I want a playable merfolk D&D race (so I made one)
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 30 июн 2024
- ► Check out the KRAKEN WEEK playlist: • Kraken Week '24
► Download the MERFOLK race: drive.google.com/file/d/17rUH...
Welcome to Kraken Week, a community event created by @pointyhatstudios and I to bring the TTRPG creator community on RUclips together over a shared theme! All your favorite creators will be sharing underwater & ocean-themed videos this week to celebrate. 🐙
Music from Epidemic Sound
Need music for your videos or streams? Here's my referral link: www.epidemicsound.com/referra...
► FIND ME ONLINE:
ginnydi.com
/ ginnydi
/ itsginnydi
/ itsginnydi
/ itsginnydi 
Развлечения
TO BE CLEAR (since our jokes apparently confused people!) this race is NOT gendered! Just wanted to make sure there were subraces with lots of different ~vibes~.
🐙 Check out the KRAKEN WEEK playlist: ruclips.net/p/PLsmjZYZs1ps3EB_GuzXKEEQWeODalde_o
🧜🏻♀ Download the MERFOLK race: drive.google.com/file/d/17rUHwWYWW5DcSb-n_Uup2UGSFIaBkHSH/view?usp=sharing
Poseidon approves this message
Is the playlist going to be opened up for other D&D content creators to add their stuff to? Or like, a Google Form to propose said videos with links when they drop...?
It would make sense that only one or two folks updating the playlist could miss stuff/take a while.
@Kholan95 Pointy Hat and I are going to be keeping tabs and updating the playlist every day! We'll do our best to keep up, and folks can reach out to either of us if something gets missed.
I wanted to come up with an addition because your stuff was so inspiring! Therefore, please accept this attempt at an additional subrace:-
---
RIVERINE MERFOLK
Even in the expansive underwater towns and cities of the merfolk, there are places that feel too small. Others, indeed, look upon the unparalleled vastness of the open ocean and feel too big. Across the world, there are communities of merfolk who rejected the embrace of the sea, instead roaming through river and stream to find a new home where they felt they could truly belong. These merfolk often take on appearances seen more often on terrestrial animals. While some might sport the glittering silver scales of a leaping salmon, others may have the heavy paddle of a beaver or the thick, powerful tail of a river otter.
Riverine merfolk tend to live nomadic lives. Their wanderlust takes them across the surface world, seeing things most other merfolk can only dream about. They wander in small groups; a few families at most, often less. While they may seem solitary, riverine merfolk are never truly alone, for they have found kinship with terrestrial plants and animals. Some decide to use this power to bring peace, finding lost lambs or singing to lonely hilltop trees. Others use it strictly to survive, whispering to the forests they run through to track a wild stag for their group's meal.
---
RAPIDS RUNNER
If you are submerged in water for four hours or more during your long rest, you may take the Dash action as a bonus action both in your humanoid and merfolk form. This is in addition to the benefit provided by your Aquatic Affinity racial ability. In addition, you gain proficiency in the Athletics skill.
STREAM CHATTER
You may cast the spell Speak With Animals without expending a spell slot a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus. You regain these uses after you finish a long rest. You may cast this spell with any additional spell slots you possess.
---
Hope you like it! =]
As a bi guy, this race speaks to me in many ways
I am a completely straight, cis male, and even I want to be a mermaid because being able to live underwater is cool and they're pretty
See, SOME men have taste! 😂
No, our oceans are terrifying.
And that's not including the trash.
Jaws has scared me for life
I too am extraordinarily these things and enjoy being a pretty mermaid
@@erikwilliams1562 Sharks are just idiots! You should be scared of dolphins!
I get you, dude. I’m a bi cis male, and I think it would be cool as hell to play a merfolk
“Mermaids: for men” sounds like a 3 in 1 conditioner, and I love it.
Trademark pending
Gotta be honest, the official stat block for the D&D wheelchair, made me want to play a merfolk who refuses to transform their tail into legs.
This is the way it officially works in Pathfinder 2E. Howl of the Wild, the book that added the Merfolk ancestry, recommends giving Merfolk PCs a Supramarine Chair for free.
I love this idea!!
@@GinnyDiThe book that lued123 mentioned in this comment thread had a really cool design for the supramarine chair that the merfolk in the book’s framing device has - it’s tall so she’s more “standing up” in it (though that may just be for increased water storage) and the levers she uses to turn the wheels work like boat oars.
@@lued123I came into the comments to see how many people were talking about the PF2e ancestry and how good they are
@@procrastinatinggamer RUclips won't let me link it, but if anyone is really curious to see the design of the chair, you can Google search, "paizo blog howl of the wild", click the first result, then scroll down to, "Meet the crew of the Zoetrope!" The character sheet for Lythea the Navigator shows her chair.
Edit: Or just image search "pf2e lythea". That worked for me, but your algorithm might not pull it up that easily.
Honestly, as a disabled ttrpg player, the idea of a mermaid traversing the land in a wheelchair or something similar is very fun to me. Happy disability pride month everyone ❤
If you haven't already come across it the combat wheelchair rules by Mark Thompson are a boon to anyone wanting to keep their tail on land.
Disability pride month 😂 ok looks like we need another letter
Agreed, it would be great fun for wheelchair and/or other mobility aid users to be represented in d&d with a merfolk race that doesn't transform. Maybe coastal towns with a large community of costal merfolk living nearby are more wheelchair accessible too! (Would also work bc docks often need to wheel/lift things around) Damn, now I want it to be Canon...
Happy disability pride to you too! ❤
@@professorhal8098 as a queer disabled person nah I'm cool with getting 2 months instead (but yeah seriously some more intersectionality would rock, disabled people can have a hard time with protest marches)
I have the same problem.
🎶she's death and she's doom, she lives in you bathroom. Mermaid giiiiirlfriend🎵
She's baaaaaaack!😮😅
Ooh, should we get takeout? I'll call a plumber 😄👌
@@philurbaniak1811 her favorite!
Heheh
Don't get too close, she bites
"What kind of merfolk would men like?"
Ripjaws from ben 10. Tidal Merfolk works alright for this
Ripjaws is SUCH a good shoutout
You have the best taste
2 words ''street sharks''
I'd also say the Naga from Warcraft works for both, aquatic serpentine eel people that can slither along on land on their tails and even stand upright on them
Personally, I like just A little shork.
The lore implications of the Ginny Di universe when we learn Pointy Hat just... LIVES IN HER CLOSET, APPARENTLY.
He's been hiding in there while they plan Kraken Week
@@cgkase6210 That makes more sense, but I prefer my new headcanon that they're roommates and nobody talks about it lol
@@wunnup3229 I was assuming that Pointy Hat uses closets as a sort of Planescape-esque network of portals to visit different content creators, but that works too.
Oh I have the mental image of just all of Ginny's characters living in her house and just causing all sorts of chaos. The sitcom plots practically write themselves!
She should be carefull. His familiar somtimes burn closets.
ginny: why cant i play a mermaid
triton: am i a joke to you
yes, yes you are
🤡🐟
(Sorry, tritons)
The PointyHat portion was perfectly interrupted with an ad featuring Jeff Goldblum, and I honestly didn't catch that it was an ad for an embarrassing amount of time
😂😂😂
I didn't get that ad. Did it mention the price of a Jeff Goldblum?
I got a political ad instead.
@@pattheplanter I believe he would cost one, ahem, "Goldblum" xD
Ngl, I love going by flavor of Luca. There's no downsides to being out of water, but the fish traits go away when they are dry and they look like humans until they get water dumped on them again. Sure, people know about them but if a specific merfolk that wants to blend in, that's a perfect way... just they also have a tail to swim with this.
I think involuntary transformation is interesting, but it would be a major downside for a merfolk PC that other races don't have to deal with! I am not super into the idea of giving just ONE race a huge achilles heel. although of course, I am all for doing whatever each player & their table thinks will be fun! It's just not something I'd write into the race.
@@GinnyDi Oh yeah, definitely not for everyone's table, just something that stuck out with how modern media like H20 and Luca that in my head with a potential flavor and aesthetic. At least the involuntary bit in Luca is a little more wieldy since there's legs and a tail involved. I'd go for it but that's just a me thing for a potential game in the future so the homebrew helps.
Also check out Under the Seas of Vodari sometime, you'd have fun because its got rules for entirely aquatic campaigns you'd adore
Mermaid with tail.
Giant fishbowl.
"Levitate" as a free cantrip.
*BOOM!*
Or: four goblins carrying the fishbowl at all times.
@@rafaszczawinski4103 Ugh, the chatter!
Absolutely yes
Hear me out--fishbowl mech. Extremely technologically advanced, built robots/power armor for land use.
@@warmachine5835 It's full of water! You want to electrocute the mermaid? Think, McFly, think!
Pathfinder 2E recently added an official Merfolk ancestry (race in d&d), with several heritage (subrace) options, and they established that the existing wheelchair rules can be used to let them up onto land.
The "naur" really got me 🤣
Saaaame!!
Wow. The last time I was this early, the kraken hadn’t even been unleashed yet.
Now I want to make a panda race
This is really cool. I think I’d consider making the water breathing ability give characters a 30 foot swim speed, or an increase of +30 feet if they already had a swim speed though. This means that your triton party member will like you for buffing his preexisting swim speed, rather than being annoyed that you just made the 35ft/round wood elf better at swimming than him.
Great point!
Wouldn't that just make it so a party of merfolk would swim infinitely fast if they all made out together while doing it?
How about +10 to swim speed if they already have one like Aquatic Affinity?
@@MemoryPhaseStudios yeah, you’re right. +30 is too much. 30 or +10 would be more refined.
@@trise2033 you say that like it's a bad thing!
That brief mention of Selkies reminded me of a very old character I had. I basically just played a human with webbed digits, but her entire motivation to adventure was based on Selkie folklore. Doffed her Seal skin for a fisherman, he stole it and sold it to a traveling merchant. Instead of just being his captive wife, I killed him, then set off to find my skin. Any town we went to, I'd check pawn shops, hunting lodges, collectors, anywhere a rare animal skin might end up. I adventured for money, so I could pay investigators (who frequently scammed me).
The moment the you began rattling off shows I'm like "Incoming Naur!"
Googling this doesn't reveal anything.
@@endorsedbryce The eldritch texts are too ancient 🧜♀
@@GinnyDi D=
The mermaid stuff sounds great, but the most interesting lore drop in this video is that Pointy Hat lives in Ginny's closet
The whole "needing to make this for a man" thing is ironic, cuz the one player of mine that I was thinking this was perfect for (before you brought in pointyhat), is a man. "The Thirteenth Year" is your classic merfolk story with a boy as the main character, and also one of my player's favorite films. Either way, thank you, I shall be scooping this up for my game table!
Getting roasted by yourself in a mermaid costume while explaining mermaids sounds like a fever dream. It also makes great content, apparently 😂❤. I love this video a lot
Sometimes the scripts just write themselves 😅
Thank you both for setting this up! Love me some pirates and sea monsters!
Love this concept for a merfolk race, and the surprise guest was fun!
I don't know if you mean Undertow or Pointy Hat, but I suppose my response of "they've been taking up space in my house, they might as well pull their weight!" applies either way 😂
The Pointy Hat cameo was a pleasant surprise! Feel free to have more community cameos in the future!
oh don't worry, I already feel quite free to do whatever I want on my channel 😜 this is Pointy Hat's third cameo in my videos, actually!
This is why 3.5 rules. We *had* playable mermaids, lol!
PF2e has it now! Just saying ;)
I honestly thought that a male merfolk would be akin to Aquaman. That can basically be as silly or as badass as the player chooses. Dude is king of the sea for a reason!
LEGS 😤
Aquaman is a Triton, down to being able to speak with fish.
I was thinking the same thing, but then I realized that it is probably easier to turn him into a ranger subclass mechanically than a race.
@@GinnyDi Sidon!
I... suddenly am gripped with a desire to be a pretty green-haired steampunk siren artificer with her own custom-built motorbike! (And a ring of free action. Hey, it removes "can't swim" penalties for two-legs underwater, it should remove disadvantage for "not actually legs" on land!) Vrrrrm... vrrrm.
And then thank the GM for putting up with me building a... mechanic pixie dream mergirl.
Does the bike also run on sea water and has see through sections so that one can see the water flowing through the contraption?
Please make the bike look like the "bikes" from Atlantis!
this sounds cool af
Go further than that and make a mech! In Pathfinder, I made an inventor merfolk, red-haired with a lionfish pattern, that rides a mech made from scrap and a broken apparatus of the crab. The cockpit functions like an aquarium to keep her comfortable and hydrated.
@@andresmarrero8666 It does now! ^_^
What a cool idea for a collaboration. As someone obsessed with the sea (I wanted to be like Steve Irwin but for the ocean as a kid), Kraken week made me crack he biggest smile.
One of my favourite parts of being a DM is giving players freedom and creating homebrew lore. If someone wants to play a non-official character build, go for it! If there aren't pre-written rules for whatever thing, we collaborate and make them! I know not all folks enjoy designing new races but this is just what works for us!
"First of all, stop interupting me..." Hilarious.
4:35 I love how you pulled a muscle to bring someone down 2 flights of stairs for someone who can walk😂😂
hodor
why was it two flights of stairs tho? how deep do Ginny's basements go?
One challenge to having merfolk characters underwater is that the tactical combat would be inherently three-dimensional. Reaper alone has plenty of minis, but but using them properly is a different story.
You can avoid that problem by having most of the combat happen in a underwater caves or ruins, or fairly shallow water.
I've been DYING since 2015 to be able to play my half-siren in a D&D setting, and this is PERFECT. Ginny I knew you were a mermaid fan but this is genuinely the best present you could've given to the community. I love this so much I could cry.
Have you looked into Pathfinder 2E? As of the book 'Howl of the Wild', Merfolk (With Tails) are now a playable Ancestory. They have a level 1 feat called Swimmer's Guidance that grants all allies within 30 feet of them a 10-foot swim speed.
Shout out Paizo for being better than the coastal wizards again
They live on the COAST they should at least have merfolk…. But nooooo
Also, the poster character has an "acquatic" wheelchair
What is that supposed to do for a 5e player? She knows PF2 exists, did you stop and think that maybe she doesn't like it? Paizo did a mostly terrible job with Merfolk and the Hydration crap(which the actual FISH people don't even have) and their slower swim speed than Gillmen.
@@vamphunterx Paizo's mermaid is still better than WotC's 🤷♂️ but also, even if you're stuck in 5e, you can grab inspiration (steal) mechanics from other games
I’m in a high seas campaign right now and half of our players are the same homebrew race called the Okenasi, which is a sort of shapeshifting merfolk that can be any sort of sea animal (one person is playing an octopus-human and another is a dolphin-human). They can switch between having legs and having other animal parts, but need to have a certain amount of water to stay human for a long time.
Also don’t be too hard on yourself about the whole tentacle thing. That campaign had a magical item that was unironically called the Tentacle Rod.
In case you weren’t aware already, the tentacle rod is unfortunately a legit dnd item
Now this is such a wonderful blessing for me. I'm running a pretty homebrewed campaign focused around a large island ocean continent, and quite a lot is going to feature and happen around water, so having a new race of merfolk as this will greatly help me. I LOVE IT.
This solves several of my issues and has imedeatly opened new doors and given me extra inspiration, cant wait to use it.
That poor neighbor with the loud motorcycle if they ever see the video... he probably okayed it.
When you mentioned the various media with merfolk, I thought of "Siren." However, it occurs to me that designs for the "combat wheelchair" lend themselves to folk without legs. I might also place some limitations on the Water Breathing, such as linking its duration to the tides and limiting the number of targets to the merfolk's level.
Giving a mermaid a combat wheelchair instead of (or along with!) a transformation ability is GENIUS and I wish I'd thought of it! That's so good!!
There are so many cool mythical creatures from real world mythology that aren't a prominent part of D&D:
- Jorogumo: Spider demons from Japanese folklore that can transform into beautiful women to lure victims.
- Encantados: Shape-shifting dolphin spirits from South American folklore that can turn into humans.
- Leprechauns: I know halflings exist, but they're closer to hobbits than leprechauns.
- Nymphs & Dryads: they have such a prominent place in numerous mythologies - the fact that they're not playable races is crazy to me.
"achkually" dryads are a type of nymph, so it's something. I agree on the fact that they're not playable is absurd, though
Season of Ghosts has some interactions and negotiation with a jorogumo NPC, and she's a very cool character. I'd definitely like to see more of her.
@@TheRoseWolf Nymphs and Dryads aren't real creatures - there's no formal taxonomy for them. Just because websites like Wikipedia choose to group them together under the same umbrella, it doesn't mean that's how they always have to be perceived.
@@Eruvadhril Haven't heard of that but it sounds cool. I'll have to check it out now!
I want to be a hot spider demon lady!
My sister loves you so much. Keep up the great work you’re doing good.
Also wanted to add my two cents about the Water Breathing argument presented by Ginny in the video. In campaigns that do involve going underwater, the campaign book or the DM would then hand out water breathing magic items from air bubbles or potion/scroll of water breathing anyway. So having a character that has a feature for that doesn't break a setting's main obstacle at all.
Nice skit as usual! Pointy Hat emerging and then being shoved back into a dusty cupboard was really funny 😂
I have actually been wanting to play a mermaid for a while (my current pc is a triton, you can see i’m doing my best) so this is amazing
Yess join me 🙌
one of my recent PCs was a triton pirate with a scary mermaid girlfriend because I couldn't make a playable mermaid on dndbeyond so I feel you there
My homebrew merfolk also transform to legged, have blind sight that only works when underwater (for those deep and/or murky seas), resistance to cold-based attacks, and advantage on any roll involving the effects of coldness from spells or the environment.
The first of those is really cool. Love that idea. I think that would be perfect for Ginny's Deepwater subrace. Might make less sense for the others.
@@droidgeist I understand what you're saying, but I'm basing the ability on a very real sense that all fish have courtesy of their _lateral line organ,_ or LLO. Perhaps deep-sea variants would have a greater sensory range, though.
@@AlbertaGeek That's really interesting! Never knew that, and that's a strong argument for giving them all it. Having said that, D&D often limits senses to create differentiation - average cats don't have darkvision for example.
Back in the day, both AD&D and OD&D had rules for merfolk PCs; the 80s-90s Basic/Classic edition of OD&D had a merfolk race-class in a book called "The Sea Peoples" (1990). Since that's the edition I still play, that's the version I've always used. The Basic D&D merfolk class doesn't have any ability to shapeshift or transform (it's really meant for fully underwater campaigns), but for land-based games, I never liked shapeshifting as a solution anyway. Yes, there's lots of folklore and lots of modern pop culture where merfolk have legs when they're dry, but there's also plenty of universes where that's explicitly not the case (like The Little Mermaid). And anyway, shapeshifting always struck me as hardly any different from all those legged sea-peoples that Ginny joked about at the beginning of the video. If you're a mermaid with legs, how is that really any different from being a sea elf or a triton or a nereid?
Instead, I looked to another aspect of folklore, specifically merrows (Irish merfolk - which is also, incidentally, what the Basic D&D merfolk call themselves in the Mystara setting; "merrows" are only aquatic ogres in the *Advanced* D&D game line). In Irish folklore, mermaids often carry a magical item called a *cohuleen druith*, a cap of red or gold that they can give to a human, which lets them breathe underwater. I just tweaked the lore a bit to say that any merfolk can pretty trivially craft this item with a minor magical ritual, and any simple, wearable token (like a piece of jewelry or an article of clothing) can be made into a cohuleen druith. A land-dweller who wears it can breathe underwater, while a merperson wearing it can slither onto land, move and balance normally, even leap and climb. That way, merfolk always keep their tails and always feel like merfolk. If they want to shapeshift as a disguise, they need more powerful magic to do that, same as anybody else.
Just spotted your comment after I mentioned PC3 The Sea Peoples too.
It's strange how such a relatively new hobby, of only 50 years, reinvents itself so regularly that every decade it seems to get amnesia about what it's already done (and sometimes twice or more)!
I guess it really was and still is such a niche hobby, small supplements come and go, so it was easy to miss them. Often easier to find the old stuff now than back then - lol
Great job! You have opened a new arena for both traditional dungeon players as well as home brew players.
"Being stuck with a mermaid tail would make it really difficult to adventure."
Supramarine chair baybee!
I've always wanted a mermaid race and now you've made one, this is awesome!!
You wanted to play as a Mermaid, and I wanted to be terrified by your Mermaid Persona. This is a win:win!
I love everything about this! Thank you for making something so cool! Also gonna check out the other creators.
A more animalistic mermaid that can transform is a really cool idea, like Ripjaws from Ben 10
_Swim through Air,_ settling if motionless. One example of custom Merfolk-oriented spells. Ritual to imbue legs for a day, requiring a long rest in water. Just a little willing creativity to carry off.
you are so cool and have always been a HUGE inspiration for me- both as a DM and as a player. im so excited to see you participate in Kracken-Week, and im absolutely blown away by your creativity!!
Ginny and Pointy named this entire week named after a tentacled creature and are paying the price for it.
Also, Atop the Rock supremacy.
Missed opportunity: the bonus action swap should be "Land Legs", as a joke on Sea Legs, because the default state is to have the tail.
"Land fins"?
Love this! Im currently part of an underwater campaign and one of our players actually is a mermaid, and that's in addition to actually mermaiding IRL.
Living the DREAM! 🧜♀️🥰
Way to out me lmfao
This video was so unique!!!! I really enjoyed it, and I want to comment for engagement I will be sharing this everywhere to help out! I really liked the style and execution of this video! Happy Kraken week!!
This was a great video, I am excited to see what everyone has come up with for this theme and nice addition using Pointy Hat the way you did.
Two of my favorite youtubers drop a video at the same time. Omg thank you and pointy hat for being so amazing❤
I hope you enjoy Kraken Week!! 🦑
I like to think the reason why Merfolk don't go into the deep depths is because as you said, it's scary down there, and they treat it like humans treat caves
Dimension 20: A Starstruck Odyssey has Siobhan Thompson play a Aguatunisian, essentially a mermaid, in a version of DnD based on star wars and it fits both the world and the gameplay while still having interesting mechanics around her being an entirely aquatic race. If you haven't seen it I would recommend taking a look
I played a merfolk for awhile in D&D 3.5. They solved the issue of getting around on land by giving them 5' of movement on land.
The image of a merfolk struggle-flopping their way along the ground at 5ft/round is hilarious (and most assuredly NOT a solution 😂)
@@GinnyDi Slightly more graceful than that, since they could move 10' a round with two move actions (called 'hustling', like a jog), 15' with a run action, or 20' with the run feat (which also helped for swimming fast). But, yeah, when not sliding glacially around the battlefield in the heaviest armour possible it was nice to ride on something faster.
@@amymason156 Personally, I played a monk for the faster movement that class granted.
Pointy hat hit the nail on the head. Give men the tools to use whatever metal as hell animal they want to look cool
Ginny, istg not too long ago my brain thought of this concept and you just made it so much easier. K.J.(my character) I ended up making after buying the PDF document for An Elf and an Orc had a little Baby. They're basically a merfolk/elf rogue but their mermaid half is actually kraken and their tail is actually octopus tentacles in the water. The fact that you up and made this feels more than coincidental. 😅
So, Pointy Hat lives in Ginny's closet. Suddenly it all makes sense
No wonder he’s stuck in a perpetual black screen, his face cam is located somewhere in Ginny’s closet
YES YES YES YES YES! I loved your “evil mermaid” stats with your EP one shot but I wanted a playable version so badly! AND NOW YOU HAVE FULFILLED THE MIGHT NEED I HAVE HAD! (Seriously. I’m a triton in one campaign and a sea elf in another cuz NO MERMAIDS!)
Tidal merfolk actually sounds really cool!
Oh I'm definitely playing a deepwater merfolk that works as a masseuse. He's offered his services back home for years, but now his client base has begun to wane pushing him to travel abroad for new clients.
The merfolk lifeform in one of the other games I play always a tail and they can float above the ground. They can even float over traps so giving mermaids powerful abilities that making them really good at a portion of the game is standard.
Just wanted to say thanks to you and pointy hat for creating this event. I have been introduced to several content creators that I had not heard of before because of it.
Well done!
This is amazing!! I love mermaids and have always wanted to play one! Thank you so much Ginny!!!! :)
You are so welcome! 🥰
I loved fairies and mermaids ever since I was a little child ^^💕🧚🏻♀️🧜🏻♀️
I've actually created a completely homebrewed campaign for me and my friends, where I'm playing a seawalker priest. Seawalkers are an underwater species I made up, which has legs and a tail. They live in small clans and are known throughout the ocean as skillfull hunters and fast swimmers. They usually stay away from land-dwelling folk, but they can actually breathe on land and in fresh water, but they'll always prefer salt water. My character (named Pisc) always has to sleep either in a bathtub - to which he adds a little bit of salt - or in a pond/river. During the day, he has to keep his skin wet, preferably (which he achieves by keeping his pet axolotl Kip close).
But due to his upbringing underwater, he is very swift and fast. The party can breathe underwater for 2 days straight by drinking any mer's blood or tears. Maybe my party will even end up in a mermaid kingdom later in the game. We'll see ^^🩵
Sounds like you'd find Pathfinder handy for ideas at the very least. They have so many cute and creepy ancestories including merfolk, pumpkins, spiders, mushrooms, talking horse, and so much more. I've made a ficus that's a warlock no homebrew required.
*draws picture of sexy seal man*
"Okay put me back in the closet now"
That was 100% on purpose and I love it🤣🤣🤣
This literally came at the perfect time; I had to remake a character sheet for a merfolk NPC in one of my games! Love this and can't wait to try it out!
DQ11 had one of the best Merfolk Kingdoms I have played in a game and a mechanic to visit it repeatedly. On a D&D note, I think I mounted seahorse mermaid cavalry would be a ton of fun to play.
The tidal merfolk is essentially what the land-walking merfolk enemies are, and what a lot of the more warrior-like MtG merfolk are. Merfolk with legs, but with spiny fins going up their calves for effective water travel.
Me, imagining myself in my head:
Me, actually:
Thank you for making such wonderful videos and prompting such wonderful D&D plans!
"This is good, this is fine, can I keep this?" is very much what I was thinking too. Also that "natural weapons for reactions" thing. That's a great idea, and I may steal that for all sorts of races (I'm looking at you, tiny angry goblins).
Thank you for Kraken Week!
oh this is getting added to the list of accepted homebrew in my ocean world D&D setting immediately. i mean IMMEDIATELY, it's already in the list accessible to my players, i made the announcement before this comment. thank you and bless you for sharing this for free!
H2O: just add water saved my younger years. im glad you also liked it
Motorcycle neighbors are the worst. No one will blame you, Ginny :)
You could even integrate your types of merfolk as being a lore reason for there to be the kind of merfolk, who transform without their explicit intent.
You could kinda go the shifter route. For shifters, they have an ancestor, who was some kind of lycanthrope (wereanimal). For this, the merfolk who transform when wet could have an ancestor who was a full blooded merfolk, but the ability to transform at will kinda gets muddied a bit over the generations and becomes involuntary.
Great job, giving the group water breathing is a way to allow the other players to be part of the story with out being at a huge disadvantage where they wouldn't want to join the adventure.
Glug Glug Glug
GLUG GLUG GLUG 🙌
Funny enough, Pathfinder 2e just revealed recently a playable Mermaid heritage. Though I think it was fairly lukewarm reception since it was exclusively water based there
I can confirm that PF2 Merfolk are, pardon the pun, fish out of water when not in their natural habitat, but they have reasonable ways of mitigating this. Most notably the Supramarine Chair which is a level 0 common item that costs 5sp. Very affordable given that each character starts with 15 gold to spend on common level 1 or below gear. Admittedly it lowers your speed to 20 feet (average in PF2 is 25, you're on par with a dwarf), but I think it's reasonable for merfolk to be at least inconvenienced on land. By 9th level you can take a feat to give you a full 25 land speed by taking off your mermaid tail for as long as you want.
Shoutout to the writing in this episode - your videos are typically well written anyway, but the jokes in this one really landed, the pacing and editing of those jokes was great, it just seemed even better than usual! Not to mention that you’ve actually made me want to play a merfolk now…
I made a merfolk race and subraces a while ago too! These look so great :0 If you ever want to expand subraces, one idea that could be interesting is different waters around different environments, such as arctic water or marsh water, or if you wanted to go for a more toxic theme, could even go sewerage water for merfolk's homes which have been contaminated in some way. Either way, thank you for this video and I can't wait to try them out!
I think you went for the right balance on this race; it's better to be permissive and let the player impose their own extra limitations if they want. Same as Artificer arcane armor and steel defenders are super easy to replace mechanically, but don't have to be narratively. So if a player wants to be a more limited merfolk they can self-impose difficulties like rolling with disadvantage or never using Dash on land etc.
Also, about that special tentacle power…
Good news! Pathfinder 2e’s most recent book, Howl of the Wild, has a playable mermaid ancestry. Highly recommend.
...I feel called out. I just want a tentacle mermaid because I love the aesthetic!
Mhmm, sure
I love the idea of an artificer merfolk using an enchanted/mechanised wheelbarrow to move around on land. Also really enjoying the expanded lore than Ginnys closet opens into the demiplane in which pointyhatDM lives.
She's Death and she's Doom, and she's new to your game room!
5:12
“But lieutenant Dan, you ain’t got no legs!”
-Forrest Gump
I had an NPC based on Ariel in my first campaign. She was a Feylost Simic Hybrid Fathomless Warlock. The idea was that she was a mermaid that got trapped in the Feywild, made a deal with her patron, Ursula, to escape, and now serves as Ursula’s errand-girl until she pays off her debt. To facilitate this, her tail was swapped for legs, and she has tentacle hair (her Feylost trait). She can extend her hair to grab things and help her climb (her Simic Hybrid traits).
I included her as an intended rival for my friend’s Fairy character, because I knew she liked the movie. What I didn’t expect was that the two would start flirting because my friend liked the pairing so much. Oh well, roll with the dice you’re given, right?
I'm legitimately so excited to see what people produce for Kraken Week, lets goooo
This is going to be a great video, but I might be early here... Hope this isn't a bad thing 😅
Ginny talking about wanting to live out her mermaid fantasies and keeping the picture makes me think her mind has wondered back to gender theory
My two favorite mermaid characters were a tiny water Fairy (Basically a 3.5 Pixie, but with Fins for wings, and a Mermaid Tail...) and a little "teacup" Octo-maid sort of, which got little use but was fun. While not actually D&D we used D&D rules for lots of skill checks and many other rulings. The little Pixie Mermaid basically flopped around on land not unlike a clumsy puppy, and wore a long skirt to help keep from scratching up her underside. The Octo was well... An octopus. And preferred to be carried. Both were fun!
I can’t wait to use this! Just a few weeks ago I offered to run a one shot for my bestie that was an “oops all mermaids” one shot because she adores mermaids. Now I have a starting point for the races!
I have literally been working on setting up a Merfolk race for my own setting for what feels like ages, but never really knew where to go with it. Feeling very inspired after this, especially the mermaid's breath ability.
You pretty much nailed on the head why I was always hesitant to use/play as merfolk. But now???
THIS LINEAGE
This is PERFECT! Currently working on a mermaid warlock concept, long story short instead of Ariel making a deal with Ursula to be with some random Prince, my mermaid made a deal with “Ursula” to free her notorious pirate boyfriend from prison!
I like your idea of different cultures because the ocean is so big. It's like the different pods of orcas that use unique methods to hunt unique prey depending on where they live.