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pandoramusicbox · 2 years

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Fish people

Sea kin, theres three kinds of fish people in my setting, mermaids (called mers), finfolk (also called neptonians or neps), and sirens. The main difference between the three species is body shape or more accurately the way they move. mermaids move like dolphins, sirens move like snakes/eals or fish, and finfolk possess legs like a person so they can walk and often use a mix of swimming styles including swimming like a seal, like a person, floating, and swimming like a frog. All of them can be bioluminescent and many of them have some ability to change color all. The three species (technically in taxonomy the same family) live a long time anywhere from 350 years to 600 years

-they also don’t stop growing. so some of the oldest members of the species can get massive they don’t grow at the same rather through their life

so theres that, but because they don’t stop growing, they a bit like trees, have good years they grow more than bad year where they grow less, some species grow at faster average rates than others.

-hhhmmm I wonder how that works for hybrids. ill have to think about that. because instead of growing every year they might just grow every few years or so. would probably depend on the hybrid too. ill cover that particular can of worms at some other date.

Meanwhile I should cover the hair issue---

-Some of the fish people have hair, and as someone who has had long hair and swam, I can tell you it creates drag. That is a bit of an issue for things that live in the water. So for these fishies the hair actually has another use. For one thing its rather different then human hair in texture and structure. its usually black or brown in color. the hairs themselves are sort of hollow and can fill up and be drained of water really quickly. when the hair is exposed to water it has an interesting property of being able to slightly change texture. sort of like an octopus's skin but not as dramatic. another interesting property of the sea folk's hair is its ability to change color. the hair can change to blueish- greenish hair tone or sometimes even a more reddish color. this ability is actually very useful for the sea folk who use ambush as their main form of hunting. using their “hair” as camouflage generally making it look like sea weed. theirs ability to change the hairs texture is nonexistent when their hair is dry but the color-changing property is still there. other seafolk with other hunting methods tend to not have hair, and instead are a much more streamlined body. they dont really have body hair either, made clear by a lack of eyebrows. (though they do have short eyelashes)

the normally dark hair color is rather important to the seafolk because most cases where they naturally have lighter or diffrent hair colors can affect tier ability to use their hair as camouflage, famously blond or white hair is a rather detrimental mutation that prevents the ability to change hair color. the current empress of the Neptonian empire is blond, the mutation is relatively rare still in modern times but at least within the Neptonian empire it is not as detrimental due to strong social networks and not needing to be the sole primary hunter in a family. other examples of nonfunctioning mutations of their hair is for the merrow; a fin folk who live just off the coast of Ralunjas, in a place called the red kelp forest. where their hair has more reddish to maroon-ish pink coloration, though some of them have functional brown hair, their adaptation for that specific environment makes it difficult for them to live outside of that environment. the other major group of sea-folk with strange hair mutations are the sjofru of the northern sea and the ice pass. their hair has none of the camouflage qualities so is generally lighter and thinner than what it is for others, their hair often has colors ranging in the blues, grays and greens to soft reds and oranges that tappers out to a near transparent color at the tips. unlike their warmer sea cousins who use the hair for camouflage the tips of the sjofru hair is covered in tiny poison filled stingers, essentially they have jellyfish tendrils for hair. the potency of the venom depends on family.

-The humanoid appearance of the sea-folk is only skin deep and even then, its barely skin deep as demonstrated by their hair. The first thing that separates them from humans is the fact that they have a hexapedal body plan verses a humans quadrupedal body plan. then theres the whole bioluminescence thing. they generally have a few patches of this bioluminescent skin when they do have it. some sea kin depending on species can have other features like antenie or exess fins or scales or other things.

All regular sea folk have these hexapedal body plans though on some species it is more obvious than on others. the fin folk are usually the most easy to the the six limed body as they have their primary arms, secondary arms (usually just called their fins) and their legs, for sirens and mermaids their “ legs” are internal and generally not easy to see but they do have them.

-Sea folk nails are sharp and claw like, and their teeth are sharp too. most species have at least two rows of teeth. Some larger species have three rows. The only species with a singular row tends to be some fresh water ones, but they still usually have some indication of their second row of teeth. Like sharks if they loose a tooth a new one from the back row just moves up to take its place.

They have webbed hands. and for the neps their feet are long and webbed too. some deep sea species that rarely need to use their hands have more fin like hand. that work better as paddels. the webbing is not all the same either. sometimes it is skin that is elongated and stretched between the diddgets, other-times it is a filament mesh of keratin, other times it is a thin mucus producing membrane. for most species getting the membrane torn is not too painful but is rather avoided non the less and the webbing will grow back in some capacity.

They are all amphibious, able to breath both air and water, though it’s not the most pleasent experience to move between the two substance. As they have to force all of the previous substance out of them, like coughing out all the excess water, with some practice they can do this change in a few seconds as opposed to a few minutes for one who is not accustomed to the change. they are also capable of “holding their breath” for either substance as well. They can have gills in either one or two place. The most common place it right along the neck or where the ribs are located, but some less common but still possible places are, right along the face such as the cheeks, right below/in the armpit area, or the collar bone area. Speaking of collar bones. they dont have them, or at least not in the same way humans do, like most sea mammals they lack them. instead they might have a more flexible cartilage matrix that has a simmular function when they are on land. they also have a bit of an odd structure to their rib cage, they are able to sort of temporarily "collaps" their sternum enabling them to more or less squeeze through spaces they can fit their head through.

The sea folk are able to move between fresh and salt water unlike most regular fish and sea life, but they rarely do this as the transition, especially if it is a fast transition, this can make them very sick. they are also able to temporarily “close up” their gills when they are on land, some species are capable of this for their nosterals as well, and most species have a second eyelid that they close when in water to protect the eye.

the absurd length of their feet makes it difficult to move around swiftly on land when walking. so for fin folk they tend to walk on their tippy toes and can do so quite easily, but when they stand they go down on a flat foot. unlike humans they can stay up on their tippy toes for extended periods of time. some finfolk species often have shorter feet then their other relatives, these are generally the species who spend more time on land, like the kappa who are primarily river dwelling fin folk, other fresh water fin folk also have shorter fins. though they are not the most agile on land they are quite fast in water, the average sea folk usually have their top speeds somewhere in this range. -finfolk: 20-30 mph ( 32.2- 48.3 kph) - mers: 31- 37 mph ( 49.9- 59.4 kph) -sirens: 35- 45 mph ( 56.3- 72.4 kph)

- Sea kin can reach great depths. most surface water can regular reach depths of 6600 ft (2000 m), while species more adept for deeper water can comfortably make it to 15000 ft (4500m) while mysterious deep sea sea kin can reach depths of 19685 ft (6000 m). though they can reach these depths they can be in trouble if they try to leave those deep pressures once they have reached them. most deep presures are easier for older and larger individuals to reach and individuals with deeper blood colors. - speaking of blood color i nearly forgot one of the most important differences between humans and sea kin, and one of the main things that diffurenturates them from other kins, their blood color. For one thing each individual of any of those species can have one of three blood colors. the first and most common blood color is red but not the same kind of red as human blood. the red seakin blood is a darker almost maroon or burgandy color. second color is a purple, a very reddish purple like wine, plum or mulberry. the rarest and final color is pink a richer dark pink, like magenta or royal fusia. each blood color results in some slight differences, the main most notable one is lifespan and apparent durability other than that not too much. as blood color is more important socially among the sea folk.

-They have an ability to create a strange calcium mixture that the use as a glue or cement. this is not an ability possessed by every species or even individuals among species. they do use this ability to create safe nesting grounds for themselves. some species like the kappa have adapted this ability for other pourposes. this is an ability that seems to be shared with a strange sea kin called shell people. one of the downsides of this is the need to eat excess calcium for this sticky mixture, but they do that by eating seashells and bones from whale falls and such. the substance is soft and malmble for the first minute it is created, exhibiting some properties of a non-newtonian fluids, but if produced right it quickly hardens to a solid regardless of being under water or in the air. it hardens more quickly when exposed to air. -Singing, all of sea kin are known by land dwelling people for having haunting voices able to resonate great distances. and that is true even the worst of their singers can be louder and sound more haunting than any human. this is in part due to a general cultural value of singing as a courting ritual, but also due to having a hollow cavity somewhere in their chest they use to create these higher resonances, this is sort of like whale song. at a smaller scale. they also poses more complex vocal cords. They are only able to produse sound with air. some species can come up for air once in a decade and store and reuse the air for sound, but most of their close corders communication is done through a sigh language. so this is a condensed and hopefully understandable description of the primary seakin.

TLDR; Sea Kin and the three sister species of mermaids, finfolk and sirens are rather human looking but the recemblence is not skin deep, they have diffrent hair, blood colors, and skeletal structures. they are good at singing a lot like whales and they can swim fast. main difference between the three spesies is how they swim, like a dolphin, like a shark or like a frog.

#worldbuilding #worldbuildingculture #mermaid #fish person #fish people #siren #fantasy biology #finfolk #fantasy creature #fantasy kingdom #fantasy empire #river mermaid #gills #webbed hands #webbed feet #mermaid tail

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