Merrow
Overview
The merrow are touched by the realm of Day, a realm of reason and shining light where sky and ocean merge. They are rational, calm, curious people who are fascinated by the complexity of the cosmos.
Merrow prefer roles that suit that allow them to remain principled and detached. They are at home in the conclave, some of the Empire's most brilliant magicians have been merrow, but they also flourish in the Synod, where their calm reason allows them to judge others impartially. A few Merrow have a fascination for economics but many find trade and commerce prosaic. Few merrow are effective battle leaders, they often lack the charisma and passion to motivate soldiers but they do make effective generals having a ready mastery for strategy and tactics. The passion and oratory of politics as well as the inevitable grubby compromises often vexes them.
The merrow lineage is intended to appeal to players who want to create scholastic, intellectual or magician character concepts, but anyone who enjoys gathering information. Spies, scouts and loremasters of all types all make good merrow characters. Fans of Lovecraft and his successors can be mysterious or sinister Deep Ones and play up the alien and magical elements. People who don’t like Lovecraft can emphasize the calm, focused celestial bureaucracy elements and play up the ordered and cerebral parts of the merrow nature.
Inspiration for merrow might draw on any of the historical or religious philosophers like Aristotle or Confucious. Historical and literary scientific figures like Marie Curie, Ada Lovelacem, Agatha Hetrodyne and Dr Frankenstein are good as are masters of deduction and reasoning like Sherlock Holmes, William of Baskerville, Cadfael or the mentats from Dune. While Star Trek's Vulcans are an obvious inspiration, brilliant technical musicians like Johann Sebastian Bach are also great merrow characters as are calculating spymasters like Stella Rimmington, calm warriors like Li Mu Bai from Crouching Tiger and a legendary strategist like Pallas Athena.
What they are not
- Emotionless robots. Although merrow are calm and cerebral, they still experience the full range of human emotions and none of them have any difficulty identifying, understanding and sympathising with human emotions in other people.
Sobriquets
Tritons, Merfolk, Fendwellers, Vodyanoi
Iconic Trappings
- Gills. Gills are the definitive trapping of a Merrow. These need to be represented by latex prosthetics, as make-up lines drawn onto the skin are not identifiable enough as gills. Gills should be in pairs on either side of the face or neck, or in some rare cases both.
Other Trappings
- Webbed fingers. possibly with talons.
- Mottled skin. blue, green or blue-green colouration is likely, but there is also the possibility of brighter shades (like a carp) or more metallic shades to underline the Day theme. Hair colour may naturally complement skin colour or be absent altogether.
- Inhuman eyes. costume contact lenses for pupiless white or black, or eyes with strangely dhaped pupils (such as double or tri-lobed).
- Fins on head or forearms. Maelstrom Axolotl-style head fins, for example, or arm pieces that suggest fins or fronds.
- Barbels. Barbels are hanging tendrils around the mouth, like those of a catfish, the “moustaches” of an oriental dragon, or even something suggestive of D&D illithid facial tentacles.
- Quiet voices. Merrow don’t have to whisper but they often have quiet voices.
Roleplaying Merrow
Merrow blood influences the character of the one who possesses it. Not every Merrow expresses these effects to the same degree, but characters who strongly express these roleplaying effects often possess stronger blood than those who do not.
- Merrow are curious. They want to know things. Some are experts – they are fascinated by an area of understanding and seek to master it. Others are polymaths and want to know absolutely everything.
- Merrow are calm and cerebral. They think about things before they act, they are rational, and they try to keep strong emotions in check. When their emotions break free, however, it’s like a storm or a tidal wave that carries them along.
- Merrow are focused. They pursue the things that interest them with stubborn doggedness, persevering despite the setbacks and having remarkable fortitude. Once they set their mind to something it is very hard to dissuade them. They are very goal-oriented, making them excellent researchers, spies, civil servants and the like.
- Merrow may degenerate into madness. Some merrow become increasingly alien, to the point of psychopathy (or possibly sociopathy). Their pursuit of knowledge becomes all consuming, their calm restraint becomes cold emotionlessness, and their focus becomes obsession. They perform horrific experiments to expand their knowledge. They watch dreadful events out of interest as to how they will play out. They stop thinking about things in a human way and start to think about them in a detached, monstrous way. They satisfy their curiosity for the sake of learning something new rather than to gain any practical advantage. They ignore and discard anything that doesn’t fit in with their obsessions, and are quite capable of just killing anyone who has something they want or gets between them and something they are interested in.
Advantage - underwater breath
Merrow feel calm and relaxed underwater. They don't panic as others might when submerged, and all their bodily functions slow when they are underwater. Coupled with their gills, they are able to exist underwater for much longer than an equivalent human.
The Blood
Despite their appearance, Merrows are as warm blooded and mammalian as any human. They mate and breed just like humans do, they often have hair, and they give birth to live offspring.
Merrow children are born with gills – they may actually be more fishy when born and get less fishy as they get older.
Lines of the Merrow
Merrow find a special place in a few nations of the Empire.
- The “Fendwellers” of Bregasland in the Marches are often Merrow-born.
- The Boatmen families of the great rivers of the League often include those with Merrow blood; either born there, or arrivals from elsewhere.
- Merrow children from Brass Coast are often sent to be raised in Urizen, in the belief they will have a happier life.
