Tropical Mermaid

A **mermaid,** more formally a **Tropical Mermaid,** is a race of being that resides underwater in Atlantis and that are descended from Ryugu, a legendary sea dragon, making them distantly related to dragons.

## Evolution

4 billion years ago, Ryugu arrived on Earth and settled in the oceans, eventually becoming highly associated with the ocean via the element of Water and becoming an ocean dragon by connecting with this aspect of the Earth Celestial. One of Ryugu's children, Merphis, evolved further from his dragon form due to spending his whole life living in attachment with the oceans. As such, he adopted a quasi-humanoid form (since the Earth Celestial had a humanoid form) but kept some dragon features, evolving into a more familiar mermaid form. All mermaids derive their magic and powers from the element of Water and thus the Earth Celestial as a result.

Merphis had many children, countless in fact, who all resided in the underwater city of Atlantis along with their descendants. As the line continued, the form slowly continued to evolve to better suit life in the water and the more familiar mermaid form evolved. When fish evolved on Earth, mermaids noted their adaptions and continued to evolve in the direction of fish using their form altering magic. However, in the process, mermaids became biological lifeforms and lost a great number of the powers they had as dragons.

In the end, mermaids became a sort of half-dragon half-fish with a fully biological form, and they became much weaker than dragons. Still, mermaids retained the wisdom of dragons, and so they were able to learn many magical spells by their accumulation of magical knowledge over the years to greatly amplify their powers and allow them to do things even dragons are not able to do.

## Characteristics

### Biology

Mermaids are characterized by their fin ears, gills, and mermaid fish tails, along with their overall humanoid body plan. They often have hair with striking properties. Most of their hair is the color and resembles undersea kelp, which acts as a camouflage survival mechanism that the mermaids evolved to help survive underwater with all sorts of dangerous fauna. Their hair also has many luminescent properties that mermaids can control. Many mermaid clothes are made in a similar way to mermaid hair, which extends these properties to their clothes as well.

While they can live for a long time like dragons, Mermaids are ultimately still biological lifeforms and have a much smaller lifespan, usually on the order of 20,000 years or so, rather than the millions experienced by dragons. Mermaids did use to have much longer lifespans approaching tens of millions of years old, but due to their evolution, lifespan recently (geologically speaking, as in the past few million years or so), has shrunk to around the level it is today.

Mermaids do grow up faster than dragons, and develop on par with humans, with a 20 year old mermaid essentially having equivalent maturity and development to a 20 year old human. After this initially fast development, mermaids then begin aging very slowly and appear to a human to be 40 when 10000 years old, and usually have children when around 5000 years old. Mermaids can also heal quickly if injured, but lack the omni-survivability that dragons enjoy, also due to their biological nature.

### Abilities

In addition to their hair, thanks to their close relationship with the element of Water and the Earth Celestial in turn, mermaids possess many different sea related powers. They all have limited aquakinesis, which enables them to manipulate the surrounding water. More powerful mermaids have the ability to larger and larger volumes of water at once. Mermaids also have access to Atlantean spells, which exist in a large library within the royal library in Ryugu Palace as well as the Knowledge District. These spells contain rituals mermaids can do to translate their normally water focused Immaterial Essence connections into a wide variety of other subjects, allowing them the ability to do many things should they have the requisite knowledge and practice.

Many mermaids have the power of manipulating sea life, such as corals, kelp, and marine fauna. Reef Protectors can manipulate this fauna to ensure it remains in balance and healthy, and to rapidly regrow coral if some is damaged or used in construction. Farmers manipulate the wildlife to ensure enough food can be provided for all the Atlanteans. Some mermaids, such as those of the royal line, have powers of Fish Understanding, which enables them to connect so much with sea life they can actually impress their consciousness structure onto the lifeform's Immaterial Counterpart and give them limited sentience.

### Society and Culture

Mermaid culture and society is very organized and peaceful, as the mermaids are ultimately a quite peaceful people. They are described as being in between the mermaids found in The Little Mermaid and the sirens as found in Greek Mythology- they are not as harmonious and peaceful as the former but not as monstrous as the latter. While mermaids do not go looking for violence and seeking destruction like sirens, they also are not pacifists, and if threatened they are quick to draw arms to defend their kingdom.

Mermaids typically wear fashion inspired by the seas. As mentioned, their skirts and other clothing typically is translucent and appears similarly to their hair, just with differing colors. They also generally accessorize with sea creatures and other sea objects, including seastars, shells, and sea rocks. Recent fashion involves mermaids using Sea Purprose behind their ears.

Mermaids speak in Fishtongue, which is a dialect of Dragontongue that is adapted to be spoken underwater. It uses many of the same themes as Dragontongue but is much easier understood when below water.