What is a Merrow?
The merrow could best be described as merfolk, though their upper bodies are covered in the same scales as their lower portions. Though naturally aquatic, they can come up out of the water for periods of time, resting on their strong snake-like tails. They can’t live out of the water on a permanent basis, generally requiring to take a swim at least every 12 hours or risk drying out. They can survive up to 30 hours out of the water, but it is in no way comfortable and they get progressively weaker the longer they are in the open air.
Merrow do not have genders as we know them; most of their people are genderless beings that never mate. Instead their race is divided into a number of physically different castes. The majority of their race is split between the warrior and worker castes.
The Three Castes
Warriors are extremely large and have an exoskeleton like a crab or a lobster, meaning that they are naturally armoured. They can also stay out of the water for about 50% longer than the other castes (18 hours comfortably, 45 hours before dying). The warriors’ shells are usually bright red, but variants ranging from yellow to nearly black do occur. It is common among most tribes to tattoo themselves with dark blue-purple markings that show their rank in the caste.
Physically, the worker caste is distinct because of the workers’ limbs; unlike the other castes they actually have legs instead of just a tail, and their tail is shorter and far less muscular. In addition to their four legs, they also have four arms where the other castes have only two. For most workers, one pair of arms is dominant, being stronger and larger than the other pair. The scales of the worker caste vary greatly, ranging from black to white, red to yellow, or green to blue; really nearly any colouration is possible.
The last caste is the royal caste, which does have normal gender. Females lay eggs without requiring fertilization, and those eggs will naturally hatch and develop into warrior caste. It is possible for a male to fertilize the eggs after they have been laid, in which case they will become worker caste, or the eggs can be fertilized before being laid through normal sex, which results in the eggs growing into royal caste. Within any given tribe it is usual to destroy most eggs not laid by that tribe’s queen.
In appearance, the royal caste are most like the archetypal merfolk; they have a humanlike upper body, and a long fish tail below. While they do have scales all across their body, some royal merrow have scales of a different colour above their tails, resulting in an appearance that the two halves are distinct and separate. The colouration of royals varies as much as the worker caste, but royals from the same tribe are usually similarly hued. Many royals also have small scaled tendrils that look somewhat like hair on their heads; these are always either pure white or pure black, or a mixture of the two.
What is a Vellan?
Finally, outside of the merrow race itself are their slaves, the vellans. Vellans are extremely similar to varkers, small furry rodent-like creatures. The difference is that vellans are aquatic in nature with oily fur that water simply rolls off of. If a varker would be compared with a rat or weasel, a vellan is more like a beaver or a muskrat. Because they lived largely on the coast, nearly all vellans have been subjugated and enslaved by the merrow, but it might be possible to find isolated free tribes further inland living in large lakes.
Friday: Part 2
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