Is it okay to allow merfolk civilizations to expand towards

>>50736997
>wanting fishniggers to ruin your beach property

As long as they respected our needs of and transportation. If we could work together when it comes to hunting aquatic life for food, and draw out clear transportation lines and boundaries, i'd have no issue with them, might even get a chance to score some qt merm grills.

Easier to give them the D then

>>50736997
There's a whole town in the harbor of Waterdeep.

>>50737308
I see that you too have find out why fisheries make excellent workplaces https://exhentai.org/g/934658/8a1def21b5/

>>50736997
Yes. If they have access to small segments of coastline, they can more easily work metal.

Merfolk with access to metal arms and armor will have much better chances to deal with sea-dwelling monsters like krakens, leviathans, and evil gods that happen to be napping at the bottom of the ocean. Those are problems that land-dwelling demihumans do not want to touch with an eleven foot pole.

And quite frankly, it's not like us land-lubbers are doing a whole lot with that underwater real estate anyway. We might as well let the merfolk find something to do with all that space and trade with us while they suss it out.

>>50736997
why does the tail bend like that?
why?

>>50737408
>giving merfolk access to metal
what makes you think it will not result in our naval routes getting continously fucked by mer-pirates?
at some point they will pretend rights and you can be sure as hell they will want our lands because the sea is a shithole to live in with little to no resources.

>>50737431
Because they're articulated like dolphins instead of like fish.

>>50737483
Abundant food & breeding grounds, not to mention all the empty SPACE in the oceans are pretty important resources.

There would be literally no reason for them to trade or take anything from the surface.

>>50737589
>There would be literally no reason for them to trade or take anything from the surface.
Are you sure about that? If you're doing a Mer race, there's going to be lots of different kinds of Mer people.

Who's to say there aren't Mer racists who want to toy with the surface? Or want the 'quaint surface curiosities' and 'tribal artifacts'?

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>>50737589
>Because they're articulated like dolphins instead of like fish.
I'm not sure you understand how tails work

>>50737625
Why would they need to raid? They have pearls, sunken treasure, coral (which is considered precious material to this day), mother of pearl, and food to trade.

You can't tell me that people don't want that shit, those are all multimillion dollar industries based on the sea.

>>50737811
>those are all multimillion dollar industries based on the sea
And I suppose there are no land based commodities?

>>50737811
>sunken treasure
>implying that's a business that can't be enanched by purposefully sinking more ships

>>50737818
Sure - but what would they need? They don't need food. They don't need housing. The only thing they might need would be weapons, which brings up the raiding scenario, so only idiots would give them those.

>>50737836
>They don't need food.
I mean, you don't "need" anything more than nutritious gruel. You don't have to import any foreign foods at all. But you, or someone you know, probably has.

Also >>50737833.

You kinda screwed yourself by saying "sunken treasure".

>>50737836
The question isn't what they need. It's what they want. I'm sure there are many luxuries that merfolk would want. For instance, we don't know if the merfolk have access to mining and precious gems and minerals. Also, stainless steel would be pretty useful for merpeople.

>>50736997

Curiously enough, this is something that is happening in my setting, although it's less of merfolks, and more of porpoise people from another plane.
They are cunning merchants and quite rich: they pay large sums to buy coastlines of sort, promising also to sell fish to the locals at reasonable prices and protect the coasts from potential warships.
Ultimately, playing the long game, they end up buying all the coastlines, and end up monopolizing all sea trade for large monetary gain, eventually controlling most of the world's economy flow, and be able to afford to buy out also the territories outside of the coastline with little effort. (although they leave alone deserts and forests)
They "conquered" 4 material planes this way, up to now. They are unsure if starting a fifth attempt.

>>50736997
Sure. All the better to create merfolk farms to harvest their bones and craft them into high-value souvenirs.

>>50740235

We can use the money from said farms to build state-of-the-art childcare facilities!

>>50740235
Where did Mermaid bone farms come from?
It's not the first time I've heard the joke and it seems like an odd joke to make.

>>50740319
It's from an old Dorf thread. Was it on 4chan or the official Dorf forums?

>>50740319
Dwarf Fortress. Somebody noticed that mermaid bones were really valauble for some reason, so he decided to harvest them for money. Catching and killing mermaids, however, proved to be not worth the effort, but he figured he could catch some and start breeding them in captivity and slaughter them for their bones. So he set up an industrial mermaid bone farm, which people apprently considered horrible enough that the creator of the game nerfed the value of mermaid bones.

>>50740452
It was nerfed because it was overpowered as FUCK, not because it was "horrifying".

>>50740473
How does something get called overpowered in a single-player game?

>>50736997
That depends on whether or not you like to eat. Fish population is strained enough as it is, no sense in letting these water gypsies ruin our territorial waters.

>>50740493
When it breaks the game's economic systems over its knee.

>>50736997
Merfolks should not live in civilizations.

>>50740473
>overpowered
You mean unbalanced or bugged or something.

To be fair I wonder if Toady tried to make a sort of reference to mermaid flesh being sought after (it wasn't just the bones that were valuable, but you couldn't butcher sentient beings for their flesh)

>>50740493
Because it greatly disrupts the balance and makes a significant aspect of the difficulty completely trivial?

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What merfolk are we talking about here?

>>50740504
Fish populations has always been fine up until the dawn of modern fishing techniques. The introduction of merfolk wouldn't strain shit in a pre-modern setting.

>>50740567
Wasn't the mermaid farm really complex to build, though? It feels like if you were willing to put that much effort in, you deserved to be able to break the game.

>>50740452

it got nerfed because too many people made mermaid bone farms and made their games piss easy and never needing money again. Toady doesn't like people not-losing.

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>>50737625
>>50737589

>mer-racists who have no actual need for surface commodities and just want to lay humans low

maybe it's like pic related where the sea is so enormously big that the only really livable places for them are about as sparse as human settlements anyway?

>>50737379
Can I have the name?
Not a sand panda issue, my computer just hates displaying the site right now.

>>50736997
As long as they're cute.

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In that case I would have mammalian merfolk who live in and around the coast as opposed to their cousins who are more dolphin like that live further out in water (and would be larger and not as intelligent).

Although I'm not curious what a race of river dolphin merfolk would be like

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>>50736997
Do merboys have penises? Would they be able to fuck a human girl?

>>50743617
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=fish+penis

>>50736997
... and why not?

>>50742481
Dudebro party animals that crash your festivals and walk off with all the hot girls, traditionally.

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>ywn meet a cute mergirl
>ywn fertilize her eggs

>>50736997
It is if I can get OP pic's fish boipussy

>>50736997
Is that a merboy?
I approve, I really approve, and demand moar!

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>>50742481
If they're anything like their oceangoing cousins pic related is pretty good answer.

>>50744299
>>50744631

Sexually liberated chauvinistic sorts who don't see anything wrong with being more then bit forward with what they want?

What about their women? Are they submissive or can they be equally as forward and pushy about getting what they want?

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>>50744430

>>50740801
Jikyuu 1500 yen!! Gyogyou o Tetsudau Kantan na Oshigoto desu. (Dansei nomi Bashou) Zenpen | Earn 1500 Yen! Help wanted at fishery! Easy Job! (Only male applicants please)

>>50740016
Sounds like it's time for some good old fashioned genocide

>>50747068
That was cute.

Post more merboys

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>>50750682

>>50743617
All mammal males have penises.

>>50752729
>Merfolk
>Mammal
Are they?

>>50752746
On average, about half.

>>50752900
And the important part is a fish tail. Hence the original question

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>>50740016
>rapist ocean jews

>>50745392
>can they be equally as forward and pushy about getting what they want?
Yes and they will force you to cum inside with industrial strength vaginal muscles

>>50752746
They're monotremes

>>50753348
>Make a setting
>Make the merfolk horrible scheming rapist ocean jews
>On the other
hand they all look like >>50736997
>Dare you enter my naval campaign?

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>>50752967
>>50752746
>Breasts
>Belly buttons
>Remarkably similar to human physiology
>Can become, were once, and can interbreed with, humans in many myths
>Aquatic mammals of the order Sirenia were called that specifically because they kept getting mistaken for mermaids
Isn't it easier, at this point, to just say the fish tails are convergent evolution rather then the other way around?

>>50737589
Pretty sure they'll take our women, son

>>50752746
Magical Beasts, nigga

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What's the best use for merfolk in a campaign? Helpful one-off NPC? Wily antagonist? Cutesy settlement? Besieged community?

>>50754669
Well then we just take theirs anon, don't you know JUSTICE?

>>50754804
Good luck taking their women when they've already retreated to their dark fortresses deep beneath the ocean, with your mother, sisters, wife, and daughters in tow, to be twisted beyond recognition into the whore-brides of their dread king and his brine knights.

>>50754776
Seductive fish people that might fug you or might eat you depending on their mood

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Is it okay to let a mermale live in your bathtub?

>>50756323
Nope, accommodating merpeople at less 600 cubic feet per individual is considered abuse.

>>50756416
but what if they want it?

>>50756490
Nope, not even then, there's health regulations. Obviously taking them indoor temporarily is ok, but bathtub is not acceptable as permanent solution.

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>>50754776
I'm not entirely sure. I like merfolk and all, but they're pretty difficult to fit in your typical campaign. In a nautical-focused campaign, they could pretty easily take the same role as elves, as a mostly benevolent demihuman race that lives in their hidden (underwater) villages and rarely directly interacts with humans but could make allies against the forces of evil.

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>>50756970
>That pic
The perfect balance between monster, cute and merfolk

>>50736997
It will interfere with fishing, a necessity to coastal living, and result in conflict eventually,

>>50756970
>Take terror from the deep
>Antropomorphize it
>It's cute
Works for most things actually. Deep sea fish, kraken, giant spiders and even Japanese hornets suddenly become less intimidating if they're intelligent enough to tell you "don't be afraid, friend! I mean no harm!"

>>50757139
>It will interfere with fishing
Not per se. Not if the merfolk are willing to trade with coastal humans. Land goods for deep sea goods sounds like a fair trade.

>>50753348

Frankly, they are porpoises, not dolphins.
So probably not the rapist part. But it does sound like ocean jews, yes.

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>>50757191
I wouldn't trust a Japanesse giant horned telling me it means no harm. Fuckers have a nasty temperament.

Cute deep sea horrors are cute, though. Although I also like the ones that incorporate the freaky traits of the actual fish that make them so cool.

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>>50757191
>Anthropomorphized sea cucumber

>>50757483
>Implying that's not a thing
Anon, how new are you?

http://gambargin.deviantart.com/gallery/?catpath=%2F&q=cucumber

>>50756970
>TFW no deepsea mermaid waifu

>>50757191
>Antropomorphize it
More like slap tits on it.

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>>50757521
All I'm seeing is puppet pal warriors.

My horror is from the idea of anthropomorphic women who defend themselves by turning around, bending over, and shitting out their lungs all over their attacker before reeling their lungs back in.

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>>50754097
>stock up on water breathing potions
I'm going in!

>>50760501
I guess then he had to delate the old sketches.

>>50757198
>willing to trade

So they're going to trade with people who live and fish on the coast for fish they can no longer fish themselves in great number because their mere presence depletes fishing stock? It's a matter of food, and for that matter a now alien culture is living right next door. These two things will spark eventually, and it won't take long.

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>>50737777
Dolphin tails primarily go up and down.
Fish tails primarily go left and right.

Plus, human legs bend more like dolphin tails than fish tails, so merpeople are generally portrayed as bending their tails up and down.

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>>50756594
Well, it's a bathtub, so it's not like changing the water is any kind of problem. Could even show them how to use the drain and tap themself.

Bump for more merbois

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>>50762532
Dolphin tails are based on fused spines, and one would imagine that merfolk tails are based on a similar principle.

Spines do not bend that way

If we were talking about selkies, who are based off of sea-lions, then it makes sense

>>50740801
Just stick it into Google next time, edit link to e-hentai if it don't work at first. Search result will gibe the title even if it's blocked from view.

You are now aware that global warming is in reality an attempt to expand merfolk territory.

>>50767175
I did not know that, thanks.

>>50766374
Maybe their tails are more like new world monkeys in their flexibility?
Evolution may have favoured more mobile tails with limited prehensile abilities over stronger, faster tails with limited mobility due to their amphibious nature and general costal dwellings.
The tail may even be akin to a tentacle, especially if cecaelia/octopus mermaids exist in the setting and are closely related to mermaids.

Then there is also 'gods/magic/wizards did it' considering Atargatis, the Ningyo and theYawkYawk all have magical origins and the Sirens and Nereids were children of a god. Even though the Sirens were originally bird-ladies like the Harpies and Nereids looked like beautiful women, legs and all.

>>50767190
So, what? Mermaids are in league with massed polluters?
This is sounding like some Captain Planet plot.

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Watch this show OP

>>50767653
You do realise there is more then just one or two animes out there, right?
Now can we have a title?

>>50767976
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nagi-Asu:_A_Lull_in_the_Sea

Do note this more of a drama than a fantasy show. It runs on magical realism

>>50754776
One of my past DM's made our party investigate a supposedly abandoned mer-village under an island. It turned out that a necromancer gained control of most (if not all) of the residents, so he could steal something from their temple.
Since I decided for my character not to go down and resolve the crisis, I had him fish a bit more. We went by d100 results, so the second time I cast, I ended up catching a mermaid. She was with another, and I had my character jump in and dance with them.
I was to go on vacation during the next meetup, so I left the DM with the hints that my character would make sexual advances with the mermaids. It worked, and I got an inspiration point when the main objective was done.

>>50736997
nice

>>50740540
Why not?

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>>50757134
Would you adopt an angler mermaid as your daughteru?

>>50768770

That drawing looks like cancer.

>>50754776
I'm writing an underwater campaign and they're essentially the human equivalent.

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hose the Gillies out of the bay that there is our fish

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>>50768770
On one hand, she's a cute.
On the other, she can probably swallow you whole if she gets hungry,

Tough choise.

>>50736997
To the contrary, Lebensraum extends well into the Pacific.

>>50754776
I like the DC approach in that they appear in an infamously shitty N64 game and then are largely abandoned as an intellectual property for a few years out of shame.

>>50740595
Plus having a lot of money really doesn't "break" anything at all. You can only buy the shit traders bring you and 99% of it is completely worthless. The only thing it would really get you is maybe some foreign weapons or a decent supply of food, when food is already dead easy to mass produce.

The OTHER thing that having a shit ton of high value merchandise does is attract things to your fault. Which means a few more migrants each season and then a bunch of armies and megabeasts will be lured and fuck your shit up. So honestly it's the opposite of overpowered. It's a long drawn out complicated way of making your game harder.

>>50757191
>Don't be afraid, friend! I mean no harm!
Most things are more intimidating if they're intelligent enough to lie

>>50769147
It depends on the tone and/or context. Disney animals aren't intimidating, but Fritz the Cat is fucking insane.

>>50737431
Because lazy artists don't look how tails work and just assume it works like knees

>>50769117
I don't follow.
Are you talking about that infamous Superman game?
How does that relate to mermaids?

>>50769007
Just make sure she's not hungry, then. She'll probably only need to eat once a month anyway.

I meticulously built a city setting on top of volcanic cape, where Merfolk lived in the pumiced caverns under the surface and would come up to trade with surface folk from countless Springs/wells excavated around the city.

My players caused the volcano underneath the city to erupt.

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>>50761882
Conflict is possible. In fact, assuming that merfolk are much better at fishing than humans are (due to being on the same level as fish and not having to lure them in from above), I can foresee three possibilities.

1. The humans go to war against the merfolk. This 'war' will consist of a bunch of men going no further than knee-deep into the water and prodding at anyone foolish enough to come close. The humans who dare go further than knee-deep will be dragged to the deep, and men on ship will impotently attempt to loose arrows on the merfolk as they drill holes into their hulls.
2. The humans accept that the merfolk are simply better fishermen than they are and trade.
3. Through intermarriage and interspecies romance the two groups effectively become one, with a century or two later the region becoming known for its amphibean humanoids, as comfortable on land as they are in the sea.

>>50768770
>>50769007
>Not taking a little, lost and scared daughteru and raising her until she's a monstrosity that could easily swallow five grown men at once but still loves her dear old daddy
I'm not even a parent, and even I can see that the joy of parenting is taking something unimpressive and turning it into something awesome. In the case of an anglerfish daughteru, she ends up becoming awesome in the Biblical sense.

>>50770375
>Not taking a little, lost and scared daughteru and raising her until she's a monstrosity that could easily swallow five grown men at once but still loves her dear old daddy
Cute! Where's a draw/writefag when we need one?

>>50770590
I'm not an actual drawfag, but I like drawing cute deep sea creepies, so I'll get on it.

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>>50737431
>>50769895
It's a chicken and egg thing.
Many artists have a shaky grasp of anatomy at best, throw in animal anatomy on top of that starts to really muddle things up.
They draw from what they know and what looks subjectively correct.
These include things like hip and knee bends in a tail containing vertebra.
This is further built on a rich history of mermaids in art, movies & theatre going back centuries some of which feature similar poses.
When it comes to live portrayals of mermaids, choices are somewhat limited into how to do the tail. The most obvious, easiest and by far the best option is to simply wear a fake tail over the legs.
This generally leads to tails flexing like legs, however. Further perpetuating the issue.

Also, humans have some pretty universal body language. By having the tail act as a pseudo pair of legs allows a further understanding of the character.

Because of all of this, it's considered an artistic convention, an acceptable break from reality.

Just look at this picture. Are you going to tell the Pre-Raphaelite styled artist John William Waterhouse, that he was wrong?

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>>50771989
Done. Not exactly a work of quality, but I never did say I could actually draw.

>>50773714
I'm perfectly fine with this.
In fact, I'm perfectly fine with this being turned into a 12 episode series of 5 minute anime shorts.

>>50773714
Cute!

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>>50773997
>>50774217
I actually did a bunch of this kind of stuff for one thread. Most of it only really makes sense in the context, though. Horrible deep sea cutes are cute, though.

>>50736997
of course!
they'll add a nice bit of weight to my nets.

>>50769963
No, I'm talking about the Aquaman game. Might have been a Gamecube game.

>>50770375
Merfolk are probably technologically retarded by comparison to humans by virtue of living in an environment where metalworking is extremely unlikely to exist, so tools and weapons that they'd make would likely be made of materials like bone and shell, they also wouldn't really have access to wood to create shafts for tools (and they'd soften and rot underwater anyway) so the "drilling holes in boats" idea is pretty unlikely, since the merfolk would be using the equivalent of paleolithic bow drills to make tiny holes which could trivially be plugged.

Fighting between humans and merfolk would be difficult as hell for both parties, since neither group can attack (and may not even be able to locate) the settlements of the other, so combat is limited basically to only involve actual combatants, and human and merfolk fishermen.

The merfolk have to either capsize small boats or pull their crews overboard somehow, and they probably couldn't do very much to large ships other than sabotage the steering gear. The humans have to basically use fishing and whaling techniques to entrap or harpoon the merfolk.

Pretty much it would be a shitshow.

>>50747068
It will have a next chapter, right?

>>50776178
If one is adding merfolk to a setting's waterways, you might as well give them some sort of means to compete via weird fantasy ocean stuff that gives equivalent gear to land dweller shit.

>>50776290
I personally wouldn't, it makes it less interesting to artificially put every civilization on the same level. But certainly if magic exists and there's no reason why they shouldn't have access to it then why the fuck not.

>>50756970
>DO NOT STARE INTO THE LURE

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>>50776365
There's a bunch of potential complications with merfolk and metalworking. Assuming that they're purely aquatic they'd never develop beyond a neolithic level without trading for metals and even if they traded for metal it would be borderline impossible for them to work it without fire. Geothermal vents and volcanic features exist that could provide natural sources of heat for metalworking but those environments would be either extremely hot, extremely toxic, too deep or too dark to work in.

Now if you can use magic to create sufficient heat to work and smelt metals that problem goes away, but you're left with a civilization in which metalworking is a magical process. You also have the problem of the lack of wood, you can't just lop down a tree to make a haft for your spear, there's coral, but coral tends to grow more like a bush than a tree, is comparatively fragile and can't be easily straightened like wood can, though this is one of the things that can probably be solved just by adding in some fictional giant seagrass or something. There's plenty of sources of fibers though, and there's large marine animals that could provide sources of very large bones which would be useful for construction and vegetable and animal food sources could be thoroughly abundant.

>>50777516
I like the idea that metalworking is a magical art. I also like the idea that most metal is inherited from the surface/ruins, and is covered in a patina.

I also imagine if aquatic races live in a sort of prehistoric/savage age, they would essentially have cargo cults surrounding surface goods.

Alternately, most technology underwater, instead formed of metals, is biomechanical in nature.

>>50776365
Just pull an elf and say that they make metal-rivaling weapons out of coral that they grow with special magic.

>>50778271
Or you know, don't.

There's no need for civilizations to all have equivalent technology.

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I like seeing unique kinds of mer-people. Anyone got anymore?

>>50737408
Metal and saltwater really don't work well together

>>50774528
Mind posting the rest as well? Those are pretty cute.

>>50782461
I have a few I can start posting once I get home.

On the subject of mermaid metals, why not the semi-mythological Orichalcum?
According to wikipedia, it had a strong association with Atlantis who were the primary society to mine and use it but by the time the Greeks wrote about it, it was known only by name.


Also, as >>50778271 said, magically grown and shaped coral is an idea.

I don't think the Mer have to specifically have to be at around the same technical level as everyone else but to say they would be cavemen equivalents is rather short sighted.

Mer are often depicted as highly magical people so they may very well have an advanced magical society.
Also, they are often associated with nature and easily friends with most, if not all of the ocean life, so why not an entire civilisation of water druids?

>>50782509
Bronze, Copper, Brass and various alloys there-in are resistant to corrosion to varying degrees as well as many heavy metals like Lead, Silver, Gold and Platnium.
Gold is famous in that very few enviroments can actually corrode it, though sea water will tarnish it somewhat quickly.

If you have the chemistry knowledge, galvanised and electroplated metals are rather easy to produce and can be done rather cheaply.

>>50784294
If you think "neolithic technology" means "cave men" you're a fucking ignoramus.

>>50737337
Ick. Have you got any idea what the harbor of a medieval town would be like? There's no proper sewer system; all the sewage just pools up on the street until the rain washes it away.

Washes it away into the harbor.

>>50736997

No. They'd be violating our borders.

>>50754776

I wouldn't know, since my DM avoids water like the plague.

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>>50783991
I made four or five of them (including the one posted), but I don't have one of them saved. For context, somebody in the thread brought up the idea of a hypothetical deep sea mermaid campaign, and specifically that the person playing a black swallower mermaid tries to use her "swallow whole" ability on anything they encounter, so I drew some stuff about the "horrible deep sea adventure party". Because I was lazy I just used the same characters to represent the players in the out of game panels, which doesn't really make any sense.

The number 2 is pretty much the exact same joke as this one, i.e. black swallower's player spent all experience on Racial Ability: swallow whole, making her character useless for anything else (in this one she just gets the one lucky roll and derails the game).

>>50782461
Anon, that's an angel. A water based animalesque powerful good outsider called a cetaceal agathion.

>>50784447
Whilst 'cave man' era ended 10,000 BCE, at the start of the Neolithic era, cave man is a very common term to refer humanity before the metal ages, including the neolithic period.

Sorry if I offended you delicate sensibilities with my common vernacular

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>>50784597
The one I don't have save because it was shittily drawn even by my standards had Black Swallower's player be th DM, and consisted of a montage of the other characters getting repeatedly eaten by various monsters (with lots of progressively smaller planels with very rough drawing style). Last panel was relatively well drawn, though, with Anglerfish's player having a breakdown while Black Swallower's player does the "dare you enter my magical realm" pose. In hindsight I should've saved that part at least.

Have a bonus Black Swallower, instead. Anglerfish was my personal favorite design, but people seemed to like Black Swallower.

>>50744631
>in mythology, merfolk traditionally lure people to water with their songs, then drown them
>dolphins murder/rape for fun

So...basically Sea Centaurs.

>>50784635
That's a poor angel because you can't tell immediately from the image.

Incidentally it's more how Merfolk would possibly work, being more porpoise then piscine.

>>50784447
A question then, how could one have a technologically and culturally complex society that's also neolithic?

>>50785056
The same way that various aboriginal populations all over the planet developed complex societies without developing metal tools.

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>>50782461
>>50784064
Ok, I only have a few non-traditional mermaid pics.

Lets start with a winged mermaid.
The Return by Jonathon Earl Bowser.

I do apologise for the extensive censorship.

>>50785336
Were any of them and underwater?

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>>50784554
And all that biowaste will lead to massed algae and plankton growth, encouraging fish to come for the feast, meaning the Merfolk will have a nice supply of food always on hand.

I don't see a problem here.[/sarcasm]

>>50785462
Melusine. A winged, serpent-lady that lives in fresh water, she could disguise herself as a human outside of water.

Allegedly she was the mother of one family line of French royalty.

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>>50784815
>Sea Centaurs
So just Ichthyocentaurs then?

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>>50785561
The myth of Melusine is unclear if she had one or two tails, as a side effect, twin-tail mermaids ala the Starbucks girl ended up often called Melusine also. making it unclear that Melusine had been her personal name and not her species name.

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>>50785637
Playing on the creepy factor that many deep dwelling fish invoke, along with the fear of there always being a bigger monster out there.
I really love this one.

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>>50785609
>Where else would they come from?

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>>50785673
Selkies, from Scotland folklore, seal women who could remove their hides to look like humans.

>>50785561
is that dress a part of her? if not, how the fuck did she get it on?

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>>50785812
Ok, not a terribly unique arctic mermaid, but anyway.

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>>50785842
Maybe it fastens up the sides, under the arms and her wings may not fully connect to her back.

Otherwise, Melusine could turn into a human when not in water so maybe she put the dress on before going for a swim?

>>50785898
Australian Mermaid, the YawkYawk.
They live among mangrove rivers and crocodile claimed rivers. They could turn into a fish, a crocodile, a bird, a seal and a human.
They also could talk to crocodiles.

They were willing to leave humans alone and even tell the crocs to leave them alone but if you offended one, you're croc bait, assuming they don't come and eat you themselves.

Like most monsters of the Dreamtime, it's a thinly concealed metaphor for 'be fucking careful!'

>>50784815
Seantaurs!

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>>50785974
Have some more Australian Mermaids.

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>>50785974
On a more body-horror note.

Mermaid Syndrome - Sirenomelia

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>>50786018
Mermaid sexual-dimorphism.

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Contributing

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>>50786125
And a merman

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>>50786044
Second last one.

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>>50786148
That's not a mermaid.
Here's the correct one.

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>>50786166
And finally, a Ningyo. Japanese Mermaid.

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>>50786177
Forgot these two.

Another Ningyo.

Eat her delectable flesh to become immortal.

>>50786177
>Ningyo
I assume, like all creatures in japanese folklore it exists entirely to fuck you over somehow.

>>50786191
Or turn into a mindles smosnter, or die in horrible agony.

>>50786195
They're mostly warnings to fishermen, a dead ningyo on the beach means terrible storms are coming.

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>>50786191
And Octopus Mermaids.
They've been recently named Cecaelia on the net with an obscure etymology coming from the name of a specific octopus lady that appeared in an old pulp comic from forty odd years back.

Octopus people pop up in a few mythologies but they are never given a specific name.
Due to Ursula of Disney's The Little Mermaid fame, they are often associated with magic, Faustian bargains and evil in general.

>>50786195
So just like the Yawkyawk then?

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>>50786253
That's all.

So lets finish up with some inter-species lesbianism.

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Don't suppose anyone has some good Merman yaoi pics?

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>>50786293
D'awww.

>>50740595
>It feels like if you were willing to put that much effort in, you deserved to be able to break the game.

3e DnD, everyone!

or

Powergamers!

or

Rules as Written!

So many choices...

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Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water.

>>50785637

so thats where the starbucks logo came from

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>>50788118
Yep, compare and contrast the two.

They even still have one shop with the original logo. I think it's in Seattle.

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What kind of weapons would Mer use?
Lets assume metal can be forged or there is an approximate alternative to use.

I imagine spears would be the most used.
Can you get enough speed on a sword swing to be useful?

Also I wonder about tridents. Tridents are useful when you are fishing from outside the water as the displaced image due to light bending is countered by multiple prongs.
They may still be useful underwater though, as armour weight would start to become an issue plus it'd be difficult to armour a tail. Multiple prongs mean you can inflict more wounds easier, even if force is shared across the points.
Plus the prongs may work to help parry opponents weapons, like how ranseur spears work.

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Eel people are a thing too

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>>50788808
also ray people

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>>50786293
>>50786330
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAoxrzExrp0

It almost makes the film look like it's worth watching.

>>50754776
We once had a mermaid paladin in our party, because apparently mermaids in pathfinder have a stupidly good statline for paladins. Said mermaid had a Collapsible bathtub and a decanter of endless water(Which was custom made to produce salt-water), as well as spells to turn it alcoholic in case she needs to bed down in extreme conditions. The campaign was Eternal Winter, so freezing to death was an everpresent concern.

Anyway, the Paladin mostly traveled via Gryphon, and had a seafoam shawl in case she needed real legs for emergencies/combat on foot.

>>50770375
>1. The humans go to war against the merfolk. This 'war' will consist of a bunch of men going no further than knee-deep into the water and prodding at anyone foolish enough to come close. The humans who dare go further than knee-deep will be dragged to the deep, and men on ship will impotently attempt to loose arrows on the merfolk as they drill holes into their hulls.
Depth Charges.

Bring it on fishyfuckers c'mon.

>>50789448
>Depth Charges.
Oh yes. Those medieval depth charges. Can't forget those.

It's the cornerstone to naval warfare after all.
HFY can go die in a fucking fire

>>50789574
It's a fantasy setting, fishfucker. If you're willing to accept Merfolk, you must also be willing to accept people learning how to fight merfolk.

>>50789625

i think he's more in the venue that your stupid ass concept isn't feasible and seems more like a MARINES OO RAH bullshit thing made up to make humans look cool fighting merfolk rather than sensible

sensibly, humans would be garbage at fighting them until they figured out how to into ballistics, and fishmen would be happy staying edo-period since nothing could come down and fuck with them until humans figured out how to cut through that pesky water resistance.

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>>50789625
And how are your depth charges gonna destroy H'rqfvbl, the Disemvoweled One, Mother of Merfolk, She Who Thirsts For All?

>>50788783
Blowdarts would probably replace bows, just put some jellyfish stingers inside of the dart and hit the tail of another Mer and you have them stunned effectively for the entire fight.

Daggers and small thrusting weapons would still be useful - shark teeth, coralshell fashioned spikes etc. Spears and Tridents would probably be their main frontline weapons with Tridents serving a pretty good niche at catching enemy spears.

Nets would be very useful, throwing one essentially creates a area of denial in the combat zone, anyone who touches that would be slown down so much that they became a sitting duck for spear thrusts.

>>50789869
Also, forgot to add but whichever Mer civilization discovers Animal Husbandry first would become dominate almost overnight, being able to tame and ride Sharks, Dolphins for the percussive sound blasts and even whales would clearly be the dominant force in the seas.

>>50789215
It was worth watching.

>>50772700
No_

>>50786330
I don't like it. It reminds me too much of that creature from splice. That was a shitty movie.

>>50753619
>industrial strength vaginal muscles
kek

>>50777516
>>50777772
>magic is always the solution!

>>50784294
gold is shit for weapon making though.

>>50789869
Why do merfolk have such a strong association with tridents? Spears would work equally as well and would probably be easier to use.
>>50789924
>implying this isn't the case on land as well

>>50789952
I think it suffered a bit of a lack of direction, like they were not really sure what the movie wanted to be.
I also wish the lesbian subtext played more of a part but it seemed half-arsed about it.

Also, if you're going full slasher villain, actually show the killings. Don't just show us a room of corpses and tell us the baddie did it. Actually show us it happening.


Still, a mermaid film that wasn't a rehash of Little Mermaid or Splash and wasn't a preteen girl coming of age film earns it points.

Shame they never did the squeal.

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>>50789924
>Animal Husbandry
So where does Capricorns and Hippocampi come in?

Actually, thinking about it, unless they had magic or super-speed or something, dolphins and sharks remain the superior options here.
Though amphibious animal friends would have their uses.

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>>50784765
>The one I don't have save

I have it! I have it!

>>50790368
>magic is always the solution!

Historically the art of smithing has been regarded as something magical.

>>50790420
Tridents are one of the best known fishing spear designs in existence to the point it became the symbol of Poseidon, Triton and Neptune. Later the symbol of naval might.

As the symbology stuck around as all the mermaid myths began to merge into the multicultural legends we have today, the trident was brought into it.

Even today, the trident is the symbol of power of, or over, the seas.

>>50737589
>space
>a resource
The overwhelming majority of the ocean is a dead wasteland with no nurients and barely even any fish. Most life in the ocean lives near coasts or reefs.

>>50790899
How would one do farming underwater anyways? What plant resources are there beyond things like algae and seaweed?

In the case of keeping fish, how? They don't have the means to construct tanks. Enclosures with nets? If they are given free roam they can escape or be eaten by other predators.

>>50790649
You're explaining why a human-designed weapon would be symbolic for mermaids. A barbed spear would almost certainly be easier to use than a trident when you're fully submerged.

>>50791059
Sure but you need to find a balance between evocative imagery/symbolism and realism. The warriors will likely have barbed spears, champions and leaders wield tridents.

>>50791059
If you spend all your time in the water, you'd be as used to passing though it as humans are passing through air. So the additional points of contact ona a trident are worth the manageable diminishment in usability.

>>50791187
Essentially how it works in 5e. If you have a natural swim speed you don't have problems using certain weapons underwater.

>>50784294
>If you have the chemistry knowledge, galvanised and electroplated metals are rather easy to produce and can be done rather cheaply
Anon, how are you planning to synthesise and contain all the required chemicals to build your underwater lab?

>>50791025
It would be hard. Merfolk would probably be nomadic, or just set up shop near a fertile area.

I suppose they might be able to farm coral reefs, killing any predators that show up while harvesting the smaller fish. Is there any way to artificially speed the growth of a reef? Breaking bits off and planting them elsewhere?

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>>50766374
>Dolphin tails are based on fused spines, and one would imagine that merfolk tails are based on a similar principle

Just a nitpick (sorry), it's more of a super-elongated regular tail plus some extra lumbar vertebrae than anything fusing.

But you are totally on point about seals and sea lions, which basically stick their feet at the end of an elongated abdomen and call it a day.

>>50767402
In marine evolution, there is a general trend where the body becomes stiffer and stiffer and movement is restricted to the very tip of the tail, in order to get maximum thrust out of swimming (thunniform body plan). You see it in whales, you see it in bony fishes (tuna), you see it in sharks (mako), you see it in all the great marine reptile lineages. Mermaids would have to have some kind of selective pressure to keep them from ending up going down that same path. Though an amphibious nature prior to developing civilization might do the trick.

This discussion of mermaid anatomy makes me question if there can be mer-lamias, based on aquatic snakes and eels

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>>50777516
Magnesium can actually be used to make a fire underwater. It burns hot enough that it strips the hydrogen and oxygen molecules of water apart, making it self-sustaining. If a mer-civilization could ever figure out how to reliably use magnesium flame, they're golden.

I always figured merpeople could control sea life

>>50785842
Don't worry. It's mer-made to fit.

>>50791740
Just like we can control ground animals, right?

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>>50756970
>you will never have an qt anglerfish waifu to fuse with and be carried along by until your entire body atrophies and you experience brain-death as an unrecognizable lump on her side, continuing to provide semen for her whenever she needs it for the rest of her life

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>>50792909
>tfw this can actually happen to you in MonMusu Quest.

>>50791649
There's also geothermal heat sources. If they could find some way to tap into that, maybe it could be used for metallurgy.

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>>50782461
I have some weird ones and some not so weird ones.

>>50790243
>It reminds me too much of that creature from splice
For all you know it could be that creature's child

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>>50786293
did somebody just say

>>50793437
shieeeeet I almost forgot that that thing raped and impregnated her and she was paid jewgolds to have the baby.

That movie was a fucking trainwreck.

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>select all food
>pictures show only cakes and trees

did someone say gay merboys?

http://www.mangahere.co/manga/wagamama_na_ningyosama/

>>50737431
They have a couple joints along their tail in order to give them a better range of motion.

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>>50794112
Oh god, I hope that's a parody.

>>50794238
Sadly, no. Most yaoi manga are really that bad.

This thread... hrrrnnnngh...

>>50736997
depends if you like border frictions

>>50794437
And they all have EXACTLY THE SAME art style.

>>50789215
not
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-w3vR9haeA

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>>50794437
>>50794501
I know, hence the reaction. The front page alone is a stereotype checklist.

>>50794501
>Yaoi hands

>>50792997
>many sea critters crowd around volcanic activity in the oceans
>mermaids form communities around volcanoes
>over time, use the lava as a forge/energy source/hunting ground/steamy, hot breeding ground

Volcano merms when?

>>50791649
Invoking magic would be more plausible than that. Magnesium doesn't occur naturally as a metal and was first produced in the 1800s by electrolysis. You're basically suggesting they solve a problem that would be encountered at about 10,000BC by using industrial revolution era materials sciences.

>>50795373
it'd be interesting if they invented magically-induced electrolysis before metalworking

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>find mermaid thread
>read mermaid thread
>remember that Anko-san comedy manga
>check it
>there's a new chapter!!
>why so short?!

>>50789713
Actually ancient weapons would fair a lot better at shooting into water than modern ones. the biggest rifle you could hold would only get maybe 10ft through water tops and it wouldn't be lethal after the first 3 in all likelyhood. Meanwhile harpoons, arrows, nets, hooks and the like would be far more effective. Mostly because they're designed to kill things in the water already.

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>>50753619
>tfw no Amazon River Dolphin gf.

>>50786253
Now this is more my speed

God damnit, /d/...

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>>50793803
any more like this?

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>>50742481
>(and would be larger and not as intelligent)
>mfw giant mermaid barbarians

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>>50797078
Sorry, I'm all tapped out.

>>50797012
Imagine!

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>>50794641
>mfw I know this pic

Why must I enjoy this. Why couldn't I be the normal one?

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>>50797944
Mah boi.

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>ITT:

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>>50770375
Scorched earth, fill it with so much mercury anything bigger than a salmon dies.

>>50798475
>implying that's not going to hurt you more than it hurts them

>>50798530
I can eat off the land they can't. Also losing a few years off from mercury poisoning isn't so bad if you already live dangerously.

>>50798645
What about your children, man? Don't you want them to have the sea? The clear waves, the glittering light on the surface, the colourful reefs and myriads of fish?

I get doing it carelessly. You just really weren't paying attention, you had other things to do, or there wasn't really anywhere else to put it all, or things got mixed up in the water cycle. I get that.

But intentionally poisoning the sea just to kill off the merfolk?

>>50798645
>I can eat off the land they can't
Not for long.

>>50798703
I wasn't aware fish was a required meal.

>>50798687
Not to mention mercury makes you retarded so it would mean many generations of retarded humans that were defenseless against countless other races.

Besides if you think that making the sea toxic is fine because it'll be contained in the sea then you're retarded. The whole environment is interconnected so it'll come to land in rainfall.

>>50798721
Mercury takes a few years to build up the concentration needed to drive you nuts, but it doesn't damage genes.
>>50798687
I really want to kill sea niggers. Give the ocean a few thousand years everything will go back to normal minus aforementioned sea niggers.

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>>50798390
I remember that one. Forgot its name though. Grade A stuff.

>>50798822
>heavy metal exposure doesn't damage genes
you are clearly already retarded, my man

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4144270/

>>50798822
>I don't like thing
>I want to ruin the whole world for everyone in it so I could spite the thing
Your parents either don't beat you enough or beat you too hard.

>>50798941
Fair enough. I don't know if the degree of poisoning would give you cancer and affect offspring, so just stay off the fish for a few generations.

Do they need to breathe air?
>Then, yes.
Do they not need to breathe air?
>FUCK OFF WE'RE FULL

>>50791187
>>50791227
Shouldn't having natural ease of swimming (as if it were air)
Not give you superior strength/near super strength above water?

>>50799053
You fucking tard, enough mercury in the water to genocide a whole race is enough to get into rainwater too. If enough time passes there would be very few places where this amount of mercury wouldn't be able to reach.

>>50799312
Maybe he already has brain damage from mercury poisoning, and dreams of the world where everyone is like him.

>>50799353
A surprisingly likely explanation, anon. I can really see it now.

>>50799388
>>50799353
>birth of a supervillain.

>>50790368
>magic is always the solution!
There's no way people who live entirely underwater could actually develop metal tools. There is no way for them to start fires and natural heat sources are nowhere near hot enough for any kind of smelting, even copper.

So yes the solution is magic, or else it's something so ridiculous that you'd hurt suspension of disbelief less by just invoking magic.

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>>50799446

>>50799275
According to the folks that write Aquaman, yes. Same goes for the fishmen of One Piece.

However that would require you to be able to survive outta water, which not all merfolk can.

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MERMAID THREAD!!?!?!? ILL HELP

>>50777516
anon we had a mer thread a few days ago that talked about powder metalurgy which i guess completely solves the underwater problem

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>>50799238
>FUCK OFF WE'RE FULL
why do you hate her /tg/?
why wont you let her in your coutnry?

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>>50736997
depends on if they are friendly or not. but really, if merfolk want to live in the water near the land... there isnt much you can do to stop them. what are you gonna do? dive down and try to fight them?

anyway, merfolk could probably offer alot of valuable and unique trade goods for a land civ. would probably be a good idea to cultivate that

>>50797122
I like my women big. I also like them with a bit of pudge.

>>50800335
is this the sparkledog of mermaids?

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>>50786253
>They've been recently named Cecaelia on the net with an obscure etymology coming from the name of a specific octopus lady that appeared in an old pulp comic from forty odd years back.
I thought Cecaelia came from Cephalopoda, the Class of Mollusk Squids and Octopuses belong to...

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>>50800620
ive always called them cephalids

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>>50800587
mermaids can have crazy colors anon, tropical fish have some truly amazing colors and patterns.
google image search "tropical fish" and see for yourself

>>50794112
Thanks.

Have a lesbian mergirl in return.
http://dynasty-scans.com/series/indigo_mermaids

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>>50800846
Well sure the ones in that pic are really nice and have nice design cohesion. But >>50800335 just looks like a random mishmash of neon colors with no thoughtful pattern and an overabundance of garishly colored accessories ranging from bracelets to faerie wings to net skirts filled with shit to belly jewelry to necklaces to earrings to jewels in the tail scales. There is hardly an area of solid color on her to give your poor eyes a rest, even her skin has blue scales everywhere and her hair is 3 different colors. No regard for complementary colors or anything, they just splashed that garish neon blue everywhere and called it a unifying color. I mean just look to the right at all those colors used in the design not to mention the extraneous "eye color mood ring" thing.

Basically I don't like it, real fish and good artists do it better.

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>>50801472
Don't lie to yourself. If you could look like that you would.

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>>50801472
i like it. its a rainbow mermaid.
too many people draw mermaids in dull depressing boring colors like dark green, and dark blue. those can be great colors if done right but usually they are used with no thought put into them.

i like bright happy mermaids like pic related

>>50801969
Usually neon colors are warning signs anon, like they say, "Im dangerous/poisonous/taste horrible."

>>50801969
That mermaid is nice, though. The shitty looking one isn't.

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>>50801991
not in my setting, anon.
in my setting the bright colors mean happy, fun, and friendly

>>50800335
I wonder if those starfish are just holding on or dead shells she's somehow stuck in place or are they biting onto her nipples.

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>>50789869
How would you prevent friendly fire with nets?

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>>50798645
>He seriously thinks killing sea life won't affect him on the land

>>50801991
>>50802119
Why not both?

>>50786044
>hey mer. How come you're allowed two weiners?

>>50794639
That was cute.

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>>50800792
Personally I just called them Octopus Mermaids, everyone knows what that means.
>>50800620
I thought so to but that was the story behind the etymology that I kept finding on the net.

By the bye, do Takozone/Octolings and Inklings count as a variety of Mer?

>>50786137
Never skip fin day.

>>50799312
Mercury doesn't evaporate, though?

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what are good names for mer people?
i need a few names for male and female NPCs

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>>50806713
Nietzsche, apparently.

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>>50806844
i use slavic porn girl names
eka
vai
shay

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>>50806844
Other names in this weeb series include:
Meute (because she has no voice, funny joke)
Sleip
Fiebee
Emelone
Ishiene

>>50806844
I never could get used to how Yggdra Union works.

Need to get used to it more.

>>50806713
There's multiple ways about it.
Greek names, especially mythological names relating to water based spirits and gods.
Similar to this is water spirits and gods of all mythologies.

The little girl approach of sea related names; Coral, Pearl, Aqua, etc.
This works also in other languages for a more exotic feel.

Go to Behind the Name and other name resources and pick names that have ocean or poetic related meanings; Nami is a Japanese girls name, it's meaning is the sea.

Shakespear method, raid his works for the names of any supernatural characters.

There are also mermaid name generators out there.

Finally, write down a whale or dolphin song phonetically.
I once played a Mermaid bard in a one-off called Ahhwaalll'ghoolue. Everyone just called Glue.

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>>50806844