The Crystal Cave merfolk have long, flowing fins and silvery scales. They have lovely, melodic voices that are enhanced by the vibrating crystals of the cave in which they dwell.

They love anything silver and are willing to trade pearls and bits of gold treasure that they have found on their hunts under the waters. They also have Potion of Water Breathing||magical potions that can help a surface dweller breathe underwater.

Merfolk guardians are the chosen of nature and its divine protectors. They are more mystical than other merfolk, and also more savage, mysterious, and close to nature. Sometimes, they live among other merfolk as special protectors, but there are entire tribes of merfolk guardians as well. Tribes of these merfolk seem forbidding even to other merfolk.

Aquatic humanoids with the upper body of a human and the lower body of a fish, merfolk adorn their skin and scales with shell decorations.

Merfolk tribes and kingdoms span the world, and their people are as varied in color, culture, and outlook as the human races of the surface. Land folk and merfolk rarely meet except by chance, though starry-eyed mariners tell tales of romance with these creatures along the shoals of faraway islands.

Merfolk lack the materials and practical means to forge weapons beneath the waves, to write books and keep lore, or to shape stone to raise buildings and cities. As a result, most live in small hunter-gatherer tribes, each of which holds unique values and creeds. Only occasionally do merfolk unite under the rule of a single leader. They do so to face a common threat or to complete a conquest. Such unifications can be the beginning of undersea kingdoms with dynasties lasting hundreds of years.

Merfolk Settlements

Merfolk build their settlements in vast undersea caverns, mazes of coral, the ruins of sunken cities, or structures they carve from the rocky seabed. They live in water shallow enough that the passage of time can be marked by the gleam and fade of sunlight through the water. In the reefs and trenches near their settlements, merfolk harvest coral and farm the seabed, shepherding schools of fish as land-based farmers tend sheep. Only rarely do merfolk venture into the darkest depths of the ocean. In such depths and in their undersea caverns, merfolk rely on the light of bioluminescent flora and fauna, such as jellyfish, whose slow pulsing movements lend merfolk settlements an otherworldly aesthetic.

Merfolk defend their communities with spears crafted from whatever materials they can salvage from shipwrecks, beaches, and dead undersea creatures.

Merfolk

Protectors and Explorers of the Seas

Beneath the waves dwell merfolk, mysterious creatures that merge the features of humans and sea creatures. Some are curious about land dwellers, while others view them with suspicion.

Veterans of scouring the wrecks and ruins found in the deepest waters, these skilled warriors help defend their kin with rapier-like weapons of living coral. The salvagers escort other merfolk on scavenging missions, using their keen senses to detect danger. They are found allying with the lizardfolk in Danger at Dunwater.

Merfolk skirmishers defend their homes from aquatic monsters and invaders from the surface.

These merfolk mages use magic to manipulate water, storms, and sea creatures to aid them.