Masters of the seven seas and some of the most proficient sailors in the world, the Sea Elves have scattered their colonies all across the shores of the Southern Sea. Once the rivals of the Elysians, the Hetairoi, and the Hebronim, their international influence has diminished as of recent centuries. Now they are but one nation out of many withing the Dar-al-Shams. But out on the open sea they are still the lords of the waves, and be they merchants, marines, or pirates, the Sea Elves are the greatest in the world.
Sea Elf Traits
Ability Score Increase: Your Dexterity score increases by 2 and your Constitution score increases by 1.
Sea Elf Training: You have proficiency with the spear, trident, light crossbow, and net.
Child of the Sea: You have a swimming speed of 30 feet, and you can breathe air and water.
Friend of the Sea: Using gestures and sounds, you can communicate simple ideas with any beast that has an innate swimming speed.
Languages: You can speak Low Solar. You may be able to read and write any of these languages depending on your Background.
History
The Sea Elves or Ma'anar, are an ethnic group native to the Southern Sea. The Ma'anar are amphibious, and typically build their cities on the coast and make their living from the sea, mainly through fishing, trading, and the occasional bit of piracy. Unlike the Shamsar and the Quanar, the Ma'anar have never had a unified state. Instead, the fundamental unit of Ma'anar society is the city-state. This political disunity made them easy pickings for the Shamsar when the Great Migration occured. However, the conquest of the coastal Ma'anar turned out to be a win-win for everyone. The peace and stability provided by the Dar al Shams caused the former Ma'anar city-states to grow richer than they had ever been able to before, and the Ma'anar were able to lend their naval expertise to the traditionally water-shy Shamsar. As a result, even to this day most Shamsar naval vessels are primarily captained and crewed by Ma'anar, and the old Ma'anar merchant houses control most of the trade that the Khaliphate carries out.
The Ma'anar are slightly shorter on average than their Shamsar and Quanar kin. They also show obvious physical signs of their aquatic heritage. Their skin tones can range wildly, but tend towards ocean colors: pale blue, sea green, or coral being particularly common. All Ma'anar also have gills in addition to lungs, which are found on the side of their rib cages. This allows the Ma'anar to comfortably exist both above and below the water.
Their close connection to the ocean means that the Ma'anar are famous for their ocean Druids, Swashbucklers, and Storm Sorcerors. The ability to magically struggle with the sea can mean the difference between success and disaster for an ocean voyage. The Ma'anar are also famous for their Bards, particularly for their loud and sonorous singing voices, and many Ma'anar Paladins have taken up the struggle and carried the light of Al Shams across the seas to foreign lands. When foreign peoples have adopted the Shamsari faith, it was usually because of the Ma'anar.
Ma'anar culture is quite distinct from that of the other peoples of the Dar al Shams. Being from a tropical climate, their architecture emphasizes broad rooves and few walls, to facilitate airflow. They also incorporate many materials from the sea, such as coral, shells, and sometimes living organisms, into their buildings. They also tend to prefer music to poetry, and the histories of the Ma'anar are not recited, but sung. The Ma'anar language is called Aquan, but it has mostly been replaced by Low Solar amongst the Ma'anar within the Dar al Shams. However, in the city states on the islands in the Southern Sea, the Ma'anar tongue remains widespread. This has resulted in a growing cultural division between the "cooked" Ma'anar of the mainland, and the "raw" Ma'anar who live outside of the Khaliphate.
Name Generator
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