Jorfea

The Jorfea are the jellyfish sub-race of the **Oril**. Jorfea do not leave the **oceans**, preferring to float within them and keep to themselves.

## Settlements

**Seaglass** - An extremely colorful settlement located within the **Enela Sea**. Jorfea within the settlement enjoy traveling across the ocean floors, finding pieces of sea glass that had been formed around shipwrecks or tossed into the oceans. Once they have collected all the pieces that they are the most fond of, they carry them back to their settlement in their satchels, decorating the cliff sides and their homes with them. At night, the sea glass appears to glow. The Jorfea consider Seaglass to be their main settlement.

**Luminesce** - Earned it’s name through the illuminated sands and natural sea lights that surround the settlement. The lights are a light blue in color, signifying the peacefulness of the settlement. Within it, Jorfea can be found collecting corals and creating illuminating jewelry to trade with neighboring **Oril**. The settlement is found deep within the **Agitas Ocean**. Jorfea from here typically have illuminated bells.

**Wellspring** - A large settlement with an everflowing spring within an underwater cave. Despite the cave being open to the air, the Jorfea enjoy swimming within it, throwing a variety of jewels and pearls into the waters to make wishes. The Jorfea also grow bundles of **Spring Seaweed** around the edges of the waters. The settlement is found within the **Strubera Strait**.

**Pearl** - This small settlement earned its name due to its large abundance of **pearls**. Pearls can be found anywhere in the sands or within the mouths of clams; outsiders are limited to taking a few, and some must pay to be able to get in, due to high theft rates. The settlement is located within the **Wrilune Sea**.

**Trench** - A settlement located at the bottom of **Juena’s Trench**, the deepest trench in the oceans. The settlement is large and covered in glowing corals and algae, making the supposedly dark area of the trench beautifully illuminated. Some of the Jorfea who leave the settlement have glowing bells, showcasing them as they get closer to the surface.

**Ryxan** - A surprisingly ugly settlement within the **Agitas Ocean**. The settlement is surrounded by dead corals and tossed out bottles of plastic and glass. The Jorfea don’t bother with tidying up the settlement, due to the pollution in the ocean seeming to always arrive there. Some Jorfea even go out of their way to gather trash and bring it to the settlement as a place to store and destroy it.

## History

The Jorfea appeared shortly after the **Vorseth** in Year 200, and were created as a sub-defense system for the oceans. They are considered a sub-defense system, due to them being kind and gentle by nature.

**Juena** created the Jorfea with the intention of them being back up defenders, due to the generally lazy and free-flowing nature of the race. When the first jellyfish had approached her for her blessing, she put them through the trial of endurance - where she had sent off jellyfish blooms to stay stationary within a swarm of sharks.

Despite the amount of sharks that had struck out against the jellyfish and destroyed their ranks, the jellyfish stayed put and continued with the trial. Juena was impressed enough with the endurance of the jellyfish that she granted them her blessing, thus creating the Jorfea.

## Physical Appearance

Jorfea range anywhere from 2' (60.96 cm) to 6'5" (198.12 cm) tall or long.

All Jorfea have large, balloon-like tops to their heads, which are usually transparent. Jorfea typically paint themselves with opaque colors to hide their brains within the tops, and to help themselves be less translucent when interacting with other Jorfea or **races**. Jorfea don dangerous stingers that hang from the tops of their heads with high concentrations of venom. The Jorfea found in colder climates typically have shorter stingers, while the ones in warmer climates have longer ones.

The Jorfea appear to lack any real bones or other hard parts on their bodies. Despite some appearing more humanoid than others, they keep a liquid-like movement to them as a result of the lack of bones. Due to their lack of real bones, Jorfea do not leave the **oceans**.

At first glance, it appears as though Jorfea have no eyes. When looking closer, their eyes can be spotted well hidden among their bells, with the average Jorfea having full 180 vision.

They come in a variety of colors and sizes, with most of them being a light blue, pink or orange. Depending on where they are from, some Jorfea may also have naturally brightly colored tops as well. In the dark, it is common to see a Jorfea from a distance, due to the different colors they may glow. Most commonly, Jorfea have a white or soft blue glow to them. However, it is not unheard of for Jorfea to glow the other colors, with it just being a rarity among the sub-race. However, one thing all Jorfea have in common is the fact that their glow becomes a sickly green color when they are agitated.

Due to the lithe and fragile nature of the Jorfea, they do not often wear clothes. Many dislike the feeling of their stingers and tentacles getting stuck within fabrics, while many others view clothes as unnecessary and silly, due to their lack of noticeable reproductive glands. When encountering a Jorfra who does wear clothes, you will more than likely see them wearing a seagrass weaving of intricate designs, typically in the form of a crop top or tunic.

### Life Span

Jorfea appear to be immortal, with their aging process being slower compared to others, both physically and mentally. They are children from ages one to 25, adolescents from 26 to 40, and adults from 41 and on.

## Culture

Most of the Jorfea travel in small packs of twelve to fifteen members, with most of these packs consisting of one to two close knit families.

Jorfea are found in all climates of the oceans, and some are even found in the trenches at the bottom. Because of the long stingers that some Jorfea have, they typically try to keep their distance from those outside of their **race**, due to it being common for a Jorfea's stingers to get wrapped around another creature; sometimes severely injuring them or leading to death.

Jorfea society is without gender roles, leading to it being common for a male or female Jorfea to take care of chosen eggs or hatched children. Within the Jorfea society, size rules all, not the gender assigned to them. The biggest of the Jorfea often rule over a settlement or their own individual bloom, guiding them to their next locations or giving orders on what to build or gather within a settlement. No specific Jorfea are classified as leaders or rulers, with them all collectively leading their settlements. The smallest Jorfea are typically the fighters, due to the venom in their stingers being much more concentrated and deadly, often making them the hunters and gatherers as well.

Within Jorfea society, there are quite a few things that can be considered rude or improper. The most prominent is tying back the stingers or tentacles. Jorfea believe that **Juena** had allowed them to keep their stingers in order to protect themselves and the oceans, which has led to it being viewed as intolerable if any Jorfea ties them back. Instead, Jorfea are encouraged to decorate their stingers with beads and weavings, still allowing them to flow freely within the waters. Covering the entire body is also seen as improper within the society, due to many Jorfea viewing excessive clothing as unnecessary and a safety hazard when traversing the waters.

Common within the Jorfea are groups of **mages**. Jorfea have learned how to harvest the waters around them, and unlucky sailors can sometimes see a particularly strong wave going by their ship. More often than not, this wave is caused by mages who had been passing by, often being the cause of shipwrecks. Mages within the Jorfea have also mastered the art of freezing the waters to create lances and other weapons to use at their disposal.

However, mages are often placed at the bottom of the hierarchy in the Jorfea society. Jorfea believe that magic users are careless and harmful, and that their kind should stick to using their stingers and what they naturally have in order to survive and fight. Some settlements of Jorfea outright ban the usage of magic within them, with the punishment being death if caught.

Although Jorfea are considered prime predators themselves within the oceans, they are also at risk of other races. Jorfea carry a natural fear of **Xevea** and **Tekat** into their mutated lives, due to their lesser selves being prey for these beings. As well as this, the Jorfea do not get along with **Woriq** or **Ceardian**, and often get into fights with them when they meet at the shorelines. Sadly, the Jorfea usually loses.

### Food

Jorfea diets consist of plankton, crustaceans, small fish, fish eggs, fish larvae, and a variety of the surrounding vegetation. A popular dish among the Jorfea society is **Egg-stuffed Glowfish**, which consists of a **Glowfish** fillet stuffed with seaweed and fish eggs of the Jorfea's choice - typically that of a **Smokefish**. Once stuffed, the Jorfea uses a volcanic vent to boil the meal.

Jorfea often have a problem with overfeeding on certain areas once they have gotten a fixation on a certain food, causing Glowfish and Smokefish to be lower in population than usual. Despite this, Jorfea still hunt them down to create the dish.

### Trade

The Jorfea trade away a large variety of **minerals** and glass that they find within the **oceans**.

### Worship

Being creatures of the ocean and never leaving it, it is almost impossible to find a Jorfea who has not accepted **Juena** as their **Celestial** of choice.

There have been accounts of stray Jorfea who have a distaste for the Celestial and choose to look towards the others, but they are small in number compared to the vast majority. Jorfea are the most involved of the oceanic **races** with the Celestial, with many of them constantly on the lookout for trinkets or food that they can leave outside of the Celestial's cavern or shrine.

When not leaving offerings, Jorfea weave designs out of seagrass to decorate their settlements out of honor for the Celestial. Within Jorfea society, they consider gold and diamonds to be a precious and sacred **mineral** while in its purest form, due to the pressure used to create them. Many believe it disrespectful to carve or cut either of these materials into different shapes or designs.

On both of the solstices, Jorfea will gather and prepare massive amounts of food, gathering their blooms and families together to celebrate. Typically during this time, they will decorate their bells with light jewelry made out of silvers and **gemstones** carved into **hippocampi**, a way for them to honor and thank their Celestial. The Jorfea often find themselves believing that Juena deserves as much attention as they can give her, leading them to have all of their celebrations in her name. Most Jorfea do not celebrate their birthday or any anniversaries because of this.

### Romance

When finding a partner or simply aiming to reproduce, Jorfea will find a suitor that fits their standards. Once found, the Jorfea will perform a courtship dance for the suitor. Typically Jorfea looking for a mate will wear colorful beads along the tentacles from their bells, enhancing the dance they do. As they dance, the two Jorfea involved will entangle their tentacles with one another, appearing to do a ballroom dance to an outside view.

Due to the culture of Jorfea viewing partners as unnecessary and them only needing to reproduce, it is common for a courtship to only last for a day before the pair splits apart. However, families of Jorfea who stick together do exist, even if it is rare.

### Childcare

Children of Jorfea often are extremely tiny compared to their parents, and a Jorfea can have up to a whopping 45,000 children at a time. The amount of eggs that Jorfea are able to lay at a time makes it a common belief that Jorfea are the largest in population on all of Eprea. Because of this, many Jorfea will only keep a handful of their eggs, letting them ride on their bells until they are hatched. The rest of the eggs are often left to fend for themselves, making them food for other creatures of the oceans, found by other creatures to be raised, or hatch to fend for themselves in the ocean.

It is impossible for a Jorfea to have a child with a being of another **race**, leading to interracial couples depending on adoption or finding an abandoned egg. Jorfea are one of the few races that can only have children inside of their own race.

### Death

Death within the Jorfean society is seen as something natural, and not viewed as something to mourn or be discouraged by. When a Jorfea has passed on, the other Jorfea within it's bloom or settlement will take their body and place it upon a bed of seashells and **pearls**. After muttering a few words from each person in the family, they will announce that their friend is returning to the sea, and push the bed out into the ocean, allowing the corpse to float into the deep trench. If the Jorfea's body is eaten by a predator or another race during this time, it is merely seen as a part of the cycle.

### Language

Jorfea means “Balloon” in Eprean. They received their name from the land Eprean due to them appearing like underwater balloons to those on ships. Despite the discovery of them being a race, the name stuck.