Character Sheet for Sapphire
Character Description
A lake naiad with a light blue base colour and darker blue patterns. They have venomous spines along most of their fins, and have webbed hands. Long, powerful tail.
Personality
Curious, more peaceable than other naiads, likes to collect pretty things like shells and adorn their body them. Enjoys napping in fields of aquatic plants.
Likes/Dislikes
They like trout and fish eggs, seashells, jewels, and investigating human inventions that drop into the lake. Dislikes pollution, overfishing from humans, and loud noises.
Background/History
Lives a peaceful life in Lake Crown, Angel City.
Relatives/Family
World/Setting
.Naiad/ merfolk, Homo aquator
As a general rule, those living in freshwater tend to call themselves naiads, whilst those living in saltwater tend to call themselves merfolk. They have long, powerful tails, webbed hands, a lateral line along each side of their body, and gills as well as lungs. They have small ear-holes but not ear flaps, and it is suspected that they typically pick up sound underwater through their jawbones like cetaceans do. As with dolphins, their eyes can easily adapt from underwater to above-water viewing. They have sharp, hooked fangs with which to eat fish. They are so physiologically unusual that most scientists wish to class them in their own primate family, but for legal purposes they remain classified as a human species. Naiads are highly territorial and for the most part keep away from land-siders, as they call their landbound cousins. However, individuals will sometimes form a powerful bond with a land-sider.
These people are immensely physically powerful and can withstand great water pressure, with some merfolk recorded to dive to depths of two thousand metres. Most have venomous spines along their tails; their scales come in a great variety of colours and patterns. Naturally, they subsist almost entirely on fish, though they have been observed eating aquatic vegetation as well; those living in freezing waters are more likely to hunt blubbery, highly nutritious prey such as seals and porpoises. Some are even falconers, and form close bonds with fishing birds such as ospreys- they seem to use them as both companion animals and hunting assistants (they leave the bird a large portion of their catch). It is possible that they treat certain predatory fish species such as sharks in a similar manner.
There is increasing evidence that merfolk build cities hidden in the ocean; indeed, some people claim that Atlantis was- or still is- a very real underwater city built and inhabited by merfolk.
Angel City’s Lake Crown is home to an estimated two hundred and eighty naiads.
It is unknown how long this species lives, though most scientists estimate an average lifespan of three hundred years. There is very little, if any, sexual dimorphism, and they are possibly hermaphroditic; asking an individual about their gender will almost always result in a blank stare. Their reproductive and growth cycles remain shrouded in mystery and scientific suppositions, however they do have mammary glands, suggesting they give live birth like other primates. They are one of the largest Variant species, with adults typically reaching between 4-6 metres in length from nose-tip to tail-tip, and weighing anywhere between between 350-700 kilograms (oceanic merfolk are usually the ones on the larger side, though this is not always the case; one individual in Lake Baikal was recorded at 810 kilograms and nearly 7 metres long!). Only angels, demons and their hybrid children get bigger, and only when in their monstrous forms.
Body
Light blue-grey with large darker blue markings. Large dorsal fin, with multiple ventral-side fins, and a fin along either arm. Medium-length hair. Large blue eyes.
Clothing
Seashell jewellery and nothing else
Accessories
