Endless Blue – Week 17 – Sahaguin

Biology

Sahaguin – Last Tyrants of the Sea

All the piscean races of the Known World learned a lesson from the Kraken Occupation, but not all learned the same lesson.  Whereas most learned folly of not bracing for the coming maelstrom. one race learned to make their own storm.  They are the Sahaguin, an opportunistic, aggressive race of predators that due only to location and happenstance have not become the dominant species on their own.

Personality: Aggression and confrontation are the hallmarks of the Sahaguin paragon.  Passivity is a sign of prey; a true predator actively pursues his objective.  Nothing worth having is given — it must be taken, and taken now.  This lack of patience is perhaps the single most reason for the lack of organized Sahaguin invasions. Sahaguin crave alpha status, and will repeatedly challenge authorities that they believe are acting out of passivity or cowardice.
Physical Description: The Sahaguin share many of the same physical traits as the Locanth and the Kouton, but are individually much larger than either.  They range from 6 to 7 feet long and heavily muscled, sporting the extended fins on their arms and tail like the Locanth, but a more predatory mouth lined with fangs like the Kouton.  Sahaguin eyes are large, like dark onyx, with an almost hypnotic stare.  Their hands and fins are webbed to the finger tips, and the tips of their pelvic fins and tail flukes end in chitinous manus.
Relations: There is little love lost with the Sahaguin, especially with the Mer, whom have suffered border incessant aggressions where ever the two races colonize.
Alignment: Sahaguin are unapologetically evil, with strong lawful tendencies expressed in a convoluted code of honor that stresses success above all, conflict whenever possible.
Homeseas: The Sahaguin Lagoons are a large series of temperate lagoons to the south and east of the Kraken’s Maw.  If not for this no mer’s land barrier, the rest of the civilized races would suffer Sahaguin incursions on a frighteningly frequent basis.
Religion: Sahaguin are on the cusp of becoming monotheistic, revering their scaled goddess above all others of the Elquan Pantheon.
Language: Sahaguini is a robust tongue, loud and proud, well suited for battle cries and death wails.  It’s written form uses a system of logograms — a system of symbols derived from basic pictures to represent ideas.  Unfortunately, as a strange by-product of the Sahaguin trait of  pugnacity, over the generations these symbols have drifted from their original meanings and new ideograms have been added.  At the present time, there are numerous variations of the lexicon, varying sharply regardless of distance between settlements.  As a result, reading Sahaguini requires a Speak Language check at DC 15 unless the item was written by the very Sahaguin reading it.
Names: Sahaguin naming is an uncomplicated, almost simplistic system tied strongly to their logographic language.  Sahaguini children are given an ideogram for their name, usually one that exemplifies some positive trait the Sahaguin prize.  “Warrior”, “conquest”, or “success” are typical concepts used as names.  The culture does not use surnames, but will sometimes identify other Sahaguin by the name of the settlement in which they were born.
Male Names: Ekunda, Githinji, Olwenyo, Qinsela
Female Names: Boipelo, Lungile, Onyeka, Ulaya
Adventurers: Dealing with a Sahaguin adventurer is difficult.  The natural behavior of Sahaguin is to take what they want.  While they understand the concept of fairness and equal shares, a Sahaguin that covets something will become almost belligerently stolid until he gets his way.  They will require an explicit and  inviolable chain of command, detailing who is superior to whom and why it is so.

Racial Traits
Ability Adjustments: Strength +1, Dexterity +1, Constitution +1, Charisma -2
Automatic Class Skills: Knowledge (nature), Profession (hunting)
Skill Bonuses: Sahaguin enjoy a +4 racial bonus on all Profession (hunting) checks.
Bonus Hit Dice: None
Natural Armor: Sahaguin benefit from a +2 natural armor bonus due to their thick-scaled hide.
Natural Weapons: Sahaguin pelvic fins and flukes are taloned, and can in conjunction make a single Rake attack at 1d4 points of damage.
Movement: Medium creature (1 cube tall), base speed 30 cubes.
Senses: Low Light Vision, Blindsense
Buoyancy: Shore (adjustable)
Blood Frenzy (Ex): Savage fighters, a Sahaguin can enter a blood frenzy once per day per point of base Constitution bonus (race and level bonuses to Constitution only).  The uncontrollable frenzy is triggered when the Sahaguin takes damage in combat, and begins on the Sahaguin’s next action.  The Sahaguin gains a +2 to Strength and +2 to Constitution (this does not apply to the number of time the Sahaguin can blood frenzy) and will concentrate all his attacks on the opponent that harmed him until one of them are dead or the opponent escapes
Blindsense (Ex): Sahaguin can sense tiny movements in the currents caused by the smallest movement, such as respiration.  They can always detect when a creature is within a 30 foot radius of themselves, though they cannot identify or differentiate one intruder from another.
Light Sensitivity (Ex): Sudden exposure to bright light such as that produced from a daylight spell or sunlight will blind a Sahaguin for one round, and they will thereafter be dazed until they are given the opportunity to rest.
Favored Class: The hunter/warrior dynamic of Sahaguin life makes them well suited to become Rangers.  As a culture, the species tends to stress the basic classes of fighter, rogue, and cleric, and push their citizens towards concentration on single classes.
Social Flaw: Pugnacious
Base Height: Male: 5′ 11” (+ 2d6 in.).
Female: 5′ 9″ (+ 2d6 in).
Base Weight: Male: 280 lbs. (+ height mod. x 2d10 lbs.)
Female 265 lbs. (+ height mod. x 2d8 lbs.)
Automatic Languages: Sahaguin, Elquan
Bonus Languages: Locanthic, Koutonese, Yaun-Teel
Level Adjustment: +1 Level

Life survives through conflict, life ends through conflict, life is conflict for the Sahaguin.  Competition is a fundamental cornerstone of the culture, and the relentless hounding for alpha male (and female) status is pervasive in their mythology and oral literature.  Sahaguin have a surprising skill at relating every aspect of life beneath the waves to conflict, through simile, analogy, or metaphor.  Survival of the fittest is perhaps gross overgeneralization of their society, but their dedication to improvement through combat is hard to ignore.

There is one subject that is sure to get a nosy individual slain immediately, and that is the subject of Sahaguin children.  There seems to be no physiological change to Sahaguini females before the appearance of offspring, and no one has ever seen their childbirth process.  While the reason for this is unclear to the Known World, the Sahaguin have a significant reason to hide it.  Once every hundred or so births, a Sahaguin infant is delivered that looks completely like a Mer.

Perhaps it means Mer and Sahaguin evolved from a common ancestor, but that would not explain why the Sahaguin give birth to offspring in the current Mer physiology instead of some kind of proto-missing link.  Identical in every aspect, even the coloration, these malenti are indistinguishable from true piscean sapiens, even by divinatory means.  A malenti can swim among the Mer Currents and no one would suspect it, a fact that the Sahaguin use to their advantage.  So Sahaguini children are hidden from sight until adolescence, when they take their place in the pack as a novice hunter.

“Only a coward wonders `Is it safe?’
A true Sahaguin only wonders `Will it be glorious?'”
Unquestionable wisdom shared from Sahaguin experience