#nortusk

Merfolk

1.8-2.4M|80-170KG|O2->CO2|270-290K|1.1G|80-120ESY|TERRESTRIAL-AQUATIC

From the beginning of their history to its end, they never knew peace.

In a cold corner of an outer galactic arm, a lonely gas giant followed an orbit that took it so near the sun that its outer layers foamed into green, while its moons grew so warm that one of them, the third, could blossom with life. But in the winter, the giant circled so far that it turned as yellow as death, and its third moon became cold enough for ice to cover its oceans, cold enough to freeze and wilt all life on its surface. During this season, most creatures on the world, including its people, would migrate to the oceans, transition to a cold-blooded body mode, and wait for spring beneath the ice, in darkness.

This way of life did not breed a gentle people. Their claws were sharp for gripping prey, skulls sloped for deflecting blows, and their forearms were armored in thick hide for catching the bites of predator fish. And they had a second smaller heart, down by their pelvis, which could keep them alive if the beating of their main heart were ever paused by great injury, or great stealth. Males and females were alike in the trials they faced, and were nigh indistinguishable except by smell, and that only during mating season. Their children could swim and stalk and eat from the day that they hatched, and were not nursed or fed but rather tamed, and protected.

It was a difficult life, more difficult perhaps than the lives that many races enjoy. But they met this life every year, and they matched their world in strength, blow for blow, so that their lives were often happy, and their culture often rich, as it still is today. They held honesty and heritage as high virtues, to mitigate springtime fighting over kingdoms abandoned in the fall. Their memories were long, to recall the lessons of the dead. Their hearts were brave, to apply those lessons. And they were careful stewards of nature, for nature would give them their food and their life, and nature would take it away.

But they were also aggressive, brash and proud, quick to speak and to fight and to hate. Peace came slowly, and war came quickly, and they made enemies of everyone they ever met. When the tribes from the North came, they made enemies of them. When the tribes of the south came, they made enemies of them. When the coal miners mined and the engine builders built, they made enemies of them too.

And when the wizard came to their world,

They made an enemy of it.

But as you know, the wizard's hate runs deep; deeper than death, and deeper than war. They sought to wage war against it, but the wizard made such war as they had never known, and took from them the one thing they didn't know they could lose.

The wizard took their world.

They've made other enemies since, in their long exile. They made enemies of the Machines, of the Vampires, of the Grey Reign, and perhaps one day, they will make enemies of us. Such is their way, and their curse. Each one carries a warrior heart inside it, which knows to punch and claw sharks to pieces for food, which remembers the fresh and bitter taste of its native ocean water, which expects a war each winter, which knows the full measure of what it has lost, that knows that it will never get it back, and bravely hopes that it will.

'Merfolk' is the name we gave them, when we found them. They hadn't had a name for themselves before that, as among the company of monsters and old gods, it had been enough to call themselves 'Nürtausk', their word for 'People'. Perhaps calling them Merfolk is just a little more descriptive, but they have lost so much, it would be a shame if they lost the dignity of being called people, too. In any case, the pronunciation of the word has nowadays drifted to match its English spelling: 'Nortusk'.

From the beginning of their history to its end, they never knew peace.