingdoms was some of the most fun I’ve had so far. My players have only dipped their toes in so far though.
>Raises sea temperature to 90ºF
Nothing mersonal.
Nah, frick the ocean.
>It doesn't make sense that aquatic factions are considered a footnote.
Why not?
The sea is enormous and important. An amphibious merfolk empire along the continental shelf of a main fantasy continent will control sea trade and travel, to say nothing of how it'll affect ocean piracy. They would be the undisputed masters of the world given they rose early enough and developed the right technology or magic
Alright, but why would they care about over-water affairs? For example if there was an alien race in Sol right now, doing interstellar freight, us humans might be very curious and interested in that, but not necessarily have a good way to interact with it.
If there are two not-Italian merchant states trading across a body of water filled with fish people, the fish people might raid the ships, or visit them, but how would they stop this trade? Lumber comes from land, and the ship itself goes on the top of the water, the crew stay on the ship. If you have a fish tail for legs you might have the means to sink it, but that's about it.
The not-Italians don't ferry anything of value for fish people anyway. Almost everything they have is made to be bone-dry. So why not live and let live? Sure the vast city of Coral's Bend rules the entire ocean and every minute facet of all of its inhabitants lives, but the surface dwellers don't come down there, they just float on the top. Besides if you warmonger against them they'll just build their cities 100m up a slope and paint "frick you, sushi" on the keel of their boats. In the end losing a ship or two is what land dwellers endure all the time anyway, either because of storms or other land dwellers, what's a few more to the fish people?
They would have no reason not to care, since exercising this control would make them fabulously wealthy. And swimming to the surface to poke holes in ships is a far cry from developing space travel. In land countries, passing through another's territory carries a toll. Hunting in that territory, or worse, sending soldiers across it could be seen as an act of war.
Even if the sea kingdoms have no value for gold and can't use the goods on sunken ships, they will realize that by leveraging these they can barter with land nations to get things they do want. And in the other direction, and monarch that wants to wage war across the sea will realize that making allies with a sea kingdom will give him an upper hand.
imagine how the tables would be turned once explosives are invented
Man I know dynamite fishing is le bad but holy shit that looks fun.
Why would aquatic races wear clothes?
Same reason anyone else does.
So, body heat retention and protection from minor scrapes?
Body heat would only be retained with drysuit, so not suitble for mermen.
Protection from minor scrapes --> might as well wear light armor.
Why weren't decoration and modesty on your list?
protection, modesty, decoration, utility
also why are you drawing a distinction between light armor and clothes?
Because even thick winter clothes won't stop a good knife.
That's why there is separate cut-resistant stuff.
Yeah, I forgot utility, pockets etc. & decoration.
...but modesty really isn't a good reason.
why not?
Because it's very dependent on culture and yearly ambient temperature?
what prevents an aquatic race from having modesty as part of their culture?
(btw temp has nothing to do with it, or you'd see no niqabs in the middle east)
NTA but Anon, not all clothes make you warm in the sun. Come on, you know this from primary school.
tsk tsk, you want Salafist Deep Ones?
Because, niqabs and hijabs prevent Obediah Marsh from taking their girls back home and what will become of Devils Reef then?
I'll tell you: it'll be run over by Those Types - you know them - can't swim very well; have no gills; are suspiciously pale.
Aquatic factions aren't a footnote, they're a page on the menu. Deep ones better watch out, too.
99.9% of adventures happens on land.
Aquaman is a fricking joke for a reason
In TTRPGs this tends to be more because underwater and ship based combat rules tend to be underrepresented in modern RPGs. In earlier editions of D&D nearly 1/3 of enemies were aquatic and fighting on ship and underwater was expected.
They are, you just don't read enough books and don't play enough games.
Given that they’re surrounded by the stuff, how would you suggest keeping their water mages from being OP besides making them unable to manipulate a person’s blood if it’s still inside them?
Do you prefer merfolk with legs, a tail, or both, and why? I lean towards the "tail shifts into legs when dry" variant myself, emphasizes the magical aspect of it all.
>Aquatic fantasy humanoid
>bald