#merfolk lore

[fishyfishyfishtimes]

Overview of mermaids

Many people who’ve been my followers for a while will already be familiar with Prince Ahti II. To those who don’t, here he is! The silly man in my profile picture:

Ahti II is one of my characters, and a merman. He’s a part of a bigger urban fantasy universe, one which I don’t talk about very often. Until now! I like reading others’ ideas and concepts and there must be others like me, so I have faith that perhaps my writings will entertain or inspire others. Here I’ve compiled my various thoughts and ideas about the merfolk of Ahti’s world, an overview of sorts! I try to summarise everything the best I can, but as you’ll see it is a bit hard, I have many thoughts and I’ll have to delve further into history and biology at a later date. 

Memaids, mermen, mersons, or collectively merfolk or merple are humans whose ancestors were transformed into half-animal people some 10 000 years ago by a race of nonphysical beings. On the surface they’re half human upper body, ~three-quarters aquatic animal lower body, and are held together by a whooole lot of magic! Any biological weirdness is explained by the fact that they’re two incompatible parts desperately trying to make it work with compromises that are sometimes unpredictable — functionally they are a human shaped like another thing, with all-human DNA.

Merfolk have organs in both their human and animal halves. The heart and lungs are located in the upper chest cavity (the human chest) and are larger than in the average human. The esophagus is greatly elongated, and leads to the animal half where the rest of the digestive system, and the urinary and reproductive systems, is located in. The lower chest cavity contains a pseudo-heart that helps pump blood into a larger body. All merfolk have an internal skeleton throughout their whole body, even invertebrate-based merfolk. As an adaptation to the dim light of their environment, the eyes of merfolk are more sensitive to light and their pupils can grow and shrink very drastically.

Near the mid-back, aka just about where the two sides join together, fish and (many) crustacean merple have gills, and cetacean merple have a blowhole. What for? For second lungs! These lungs are connected to the upper chest lungs and allow cetacean merfolk to hold their breath for extended periods of time. Merfolk that take after fishes with swim bladders also have a similar lung-swim bladder connection, which is mostly used to control buoyancy — moving air to the upper lungs aids a merson in floating upright, for one. Sorry other aquatic tetrapod merfolk, you don’t have second lungs (…as far as I’ve decided) but I’m sure you can make do!

Due to their adaptations and limitations, merfolk tend to live underwater, in fresh, brackish, and saltwater environments. Merfolk settlements tend to be built in shallower water: most settlements are built in the first 50 meters from the surface, and their frequency dwindles down significantly after a 100 meters of depth. Merfolk prefer the warmth and light of the surface, humans as they are! Some merfolk-found, mostly underwater nations exist, all of them in shallow seas and in and around large archipelagos, but a good portion of merfolk live on the coastal areas of mostly terrestrial nations and in inland waters. In the open ocean, many nomadic merfolk communities exist too: they tend to migrate with fish schools and herd their own aquatic livestock, like fishes, krill and squids. 

Underwater merfolk homes are large to account for their large size, and often very tall. In places where the surface of the water freezes over at some point in the year, many homes have one or a few topmost rooms that reach above water and function as a secondary exit and as a way to reoxygenate the water. Some merfolk homes are suspended above the water on stilts or on the shore with an underwater entrance, but the homes themselves are fully or half dry inside. These homes tend to be very low and wide instead! These are common in merfolk that need air to breathe. Between these solutions are homes that are partly submerged and partly dry at different ratios, common in so-called hybrid living conditions! 

Merfolk as a whole are one of the most magical of all humans, having a lot of magic in their DNA and using a lot of magic in their daily lives. This is in part from necessity, as life underwater is very different from life on land. Contemporary merfolk tend to know at least four spells: waterspeak, lungspeak, return to form, and two-legs spell. Waterspeak allows a person to speak clearly with their vocal cords underwater, without needing to waste air from their lungs. Waterspeak is of valuable use underwater, but makes a person’s voice inaudible in the air! This is why there’s lungspeak, which creates the opposite effect and lets a person.. well, audibly speak like a in real life person lmao

The two-legs spell rearranges the organs of the merson and transforms their lower body from the human waist down into a pair of human legs. The upper body doesn’t really change in any significant way (…besides the lungs and heart becoming smaller and gaining new organs and bones and muscles) so the eyes are still tuned to see better in darkness etc. Return to original form reverses any physical transformation to the way a person was born, merfolk use it to go back to their tailed form! 

The most glaring issue in the life of a merson is the fact that your body is adapted to swimming and diving, but the majority of people live on land. Even semiaquatic merfolk tend to have trouble walking great distances! Fortunately, there are solutions besides staying in your underwater or amphibious living community for your entire life (because that’s not a solution at all). One is the aforementioned two-legs spell! A major pro is that you gain two fine long distance walking legs, two cons however are the drastic transformation that must take place to become two-legged, and then learning to walk, run, crawl, jump, sit, anything and everything. Two-legs isn’t a painful spell, or even physically uncomfortable to bear. It’s just that… well. The merfolk body isn’t built as simply as head-arms-torso-tail, it’s really head-arms-torso-pectoral fins-torso-pelvic fins-tail, all parts working together and important with movement, expression and item manipulation. When a merson loses so much of their body and way of interacting with the world it is emotionally and mentally draining! Many merfolk do not want to go through the trouble of losing a big part of themselves. 

Fortunately going on land as they are isn’t impossible! The upper chest cavity lungs are big enough to support merfolk just by themselves, and merple rarely, if ever, grow too heavy to exist on land. Fishy merfolk tend to have a slime coat, but on land as the slime coat dries and flakes off, the skin begins producing similar oils to the ones human skin has. Rapidly moving from water to air to water to air can cause damage overtime (eg. cracks and wounds in the skin, loss of scales), but effects can be lessened with moisturiser. Getting around on land is as easy as having a merson-fit wheelchair!

…The cons are just about the same as they would be having a wheelchair in our contemporary world, sadly. Most spaces are big enough for even a long merson in a wheelchair to pass through as humans on average are just bigger, but that doesn’t fix every other issue. Merfolk have a lot of societal pressure to change their form into a two-legged one instead of using wheelchairs, since it’s viewed as more convenient and less expensive — even transforming and using a wheelchair fitted for two-legged human is viewed as a better option. A good bit of merfolk are taught to walk on legs from an early age “just in case”, because they might just need it. 

Enough of merfolk tragedies. Let’s talk merfolk joys! Traditional merfolk art is heavy on sculptures, dance and singing, three-dimensional art so to speak. Traditional merfolk cuisine meanwhile provides a diverse selection of meat from finfishes, shellfishes, cephalopods and aquatic mammals, supplemented with algae, fruits and underwater domesticated crops. Merfolk never stopped cooking and frying foods when they turned, but a lot of "bonkers" old meals can be served raw. Traditional celebrations vary a lot based on location and the seasons, but they encompass similar themes to terrestrial celebrations, like harvest. Ice covers melting in the spring to let in light and warmth is a big thing in the northern hemisphere, and fish schools seasonally migrating to a community's home area also calls for a great feast.

As magical and technological advancements have changed the world they live in, painting, drawing, and the use of instruments have gotten more common in the arts, and terrestrial cereals and vegetables in food. The gradual introduction of terrestrial delights into the aquatic world has birthed its own unique cultural quirks. One example is a niche genre of music where a merson plays a wind instrument with only the air in their lungs as long as they can, birthing a whole new form of short folk tunes when instruments started becoming common. Just about anything has been waterproofed physically or through magical means, so in the modern day there is very little difference in a terrestrial and aquatic person's quality of life.

#yippee! i did it :) #merfolk #merfolk lore #my art #art #long post

[theartloca]

Can mers of different species interbreed? How do the children turn out?

I don't think it's physically possible in my universe. I guess some merfolk from the same family could interbreed but their offspring would end up being sterile or something like that (?)

They might form particular communities/shoals composed of different types of merfolk or even fall in love regardless of the species tho (p≧w≦q)

#mermen #merfolk #merfolk lore #oc lore

[netherworldpost]

You Marry a Mermaid

You marry a mermaid and the first month you spend on land, teaching her about citrus. Lemons. Limes. Grapefruits. But not grapes?

No, grapes are not citrus.

You love the way she says "grapefruit."

Grapes froot.

You marry a mermaid and the second month you spend under water, learning about coral, tides. How sound flows differently.

You marry a mermaid and you spend the third month on land teaching her about warm colors. Red, yellow. Pink. They exist underwater, of course, but they appear different here, this atmosphere (air) splitting the prism differently than that atmosphere (water).

You marry a mermaid and you spend the fourth month under water learning about heat. You have heat on land, of course, but here there are volcanoes, minuscule to what you think of as a volcano. She teaches you how to enjoy the liminal space between the scalding water and the icy ocean depths.

You marry a mermaid and you spend the fifth month on land teaching her about potatoes. She makes a delightful sound when she tries her first fried potato. The texture almost unbearably crispy. You spend three days on a boardwalk eating potatoes.

When she tries cheese...

...when she tries cheese... on potatoes...

The memory of that expression on her face is worth every jewel, every coin, ever to pass through your fingers, from birth to death.

You marry a mermaid and you spend the sixth month under water learning about the color blue. You think you know the color blue, you've seen the sky, you've seen birds.

You have seen art.

She cups your face with her webbed hands and stares at you with an intensity you did not realize could be experienced in mortal flesh and asks you to say Blue.

"Blooo."

She loves how you say the word, how your tongue

curls like a wave to craft the sound

like you were taught

on land

where speaking is so different

because your tongue is reacting to a throat full of air

not water filtered into something breathable

by magic that

you do not

understand.

You marry a mermaid.

You spend every other month on land, the opposing under water.

You live.

Happily beyond reason.

For years beyond memory.

You marry a mermaid.

"Blooo."

"Grapes fruit."

#mermaid #mermaid wife #merfolk #mermaid spouse #gay mermaid #gay mermaids #mermaid lore #mermaid story

[pathesis]

Nightmares am I right gang?

#pathart #art #dnd art #dnd character #pathfinder #pf2e #merfolk #azarketi #nessie #my ocs #oc art #red #lore art #pathfinder 2e

[midnightfire830]

I noticed there was a green strap like thing on your merman version of cuphead? (The lion fish!) may I ask what that is? :0

Experimenting with some quick and easy background ideas and explaining a little bit on merfolk fashion styles.

Thanks so much for the ask!!

#babtqftim #bendy and boris in the inky mystery #babitim #bendy and boris the quest for the ink machine #cuphead #babtqftim au #digital art #drawing #sketch #original art #merman au #mermaid au #merfolk #merfolk au #quest au #inky mystery #the inky mystery #inky mystery au #mermaid lore #world building #yes he wears cat sunglasses #he thinks its cool #its not #😂😭 #mermaid clothes #sand dollar

[jack-o-phantom]

Coming back to check in on here! Have some concepts of MerSun&Moon Cuttlefish :)!

I'm leaning towards #2 and #3 being the official design but I would curious to see what yall think or come up with ^^!

#theharedraws #fnaf sb #fnaf sb au #mermaid au #cuttlefish merfolk #mersun #there's no lore to it #just funky designs #maybe Ill come up with something but this isn't on the front burner of my mind #An excuse to test colour theory lolol

[lawv-no]

I don’t care if this isn’t lore accurate— half mermaid tav!!🐟

#baldurs gate 3 #baldurs gate tav #karlach #karlach fanart #bg3tav #baldur's gate 3 #half mermaid #merfolk #oc #original character #comic #tav lore #tav backstory #character art #clip studio paint #fan art #artist of tumblr #digital art #lawv no #artist #art #Neith Thalassea #Neith

[crowberri]

[Pokemon] Its Mermay which means Submas but Merfolks

They run a submarine station probably

#mermas au #????? #I dont have any lore or hc i just wanted to draw mermen submas #feel free to suggest me things- #actually thats a lie i have one hc #Ingo’s voice is so loud that the sheer power of the soundwave underwater will probably kill someone #he’d feel bad if anyone dies though- #pokemon #submas #ingo #emmet #mermay #art #zhenni.png #i like and hate coat and no coat equally #the coats are iconic and i dont wanna remove them #but they look so weird with coat #i just don’t like giving merfolk proper human clothing ig— #maybe i’ll go with just hat the next time i draw them #struggles

[arabian-batboy]

Why are 99% of all shows/movies about Merfolk just "pretty Mermaid girl learns about the world on land and fall in love with a human boy"? Come on now it been 35 years since Disney dropped The Little Mermaid, we can't just keep making the same exact knock-off while ignoring all the potentials of interesting stories you can make with Merfolks......

#This is why I love the Castle Swimmer #it has zero humans and takes place entirely in the deep sea with a focus on the lore of the Merfolks #and the Merfolk themselves are all interesting looking with many variation between different species

[stealingyourbones]

Danny Phantom Merfolk AU

Ok so I wrote about merfolk batfam (you should check it out It’s my favorite thing I’ve ever written), so it’s time to write about Merfolk Amity.

Ok so get ready for some worldbuilding and some wack-as-hell creatures because, as I have said before, I am a hoe for biology. These bitches are gonna be funky sea creature people and look scary as hell. (all sea creature species will be linked to its name)

Danny: Comb Jellyfish. I have so many reasons for this one.

1.) they look rad as fuck. enough said.

2.) they asexually reproduce by making clones of themselves so Dani can literally be one of his clones and that is sick as hell.

3.) they are bioluminescent and imagine the cool shit you could do with that and Phantom

4.) he could have a super cool looking jellyfish bell tail and be semi-transparent (one may even say ghostlike). The bioluminescent and rainbow parts of his bell travel up his sides and back and go up the underside of his arms and all the way up to the back of his neck. He has two long tentacles w/ that trail behind him that are a part of his bell that like gently sway in the water really ethereal-like. 

I tie between that OR a Glass Octopus

Like, look at that thing. It’s so beautiful and also v ghosty. It even has little green spots!

In this rendition. Danny is like 10ft long in total with all his tentacles. He has suckers on the undersides of his arms, and his body looks almost fully see-through even though you can’t see any of his organs (idk it’d just look really creepy if it did.) He still eats with his beak so his mouth is used solely for conversation. 

Jazz: I was debating between the Venus Girdle, Fangtooth, and Giant Manta Ray and I think that I’ll stick to Giant Manta Ray. They have the biggest brain of any fish and they pass the mirror test! Super smart animals. these fuckers have a 29ft wingspan they’re positively massive. Jazz has black and white skin, her arms are connected to the top part of her fins, and she also has a barbed stinger and will stab the shit out of you if she feels like it. 

Tucker: Mantis Shrimp. homie got the shrimp tail and legs. he can see all of the colors. his body has a reflective rainbow colored plating all over and he has eyes on stalks. you can fight me on this. He has claws on the ends of his arms. Manta Shrimp literally make vacuums in the water with how fast they punch their prey (acceleration as fast as a 22 cal.) with these funky little clubs they have near their mouth. The dude can easily break your skull in two with his claws if he wished. Tucker is sick as hell. 

Sam: Was debating between Stonefish, Terrible Claw Lobster, Stoplight Loosejaw, but I think I’ll have to settle on Hagfish. These living fossils are the reason I got into researching strange aquatic life. These bitches be jawless. No jaws but they DO have teeth. their teeth aren’t even like regular teeth. They’re made of keratin. KERATIN. These bitches are bottom dwellers that feast on already dead fish on the ocean floor. Wanna guess why they haven’t evolved from their 500 million-year-old evolutionary design? Their defense mechanism is to produce mass quantities of slime whenever threatened. It chokes out fish that try to eat them and causes the predator to back off. If it ain’t broke I guess. 

Anyways I went on a far too long tangent. Sam has a very long hagfish-esque tail. her skin is slightly purple. She does in fact have actual teeth and a proto jaw. It’s difficult to speak English with sadly and she keeps her jaw open as a scare tactic.

I was trying to aim for more funky sea creatures for what they would be as merfolk but absolutely feel free to share what type of sea creature/animal you’d think fits best! or for anyone in the DP universe 

#danny phantom #prompt #writing prompt #worldbuilding #mermaid au #merfolk au #my hands may be in pain but fuck it #it’s time to talk about cool fish au lore #feel free to just ask me about an amity resident and ill elaborate on them!

[fabrizio-art]

31 Mermaids, 2- Ghost

Ghost mermaids have been puzzling scientist and occult scholars; not really for what they could teach about death, but for what they seem to imply about the history of life.

To date, interviewed mermaids have never recognized a known ghost as a specific formerly individual. However, besides them only appearing at night and being mostly incorporeal, one ghostmaid has allegedly been tracked to her "manifestation site", which revealed a gigantic skeleton, or possibly several.

No proper exploration has been carried out yet, but what perplexes researchers is how the bones seem to be fossilized, embedded in layers of rock that have been dated to many different periods, invariably earlier than the K-Pg extinction boundary.

Ghostmaids sing like merfolk, but their vocal range extends far into the infrasound. This is theorized to be at least partially due to their size.

Neither land humans nor merfolk have been able to recognize a language or to ascertain whether words are present at all in the songs.

To date, one attempt is alleged to have been made at verbal communication by an independent researcher using advanced recording equipment and underwater microphone.

No information exists on the results, or the researcher's whereabouts.

#Merfolk are supposed to descend from early sea-dwelling human magic wielders and either elemental creatures or fae #K-pg is the “dinosaur extinction” #this is worrying #artists on tumblr #digital art #mermay #my art #paleoart #in a way #occult #ghosrt #31Mermaids #aka me doing Mermay late because I couldn't back then #lore #worldbuilding

[fishyfishyfishtimes]

hi!! really liked reading your merfolk post!! if you're okay with questions, i have some for you: is there one merfolk culture, or multiple? you said they have celebrations on things like the harvest, what sorts of stuff do they harvest or farm? also, how do they feel about fish... is it like how humans feel about apes or monkeys, like something fairly similar to us, or is it like how humans feel about fish, nice to watch but also... edible. or some other perspective of fish?

OMG

Thank you so much anon!! I would love to answer, so I will!

There are multiple merfolk cultures, all as varied as terrestrial human cultures! This is because the great big event that made them happened all around the planet, and not just to a single population of humans. It is perhaps misleading to refer to all of them as just "merfolk" when they have very different ways of life... but they do still share many biological features and the same sorts of limitations, so I'm still going to lmao. As it is, most of my merfolk worldbuilding focuses on the merfolk of the Baltic Sea Kingdom, Osmeri, and Finland, since I am Finnish myself and most of my characters are too. Plus, explaining how aquatic humans can survive long cold harsh winters in the freezing water takes some more work than explaining how aquatic humans survive in a tropic ocean where food and warmth is plentiful year round!

Closest to our terrestrial harvest, coastal and inland merfolk tend to harvest fruit, which they get from trees that grow near the water! Important vitamins and all that. Merfolk also grow their own crops, but I've yet to figure out what those crops are — I am not a botanist but I know in my heart that humans will be humans and that if we had to go aquatic, we'd find some way to domesticate the aquatic plantlife through the course of thousands of years. Now on-the-spot thinking about harvest, I think harvest would be celebrated in tandem with terrestrial humans too, the merfolk could trade aquatic goods with them and then they'd have one big party of abundance 🤔

Merfolk feel about "fish" as we feel about "mammals", that is, a wide spectrum that goes from worship to disdain, appreciation to annoyance, material gain to value just from existing. Different species of fishes are their livestock, their pets, their wildlife, the neighbourhood "pests"! It must depend on culture, what's with every merson's tail looking exactly like an existing species of animal (the creation stories of merfolk must be wild) but all in all merfolk recognise that the aquatic life around them is fundamentally different from them, though they look similar.

Though I explained it in words, this is a wonderful opportunity to show a comic I made to answer this very question in 2022! It is a tad outdated, what's with Ahti II admitting that he's from Osmeri, but no matter. The children (me) yearn for the mines (to show my art):

...Too cruel? Not to worry, the domestic pikes that Ahti II is familiar with as pets and companions are a different breed from wild pikes! I'm sure they cleared that up immediately after the events of this comic.

Thanks for the questions! :]

#karleeen again! shes ahti's best friend and a spiderperson #theyre some of the terrestrial but non-two-legged humans who were also created at the same time as merfolk #merfolk #merfolk lore #ahti II #my art #asks #anon #anonymous #anonymous asks

[sorbet-and-gelato]

Merfolk Squalo!! It's Mermay, and all. I didn't feel up to drawing Tiz, but he's an octopus mer!

#Do not send me mer AU idea asks I already have my own AU with its own lore #i would love to talk about my au if anyone has questions though #merfolk au #jjba squalo #jjba #jojo's bizarre adventure #vento aureo #jojo's bizarre adventure vento aureo #my art

[pathesis]

An unhealthy obsession

#lore dooodddless #pathart #oc #nessie #art #dnd #pathfinder2e #pathfinder #dnd character #azarketi #merfolk #lore #character lore #dnd changeling #dnd character art #dnd art #idk what else aaaaa #doodles

[vivisols]

I am curious where Ash got all those cuts/bites from? I doubt Sun and Moon did that. She practically raised them after all

Was it just from other regular fish/animals?? Or have they met other merfolk before?

well raising a mer means that you get to go through the delightful process of them growing teeth and claws! baby mers need to get used to them as they're their primary tools for hunting and fighting, which means lots of teething and clawing! plus at that stage their natural instincts are more "fight for themselves" as opposed to "strategically think" or "run away". they also aren't the best at controlling their strength either!

mers like to play fight a lot, and mer skin is naturally thicker than a human's + they have that nice protective layer of scales. so mers wouldn't really be affected if they want to have a little mock battle or something.

however, humans dont have that! and accidents happen! so uh, unfortunately most of ash's claw mark scars are from sun and moon when they were younger

trying to raise two baby mers when you're a human? not recommended, 0/10

#ash lawrence #vivispeaks #claw at the stars au #claw at the stars mer lore #<- for when I get silly with it #as for if they've met other merfolk.... teehee that shall all be revealed ;D #ask

[bloo-the-dragon]

Mer!Eclipse concept sketch!

Everyone’s been drawing their versions of Mer!Eclipse so here’s my take on the boy! He’s not a leviathan size (that role goes to Nebula) but he will be an eventual part of the mer fam. :3

No lore yet because i want to finish up on sketches for Tiaki and Nebula (and maybe some more Sun and Moon) before i fully delve into my plans for Eclipse, but i wanted to share the sketch anyways since i had it done!

#fnaf #fnaf security breach #five nights at freddy's #five nights at freddy's security breach #fnaf eclipse #fnaf daycare attendant #fnaf fanart #mermay #mermay 2022 #Bloo's Art #his design is inspired by sea dragons and the blue dragon sea slug #i have his 'introduction' already sketched but won't be working on it til later #i have other WIP's i really need to finish before i go skydiving into another new character lore dump x'D #celestial merfolk