Biology

Fossa Gull, the Fool Drowner

All sea hags are unique. When the echoes of the First Verse change an individual, the alterations are seldom the same, even when the species of piscean is in common. But the Fool Drowner is a league beyond that. Fossa Gull is perhaps the most singular of hags, as she appears to be a transformed kelpygmy dragged through the most horrifying metamorphosis.

What was once her tail now drift, splayed out, a tangle of vines like the threads unraveling on a broken loom. Wickedly jagged thorns protrude from her fingertips, and her teeth sit loose in their sockets. In her eye sockets flat, wide leaves wither. Her hair lays plastered to her scalp, wilted algea that hangs lifeless despite the surround currents. Upon her stooped head rests her treasure, her crown.

Geography

The Price of Progress

Tired of subsisting while others prosper, a native Locanth tribe called the Estar Current abandoned their ancient tradition of harmony with nature to begin strip-mining for precious stones. The local sea hag, aghast at the destruction to the environment near her home, threatens to destroy them if they do not stop. Stuck in the middle, the adventurers must resolve the conflict before it is too late: Make them stop or you all will die…

Nestled between two steep hills lies a valley, itself bisected down its length by a deep trench. The trench is full of incredibly tall reeds and other soft-stemmed plants that form almost a blanket over the trench bed, but are not strong enough to support the weight of an individual. The flora is wildly overgrown and may hide any manner of stealthy predatory creatures.

Theology

Eadro, the Changing Tide

The seasons change, and life under Elqua’s water migrates, abandoning its current seabed for the fresher environment over “there”.  No matter where you are, the seaweed is always greener in the next kelp-bed, the waters clearer around the other coral reef, the fish tastier from another school.  The vibrancy of what you have pales in comparison to what others have.

He is the God of life along the Shore, the Bather of Gills, where flora and fauna intermix.  There, their lives overlap and intertwine, utilizing the virtues each other has to better themselves.  The faithful of Eadro, His Ardent, know this and take it to heart.  The shark is a great hunter.  So Eadro’s Ardent use their teeth for unguis and skin for shagreen.  The octopus is a wily obscurantist.  Thus Eadro’s Ardent harvest their ink occlude the waters and their skin for clothing.  Coral is robust and strong, hence Eadro’s Ardent employ it for hardiness and resilience.

Dissatisfaction with what is when what could be is so much better.  Do not be satisfied with what you have, when it could be better.  By wanting more, you expand your potential,  protect against those with the very qualities you covet.  Those qualities make them superior, put you at a disadvantage.  Take those qualities and make them your own, and you protect yourself from those that will soon use that quality against you.  You are inferior without the qualities that others possess, and others know that.

Eadro, the Deliverer, Lord of the Sunlit Shore, Bather of Gills, the Changing Tide, Invidia of the Envy.

Alignment: Neutral.
Symbol: A spiral of green seaweed, swirling with fish, circling outward at a greater and greater arc.
Domains: Animal, Luck, Magic, Travel, War.
Preferred Unguis (weapon): Spear.
Clerical Unguis of Choice: Spear.
Cleric Alignment: Chaotic neutral, lawful neutral, neutral evil, neutral good, true neutral.

Theology

Merrshaulk, the Covetous Collector

Mortal life is small, it is limited.  Tiny specks in the vast endless blue, vulnerable to the slightest danger.  To the living, life is precious and cannot be extended.  Trapped in just a passing blink of time, with meager ability to produce, inadequate skills to survive, each passing second is lost.

With such a short time in the all-encompassing ocean, with death hunting for you at every moment, austerity is the foolish choice..  The few moments you have, have worth.  Every moment should be squeezed for every precious drop of value.

Your time spent in the service of others instead of yourself therefore requires compensation.  To not take compensation is to not value yourself, to waste that small sliver of a tiny life that cannot be brought back.

The only one that can define the worth of your time is you.  If others cannot meet your expected compensation, then they do not deserve the sacrifice of your time.  Convincing others of your worth is therefore your right.  Demand the most for what you have and what you can do, for no one else will offer you its true worth.

The oceans are plentiful.  The oceans provide.  You need only take what you want, want as much as you can, to warrant your survival.  This encourages the competition for resources, for wealth.  Wealth not just in coinage, but in resources, influence, and power.  This ensures only the most competent survive.  And by hoarding more than you need you prohibit others from meeting their needs.  Never overestimate another’s greed, nor underestimate your own need.

Merrshaulk, the Sagacious, Lord of the Hoard, the Covetous Collector, Avarita of the Greed.

Alignment: Chaotic Evil.
Symbol: A golden eel knotted around an upturned alabaster oyster shell, the eel’s head extending past one side.
Domains: Chaos, Evil, Knowledge, Luck, Trickery.
Preferred Unguis (weapon): Constriction.
Clerical Unguis of Choice: Netting.
Cleric Alignment: Chaotic evil, chaotic neutral, neutral evil, true neutral.

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The Kelpygmies of Elqua

Great swaths of ocean floor along the Shore are covered in extensive plant growth.  Veritable forests of kelp and seaweed flourish, providing a rich environment for a multitude of fish and other animals.  Something else lives in the dense tangles of seaweed: the dreaded Kelpygmies.

Physics

The Colorful World of the Endless Blue

“A big blue marble in the Vastness” is an obvious image of Elqua, the world of the Endless Blue Setting.  A world covered 95% in water, the seas appear as a single all-encompassing ocean.  When so little land breaks the surface of the planet’s encompassing oceans, such expansive swaths of blue veritably swallow the world into a giant sphere of blue.  But such a bias is unfair to the spectral wonders of the world, because Elqua is home to some of the most colorful vistas the mind could ever imagine.

Linguistics

Writing So Words are Not Washed Away

In the prehistory of Elqua, when the primitive pisceans were still little more than grunting savages, a strange few began to scratch marks in stone and coral.  These innocuous mars, little more than chips and streaks, were the first neanderthallic attempts at one of the most inspired and far-reaching developments in all civilization — the beginning of written language.

Language is the medium in which civilization flourishes.  Without some method of communication, tradition, innovation, and comprehension vanish.  This language need not be verbal (as the ceph ambushers’ tentacle can attests), but some method of putting ideas into form and transferring that idea-made-form to another individual so it in turn may become his new idea is intrinsic to the creation and growth of all society.