Northern Pod

The **Northern Pod** is a pod of Northern mermaids and formerly mermen located somewhere in the Northern Hemisphere.

## Description

Like all pods, the Northern Pod has a Mermaid Council that are in charge of governing and a Mermaid School where hatchlings learn how to use their powers properly and use Moon Rings. The Northern Pod is described as having the knowledge of the best spells and potions. Northern mermaids are immune to the Northern Pod Enchantment Song.

### Rules

Despite every pod have it own set of rules, the ones in the Northern Pod are the following:

* It is forbidden to reveal themselves, to associate with or to fall in love with land people. (it is unknown if this extended to other non-human beings)
* It is forbidden to cast the Legs Spell, whether by the Full Moon or by using a moonstone.
* It is forbidden to swim too close the shore or where they could be seen.
* When a merman hatchling was born, a newborn was to be given up to foster human families on land with the use of a forbidden Legs Spell.

If a member breaks one of the rules in the Northern Pod, their Mermaid Council will strictly punish the mermaid by permanently banishing her, and she will be forced to live without her pod. Despite this, a Mermaid Council had the power to lift a merperson's banishment, welcoming them again. Unlike in the Mako Pod, Sirens are allowed to sing their enchanted songs in the Northern Pod.

## Story

Since ancient times, a pod of arctic-born mermen and mermaids was found living in the waters of the Northern hemisphere. Northern merpeople also became resistant to Snow Rash and low temperatures due to their aquatic habitats of swimming in cold, icy waters around Canada and the Arctic Circle, completely immune from the cold or hypothermia. The Northern Pod has grown a dangerous reputation, even across a globe, due to practicing dangerous, yet powerful forms of magic. Northern mermen and mermaids also started trapping sharks in ice prisons.

Due to the entire merpeople race being magically gifted with extraordinary magical abilities and the capacity of amplifying them hundreds of times by Moon Pools since ancient times, the mermaids across the seas, including the Northern Pod, honor the Full Moon in a ceremony since then. Only mermaids who graduate Mermaid School in their respective pods, given a Moon Ring, and are initiated in their pod can join their pod in the sea and attend the ceremony.

Eons later, around the 11th Century, an army of Northern mermaids, along with four other mermaids from the other four oceans, drew on the powers of the oceans and locked the Trident away in the Trident Cave with one of the kinder merman's help. At some point, Nerissa's ancestors moved to the Northern Hemisphere and became members of the Northern Pod. From then on, all mermen were to be abandoned by their mothers when they were born to be raised on land in human foster families as the Legs Spell easily makes it possible.

Unfortunately, centuries later, around the late 1990s, the Northern Pod was threatened by the rebel mermaid, Aurora. Her powers apparently rivaled even Nerissa's, because she proved to be a threat to the whole pod and even for her. Realizing she could not keep her children safe, Nerissa was forced to make the most difficult decision of her life and send her children to new homes. After briefly fleeing the Northern Pod, Nerissa headed to Australia where she sent her daughter Mimmi to live in the Mako Pod. Nerissa then began searching for a home for Zac, realizing that a pod of mermaids would never care for him. After leaving Zac on the beach for the Blakelys to find, Nerissa heavy heartedly returned to the Northern Pod to continue fighting Aurora hoping that one day she would be able to come back for her children. Apparently, Nerissa drove Aurora away after returning to the Northern Pod.

The Canadian Mermaid was caught on footage singing the Northern Pod Enchantment Song and it was uploaded online. Sirena heard it and was enchanted since she is a Southern mermaid. She sang the Northern Pod Enchantment Song to David, but Mimmi and Ondina sang the Counter-version song and broke the enchantment on her.

## Known Members

* Canadian Mermaid
* Nerissa
* Unnamed Mermaids †
* Dozens of unnamed mermen (formerly)

### Hatchlings

* Mimmi (formerly)
* Dozens of unnamed mermen hatchlings (formerly)
	+ Zac Blakely (formerly)

## Trivia

* The dangerous reputation of the Northern Pod may have been inspired by the legends of dangerous, wicked mermaids which are most common in the Northern Hemisphere.
* Unlike in the Mako Pod, the Enchantment Song is allowed in the Northern Pod, just like it was centuries ago.
* Judging by Mimmi's conversation with Weilan, it is implied that the Northern Pod is located somewhere off the coast of Canada, when she noticed the former's foreign Canadian accent.
* The Northern Pod gets its name from the North, one of the four cardinal points of the globe, where it is located and where above the Tropic of Cancer, the Sun never shines from the north, except inside the Arctic Circle during the summer midnight sun.