Deep one hybrid

Interracial progeny

### Special Powers

**Breathe underwater:** Hybrids are unable to breathe underwater until they have undergone the full change into a deep one; however, from early childhood onwards they can remain underwater for up to twice as long as the average human.**Spells:** Older hybrids who have begun to embrace their watery heritage have a 10% chance of knowing 1d3 spells.

### Skills

Jump 45%, Listen 50%, Stealth 46%, Swim 60%

### Sanity Loss

0/1d4 Sanity points to see a deep one hybrid, although this may be increased (1/1d6+) for particularly monstrous specimens

## Attacks

### Fighting Attacks

Deep one hybrids can use weapons as humans do

### Fighting

45% (22/9), damage per weapon type + damage bonus, or unarmed (1d3) + damage bonus

## Defenses

### Armor

none

> It was a thin, stoop-shouldered man not much under six feet tall… His age was perhaps thirty-five, but the odd, deep creases in the sides of his neck made him seem older when one did not study his dull, expressionless face. He had a narrow head, bulging watery blue eyes that seemed never to wink, a flat nose, a receding forehead and chin, and singularly underdeveloped ears. His long, thick lip and coarse pored, greyish cheeks seemed almost beardless except for some sparse yellow hairs that straggled and curled in irregular patches; and in places the surface seemed queerly irregular, as if peeling from some cutaneous disease.
>
> *The Shadow Over Innsmouth*, Howard Phillips Lovecraft

Deep one hybrids are the progeny of deep one and human mating. Although the offspring of such unions are usually born as normal humans, changes in appearance and physiology tend to occur in late teens ~ commonly known as the "Innsmouth Look." By middle age, most hybrids display some form of gross deformity and such individuals retire to the privacy of their close-shuttered homes. Within a few years, the hybrid undergoes the final transformation into a deep one and embarks on a new life in the sea. The physical changes are accompanied by an awakening of new senses, strange dreams of undersea cities, and a longing to visit seaside locales ~ particularly ancestral homes or the individual’s birth place.

Typically, hybrids inhabit remote coastal villages, however they can be found further afield (particularly in the early stages of their transformation). As part of their pact with the deep ones, the residents of Innsmouth are forced to interbreed with them; interbreeding of this sort also occurs in other pacted towns, as well as on a more individual and occasional level. Although the deep one hybrid offspring are born with the appearance of a normal human being, they gradually assume the appearance of their deep one ancestors. These traits include:

* Shrunken/nonexistent ears
* Glassy, bulging, unblinking eyes
* Narrow, hairless head
* Sharpened teeth
* Rubbery, blue-gray skin
* Clawed hands and feet
* Folds on the neck which eventually become functional gills
* Webbing between fingers

As the final transformations take place the hybrid either learns to embrace their monstrous heritage or goes mad in the process. When the hybrid becomes too obviously non-human, they go into seclusion in ostensibly abandoned buildings until fully capable of living solely underwater. The rate of progression varies with each individual. However, it normally does not reach completion until the human middle age. Once this transformation is complete they are also functionally immortal. Apart from the physical change they also feel a scorn for humanity, an affinity for the non-Euclidean artwork of the deep one race, and an increasingly powerful desire to abandon the human world and go to deep one cities like Y'ha-nthlei.

The vast majority of hybrids are shown coming from a female deep one and a male human. It is a safety measure based on the fact that both of those possess the limiting growth gene of their own species, otherwise the child would become much larger. It is similar to a liger, a hybrid born from a male lion and a female tigress who never stop growing until their maturity. This habit is also due to the fact that when an underwater city reaches a certain size, fertility decreases, as the females begin to eat their young. By giving birth on land, far from the city, they can avoid the temptation to do so and thus maintain a stable level of fertility.

Deep ones will attempt to lure hybrids to their lairs or places of safety, where they can supervise the final metamorphosis and ensure the hybrid is appropriately schooled in their shared heritage. About 10% of hybrids do not complete the transformation and are doomed to spend the rest of their life as a half-human half-deep one, while a further 10% do not undergo the metamorphosis at all, with the deep one genes essentially missing a generation ~ only to manifest in a future descendent.

Asenath Waite was a notable deep one but she was killed before the transformation could finish.