byrd's absurdly specific merfolk headcanons

EVERYTHING BELOW IS POSSIBLY SUBJECT TO CHANGE DEPENDING ON PREFERENCES IF ANYONE ACTUALLY WANTED TO TACKLE THIS WITH ME. These are largely my personal preferences and/or possible ideas and i just sorta barfed it up out here. this was also mostly written in like 2013/2014 and has mostly just been skimmed and re-edited/updated so forgive me if it sounds funny/weird.





So number one, above all things, I can't stand Little Mermaid-esque merpeople. Life is not better unda da sea, no seashell bras and underwater palaces and pampered princesses, and merpeople are way more than just a human with a pretty fish tail.

I like my merpeople scary. More scales than human-like skin. It'd be faster to say what parts WOULDN'T be covered in scales: most of the face, the front of the torso, neck, and shoulders, and the groin. Everything else is covered in scales- the entire back, the entire arms up to the elbow, the back of the arms and shoulders and neck, the ears, and the tails. Some merfolk even have scales in patterns on their faces. They generally are carnivorous, and have mouthfuls of sharp teeth, and clawwed fingertips. They have rough tongues (kinda like a big cat's) in order to more easily clean flesh from bones. The sclera of their eyes are black instead of white, and they are sensitive to light(more sensitive the deeper into the sea you find them- deep sea merfolk are terrifying). They have multiple fins besides the one on the end of their tail. There are usually fins on their backs and arms and hips, fin-like ears, and usually fins on the underside and/or topside of their tail. Merfolk have large sets of gills set on the sides of their torso, at the bottom of their ribs, filtering water out of their lungs. When they go to the surface and breath air, a spasm in their lungs/diaphragm helps to push the remaining water from their inflating lungs out mostly through their gills, winding up like a really gross combo sneezecough.

Outside of a more futuristic or possibly highly magical setting, life is hard under the sea. There are few opulant kings and queens and princesses and princes of the sea, covered in jewelery and pretty things, and unlikely to be any vast empires (depends on additional worldbuilding for specific scenarios). The oceans are largely too vast to be adequately ruled. There is very little communication; no paper, no writing, no electronics. There is no metalsmithing, no glasswork, no jeweling. There are very, very few advanced crafts available under the sea, due to everything being covered in water(thus a lack of flame) and limited resources. Crafts would be made from seaweed and kelp, coral, shells, rocks, the remains of animals, and whatever else can be found underwater. Any kind of jewelery or textiles or fancy human crafts would be found in sunken ships, remnants from human culture, and usually tarnished or ruined, though likely still collected and coveted by merfolk who have no way of making these things themselves- alternatively, human crafts can be obtained via actual contact with humans. the crafts they do make out of the previously mentioned materials, such as ropes or string made from kelp/seaweed, simple weapons, some adornments such as necklaces or headdresses, and especially tools.

Communication would all very oral and verbal, and in regards to distance, very slow. If a message needs to be sent to a different location, a swiftswimming messenger would have to seek out the recipient in the ocean, hoping not to get lost or eaten or to starve. long-distance communication is thus difficult and rare.

Culture would most likely be carried out by oral tradition. Stories, song, dance, and even acting. The traditions would vary between regions, though different groups in the same area generally have similar stories- though over generations, differences can crop up due to different retellings and interpretations. And as culture can vary across regions and groups, different merfolk societies may have different moral values.

Merfolk most likely have their own languages, and there are as many languages and dialects as there are regional differences and cultures, just like with humans. Depending on the setting of the rp, some merfolk may be able to speak human languages from contact with humans, but the majority would likely not.

Society itself would most likely be very simple. There will still be regional variances, but I'll give a generalized example. Merfolk prefer to live in groups (usually anywhere between 30-100 individuals, though some schools may have more or less), usually referred to as schools (yes, like fish), since its easier to survive that way. You're more likely to catch fish and avoid predators in a group- merfolk are not always at the top of the food chain (sharks are sometimes bigger and hungrier). This is where ableism can come in hard, though- merfolk may be judged based on how useful to their community they can be. If there is nothing a merperson can do to help carry the school (due to disabilities or age etc), such as by hunting or fighting or being a source of knowledge or helping care for youngsters or crafting tools and whatnot, then they may be seen as dead weight and a waste of resources. Depending on the school, these merfolk may be cast out to preserve resources. They generally don't survive long and it's really sad. This is most common in schools with scarce resources where everything counts- schools that are more comfortable may not care as much or at all!

Most schools do have a form of leadership. In some regions, this is in the form of two leaders. One could be referred to as the War Leader, who directs hunts for food, trains up-and-coming hunters and warriors, and leads skirmishes against other schools over territory and resources. The war leader is usually decided by whomever is considered the best for the job, usually the most skilled hunter and/or warrior. This is sometimes decided by vote, though sometimes its decided by a brute force coup. Though sometimes the best warrior/hunter isn't the best war leader, and sometimes someone who is less skilled at actually hunting or fighting may be the best bet for directing others and creating tactics.

The other leader would be an elder, who is the wisest member of the school and is the best suited to make decisions for the school, and handling non-violent diplomatic issues with other schools. The elder also often is an expert on oral traditions, but this is not always the case- some may be experts on culture and history and bad at actually dictating rules for the school and handling diplomatic issues, and vice versa. The elder becoming the leader of the tribe is generally decided by the previous elder, though it can sometimes be decided by the school as a whole in a vote.

Some schools, of course, may have leadership more resembling a monarchy, with leadership remaining within a single family regardless of skill. There could be other variances as well, including additional leaders in a council, or only one leader, etc.

I originally wanted merfolk society to be generally matriarchal, but that was when i still thought of merfolk as being a more binarist society. Time to talk gender and sex!

I like to think that some, if not many (possibly depending on the strain fish they may be based on) merfolk may be sequential hermaphrodites like some species of fish. What that means, basically, is that these merfolk can change their sex at will, though it can take some time for them to shift from one sex to another. Some merfolk can be what humans would consider cisgender men or cisgender women, though many prefer to be somewhere else on the sex spectrum. Usually these merfolk just settle with the genitals and secondary sex characteristics (such as breasts or no breasts) that they feel most comfortable with and stay there. If they decide to reproduce and their current setup is incompatible with reproduction with their chosen partner, they may temporarily change to whatever viable part of the spectrum they and their partner feel most comfortable with in order to make babies, and then change back afterwards, based on necessity. This has led to a lack of a concept of gender in some merfolk societies where this is common. As a result, the mer languages of those strains may have, for example, only a singular pronoun similar to they, which depending on the language or dialect is mainly only used before a name is known, and once once a name is known, pronouns may generally disregarded for either the merpersons name. This can of course lead to confusion if a merperson is learning a language like english.

Romance and sexuality is just as varied with merfolk as it is with humans. Some fall in love with one person and only one person, some prefer to stay single for whatever reason, some are polyamorous and love multiple others, some love no one but like to have multiple partners for sex, etc. In attraction, some merfolk can prefer certain types of genitals or secondary sex characteristics (such as breasts) or body shapes/presentations (such as what humans would consider masculine vs feminine). Just like with humans, some can like all, some can have preferences, some exclusively only like certain genitals/presentations, etc. Many merfolk are cautious about one person having too many sexual partnerships where both partners are able to reproduce together, due to the risk of narrowing the gene pool of a school(s) with too many children with at least one shared parent. Outside of that risk, poly relationships aren't normally frowned upon (though like with all things, there can be regional cultural differences with different values on relationships)

Generally, reproduction is a cross between that of a mammal's and a fish's. First off- genitals. They're generally like humans', save for the important difference that they are usually internal. All genitals would be held within a watertight slit, which upon arousal will open and in the case of a vagina, practically blossom into the vulva and labia and clitoris. A dick will simply slide out. On the topic of the sequential hermaphroditism of some merfolk, the genitals shift and change within the safety of that sheath. Two merpeople will do the penis-in-vagina diddly do, and the one with the uterus will carry the developing egg. Pregnancies are generally short due to the vulnerability of a pregnant merperson, and after several weeks, the egg is laid. The parent(s) will then more often than not (depending on the society) look after it as it develops for the next several months on its own. Like a fish's, the eggs are usually translucent, with the developing merbaby visible inside.

There could be regional differences in sex and reproduction as well, and some may have something more akin to that of a seahorse (the egg-producer laying egg(s) within a sac in the sperm-producer, who fertilizes the egg(s) within that sac and later lays the egg) or regular fish (egg is laid by one person, egg is then manually fertilized by the other).

After development, the lil merbaby wriggles out of the egg. They can technically swim on their own, but are not very good at steering, and are generally closely looked after. Merfolk can and do lactate, and most who lay eggs then choose to grow breasts to feed their child. It may not be required, though, as in some schools there may be other merfolk who are happy to play wetnurse, as schools are frequently very communal in child-rearing. In these cases there are usually several lactating merfolk that feed more than just their own child; feeding the children who were orphaned or do not have a lactating parent, either in addition to their own child or after having lost their child. Some wetnurses may allow themselves to keep lactating as long as possible (this can last years!) and use that as their way to provide for their community, by keeping children that cannot yet eat fish fed.

Territory is very important to many merpeople, as access to places free of predators and abundant with prey can be scarce. The size of a school can be both a blessing and a curse. A small school is easier to feed, but very difficult to defend against larger, stronger schools wanting the smaller school's hunting ground. On the flipside, a large school can take the territory of other schools for their hunting grounds and safe places, but the size of the school requires more and more of these territories. A balance must be had. Sometimes, schools that are too large can disperse into multiple smaller schools, and schools that are too small can join into a moderately sized school.

Some schools are also generally nomadic, as after staying in the same hunting grounds for too long, they can deplete the populations of prey fish. And so these schools will move along with the seasons, usually only staying in one location for a month or two, so that the fish can repopulate. They usually have set locations they return to each year, though this can change due to territory disputes.

Territory wars can be brutal, leaders between the school cannot find a diplomatic solution. Though sometimes these solutions, if between a smaller and much larger school, can boil down to "get out or we will kill all of you, this is your only warning". Some schools forego that step entirely and outright attack other schools. In these attacks, if eggs are found during a raid, they may either be destroyed, preventing the growth of the victim school, or stolen and adopted out to the larger school and promoting its own growth. Egg theft may be especially common, as it creates more genetic diversity in a school that may otherwise be mostly family. Though another solution to that problem is merfolk defecting from one school to another, either from disagreements with their home school, or because of an inter-school romance, and in some cases, a result of diplomacy (a "give us some of your people and we will spare you" sort of thing; can sometimes result in an arranged marriage type deal).


With all this merfolk biology and sociology in mind, it's time to talk SETTINGS! The relationship between merfolk and humans can vary:

Merfolk and humans can be unaware of each other, or merfolk aware of humans and not the other way around, or vice versa. This can be applied to any time period, even a modern setting.

Humans can be aware of merfolk in a time period. This can go a few different ways. Humans can be bastards and enjoy capturing and enslaving merfolk for entertainment. Humans and merfolk can not give a shit about each other, sometimes being amicable and even trading with each other. Or Humans can be great and have a mutually beneficial relationship with merfolk, starting at discovery of merfolk and expanding with trade and communication. Amicable contact with humans could also lead to advancements in merfolk societies in regions closest to humans.

And that was all without getting into possibilities of magic, with sea witches or oracles or sorcery or living gods or what have you.