Merrois

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Merrois are an aquatic cephalopod demon species native to the Atlantic ocean. They're distinctive for being colorful (they constantly change colors, like flamboyant cuttlefish), relatively long-lived (they have about twice the natural lifespan of a normal human) and for being one of the only demonic cephalopod species that lives in family groups (called "pods").
 
A merrois has ten prehensile tentacles--six "arms," four "legs"--and a large number of non-functional facial and cranial tentacles. Notable abilities of the species include enhanced strength, increased hearing and echolocation. Noteworthy flaws are their comparitively poor eyesight and the species' general inability to exist outside of a pod.
 
Merrois hunt in groups of two or more, and most do not know how to sustain themselves without a hunting partner. Similarly, without being able to call to other pod members, they can become lost, wander into danger or against an enemy, and be unable to defend themselves. This has caused the species to evolve into a highly social one, and isolation is a merrois's deepest fear.
 
A merrois banished or accidentally separated from his or her pod will not usually survive for more than a few weeks--months, at best. A combination of despair, starvation and ignorance of how to protect themselves without aid are the most common deciding factors in such a death.
 
Merrois are predators--they can eat virtually anything, and the sizes and types of prey they consume are largely based on the size of the pod and what is available in their geography.
 
A typical merrois pod has about twenty individual members. Somewhat ironically, when a pod starts to become too large, it starts to fail, as prey becomes more scarce and group tensions abound. Pod dispersal is the natural solution to this problem--usually a few members will leave in pairs, but it is not unheard of for a too-large pod to split into halves and become two separate pods.
 
Merrois society is matriarchal. Females lead the hunting parties and make most of the decisions for the management of their pods. Males hunt with their mates and all merrois, as a rule, must be versed in combat for the defense of the whole pod, but in day-to-day life, the males are passive. Fathers assume the majority of the responsibilities in caring for the young.
 
Merrois typically bear multiples--two to four in one pregnancy, though two is the most common number. They gestate for three to six weeks (depending on the age, size and health of the mother), then swim to the shallows to give birth. The first instinct of a merrois at birth is to swim towards the surface. They can breathe water, but not for the first breath--they require air to break the membranes on their gills.
 
The first person to touch an infant merrois almost automatically becomes the most important person in that child's life, making birth one of the only events in merrois society that belongs to the biological parents alone. Usually, a firstborn will be held first by the mother and all subsequent children will be handled by the father, but there is no strict tradition for it and there have been cases of entire litters that imprinted on one parent alone. The merrois have many fairytales involving their infants imprinting on creatures of other species.
 
==Trivia (interactive)==
 
01. Merrois are cephalopods native to the Atlantic ocean, and can be found in any part of it, from the North American Eastern seaboard to the Strait of Gibraltar. There are about 500 known pods traveling that range, marking the species as a relatively small one, for a sapient species--roughly 15,000 living merrois, all told.
 
02. Merrois are very brightly colored, and though they are perfectly capable of spoken language, and are often well-versed in several, they largely communicate through flashing patterns of colors. This can be very complex, as merrois colors often reflect their emotions and especially in the very young, cannot always be controlled. They often enhance their communications with postures, gestures and facial expressions. They have ten prehensile tentacles and several non-functioning facial and cranial tentacles that help to do this.
 
03. Merrois are highly social and physically dependent upon their pods, but all of them expect to be separated at some point--if their pod gets too large, if they have to travel through too-rough weather, if their pod goes to war with another pod...the list of possible reasons goes on and on. Males especially are taught to expect to leave their pods. If they take a mate outside of it (which is the most common mating choice, as incest is highly taboo among the merrois and all pods act as a family unit), they will go to live with their mate's pod and take her name.
 
04. Merrois imprinting is one of the only commonly-known traits about the species, though what most don't know is that the process never stops. Though it's more blatantly obvious in an infant that attaches to his or her parents, imprinting also occurs between siblings and mating pairs. It's very unusual (in fact, illegal) for a merrois to take another mate after the first one has died, and it's not uncommon for a merrois who has lost his mate to leave the pod to die as well. (This happens more often to males than to females, as most males don't imprint on the rest of their mate's pod.)
 
05. The name of the species is actually human-given, and comes from the French phrase "rois de mer," "kings of the sea." It is pronounced "mare-wah." Merrois are generally careful not to get involved with or noticed by any land-dwelling species, but this has not always been the case, and they can't always prevent themselves from being seen. Many demonology scholars believe that documented encounters with mermaids have actually been encounters with unintimidated merrois. In modern times, however, a pod will attack and kill a ship or diver that discovers them, if they believe that they can do so successfully.
 
06. Merrois society is technically an inaccurate term, since it implies a common social structure amongst all merrois. There are consistencies--for example, all pods are matriarchal and led by a democratically-elected chieftaness, who makes all executive decisions for the pod, and who will occasionally confer with the other females of the pod regarding matters of day-to-day life--but in general, a pod is a nation unto itself. There is no governing body that all pods answer to, and only a small set of laws that apply to all pods, which are left to the chieftanesses to enforce.
 
07. Merrois are semi-migratory, but pods usually claim a few small, set territories as their own. There is no such thing as a pod that does not have its own small stretch of land (never any larger than a five-mile square), and an interloper on that land is invariably treated as a possible threat.
 
08. Merrois rest, but they don't sleep. They don't need to.
 
09. A merrois that commits a serious crime is always penalized with banishment. Depending on the crime, the banishment may be permanent, or it may be temporary. However, the crime must be very serious--killing another member of the pod, or intentionally acting against the pod's best interests, for example. Banishment is tantamount to a death sentence. Except that straight-out execution is considered by all merrois to be kinder. More minor crimes result in corporal or capital punishment, at the matriarch-chieftaness' discretion.
 
10. The most commonly-observed structure that a pod falls into is in three ranks: the matriarch-chieftaness at the top, a group of visier females at the middle, and at the bottom, males and inexperienced females. The matriarch-chifetaness' mate is invariably in the bottom rank. There is no special status for him for being her mate, other than an increased respect for him from the other males of the pod, and occasionally, special priveleges when educating the pod's children.
 
11. Though a pod is considered, for all intents and purposes, to be a single family, most members of one are not biologically related. Males are usually brought in from other pods to mate with the females, and it is considered by most pods a duty to adopt a separated merrois if one is found, even if that one was deliberately separated as a punishment. Merrois believe that most criminals, having been banished, will not repeat their actions and risk a second banishment. It is exceedingly rare for them to be proven wrong in this assumption.
 
12. Most criminals, but not all. Bizarrely (to an outsider), a merrois that killed unintentionally is considered more of a danger to a potential adoptive pod than one that deliberately murdered. The logic is that a murderer made a conscious decision, and can choose not to repeat that action. One who killed accidentally is one that may lose self-control again.
 
13. Merrois are often very religious, and each pod has its own deities that it worships. Many pods practice ancestor worship, while others engage in a sort of Animism, deifying the water they live in, the creatures they hunt, or predators they've evaded. The most commonly-worshipped deity, though by accident rather than design, is the humpback whale.
 
14. Interspecies marriage and breeding is frowned upon by most merrois, and legal among only the smallest percentage of pods, especially because it is more common amongst females that have (literally and figuratively) lost their original mates. A ban on infidelity is one of the few laws common to all pods, and even after the death of a mate, it is considered unfaithful to become sexually involved with another being. An unfaithful mate is punished with torture on the first offense, and killed on the second. A merrois that takes another mate after the death of the first is banished (and the mate along with her). An interspecies mating pair found by another pod will only be adopted into the new one in times of war, when a need for greater numbers is more pressing than eugenic sensibilities.
 
15. Honesty and loyalty are the most important and most stressed virtues in merrois culture. It is forbidden to lie or omit, and one caught in the act of doing so can be subjected to any of the range of punishments, depending on the severity of the lie or omission. To be disloyal to one's pod is to be immediately punished with banishment.
 
16. The only time a mating pair will intentionally leave a pod without the intention of dispersing is for the birth of their young. As pods can separate, either intentionally or accidentally, at any time, for any reason, it is important that the young's primary imprinting is only upon their parents and/or biological siblings. Pods will wait at a nearby location for their mating pairs to give birth, then allow them one to three days to truly bond with their young, before going to join them. Most conceptions are timed so that the births will be around the same time to accomodate this. It also allows them to deliberately employ the Westermarck Effect--offspring that grow up together are more willing to look to other pods to take mates.
 
17. Every pod has alliances with at least two, but as many as twenty, other pods for the purpose of arranging suitable marriages for the offspring. All valid marriages among the merrois are arranged. This works well, as neither male nor female merrois can produce the pheromones necessary for initial attraction until after they've reproduced, and sexual contact triggers the imprinting reflex. By the time their babies are born, a mating pair will have become emotionally attached to each other, and will discover attraction in time to conceive more.
 
18. Breeding alliances are not typically recognized as political alliances. It is possible for two pods to be diametrically opposed to one another in every way, except that they recognize the need for each other's continued existence to perpetuate their species. The only political factor that can break a breeding alliance is if one pod has allowed an interspecies adoption to take place in it, as the other pod will usually be opposed to their young breeding with hybridized young. The loss of a breeding alliance is not considered cause for war.
 
19. Merrois are often considered terrifying opponents in war. To insult one merrois is to insult their entire pod, and often any pods they are politically allied with--essentially, to tangle with one is to bring the wrath of possible hundreds down upon your head. Though merrois are largely peaceful, they are very well-trained in combat, and operate so perfectly as a unit that they can be devastating to their opposition. They are also a force to be reckoned with as individuals. In a battle, a merrois who has lost someone they've imprinted on is usually suicidally hellbent on destroying the enemy that killed them.
 
20. Most merrois go their entire lifetimes without ever once setting foot on land. This does not mean they can't. A merrois with easy access to drinking water (salted or fresh) and food can move about on the land for several weeks, up to as many as two months. Most, however, find the mere idea of such utterly abhorrent.
 
Category:Species
Category:Merrois