The deep folk are a group of peoples who live beneath the waves. Most are known to live in the oceans and seas, but they seem unaffected by living in salty or sweet water, and appear along large rivers and lakes as well. Just as long as there's enough water for them to make a home beneath it (since like other folk, they prefer to live in a building. They are often seen by sailors, though some scholars will head out onto the oceans in order to study them, or learn from them.
The deep folk are as varied as the peoples of the surface, with many different kingdoms and groups. The largest of the undersea kingdoms is full of what is called the Merfolk. These Merfolk claim to be the lords over all of the oceans, though sailors tend to notice that they only show up in certain areas, and other sorts of deep folk are more common elsewhere. This likely means that the great empire beneath the waves is as limited in their reach as the empires of the landlubbers.
At the fringes of the range of the primary Merfolk Empire, there are generally three groups of common deep folk, but there's definitely more living beneath the waves. The nokks are a group of terrifying deep folk who lure people to their deaths, and seem to have more powers of shapeshifting than the average deep folk. Sailors fear them due to the fact that their songs are alluring, and in some forms will draw them in, though more hatefully they draw in children as well. Not all nokks use their songs as lures, others choose to lie in ambush, pretending to be flotsam, wear disguises of kelp, or pose as shipwrecked survivors. These nokks are often feared, but some sailors long to hear their song, since survivors remember it as the most beautiful sound. The Merfolk Empire does not acknowledge the Nokks, but if informed of them near their territory, those nokks tend to disappear.
There are also the ichthic, strange deep folk who lurk on the edges of the empire. They claim to have no desire to interact with the surface dwellers, content to worship their daemons, and live in their hidden cities. The ichthics however perform mad experiments on creatures of the natural world, often using them as hosts for daemons, or perhaps worse. And those creatures will sometimes come out of the waves. Worse, the ichthics see no issues with experimenting on sailors who fall into their clutches, or raiding villages along the shoreline and stealing people and pets to experiment upon. If they are courted and their daemonic rituals appeased, they will give gifts of gold, or aid the catches of fishermen. There are also rumours that there are strange fusions of ichthic and human born of horrible rites, which are ichthics that can walk upon the land.
Scavvers are the scavengers and lone mermaids who live on the fringes of society. They avoid the merfolk empire, though sometimes they collect together into cities or towns, but they bear no cultural affinity with other groups of scavvers. They are usually very motivated to trade with surface dwellers, desiring their trinkets and especially their food. Scavvers usually are trading fish or items made from shell, stone, or kelp, but the reputation of scavvers is that they always have golds and pearls in untold numbers. The scavvers like to keep the reputation of being wealthy, as sailors will often consider finding scavvers good luck, and selling a map to a scavver village is a common sight in seaside taverns.
Note: This is a strange stat block. I have written a core stat block, then an overlay, adding additional skills and traits for different types of merfolk. Use the main stat block for a generic deep folk, but if you want to make a Merchant, a Nokk, or an Ichthic, add the additional stats in their section.
Tail Shifting: The deep folk are often confusing to surface dwellers due to the fact that they are seen with legs and with the tails of fish. This is because the deep folk can turn their feet from scaled fish feet into the legs of humans. They can also choose to merge their feet together into a single very large and strong tail. These have no mechanical difference, through the deep folk need to have legs to walk. Some prefer to keep the versatile webbed feet and others like to have the merged tail, this is always a personal preference, and deep folk change as quickly and commonly as others change clothes.
Born of the Depths: The deep folks live under the water. They can breathe while their tails or legs are underwater. This means they can easily stick their torsos out of the waves to speak to surface dwellers, if they have a shared language. However, if they are pulled from the water they begin to drown like a human would when submerged.
Captivating Voice: The nokks have a singing voice which can lure people to their deaths. The traditional method is to sit on dangerous rocks and sing to lure ships to them to bring them down. However, others will sing in rivers to drown the unwary. However it is used, Nokks must make a Sing test with an Ob of the highest Will amongst a group, if successful, that group (person, ship, small group on a hike, and so on) must turn toward the Nokk. Once they reach the Nokk they will Hesitate (as per Wonderment from an elven spellsong), and once their hesitation is over, they are free from the control of the Nokk.
Air Breather: Ichthic Hybrids can breath air as easily as they breath water. This means they are able to hide and live amongst their family of ichthics, and the, usually unknowing, surface dwellers.
Knife Fighting is the common art used amongst the deep folk, and it's often taught to sailors due to its value.
Actions: Beat, Strike, Avoid, Charge/Tackle
Forms:
Techniques:
The primary fighting art of the merfolk legion. The Merfolk will tend to form a defensive hemisphere, and have the outer merfolk hold a shield and a sword. And then the inner merfolk use spears and harpoons. This tends to leave them very rarely threatened, even by very large swarms of Nokks. The merfolk use long spears or harpoons made out of bone or ivory, shields made of kelp and bone frames, or large shells. Their swords are knapped from obsidian or flint, or they use large shells cut into swords.
Actions: Block, Strike, Avoid
Forms:
Techniques:
Used by the Nokks to break necks. The goal is to cause harm fast and furious. The art is brutal, but if it fails it means that the Nokk is almost completely stuck in a fight it's not going to win. The swiftness of the Nokks mean that they are often thought to be unkillable.
Actions: Lock, Counterstrike, Push
Forms:
Techniques:
A Burning Wheel Monster Every Week