Locathah

Appearance

Locath are sleek, hydrodynamic humanoids with smooth scales and long, expressive fins that trail from their arms, calves, and spine. Their heads are fishlike, with large dark eyes, wide lipless mouths, and fan-like gill-frills that flare when they are excited or angry. Skin tones range from pale sand and silver to deep blues, greens, and rust-reds, often striped or mottled like reef fish for camouflage.
  Their hands and feet are webbed with fine, translucent membranes, ending in short, curved claws used for gripping rock and coral. Many locath decorate themselves with beadwork woven into their fins, shell piercings along the jawline, and inked tide-mark tattoos that record family, oaths, and survived disasters. Clothing tends to be minimal and practical: woven sea-silk wraps, scaled harnesses for tools, and weighted sashes that hang properly even in strong currents.

Culture & Society

Locath society is clan-based and stubbornly communal. Each clan is built around a few extended families and a shared reefhold or trenchhold, and every member is expected to contribute to the survival of the whole. They place deep value on mutual care, emotional honesty, and the idea that no one should drown alone. Stories of past suffering are not hidden but told openly in long “memory-songs” that mix history, grief, and gentle humour.
  Although they prefer to keep to themselves in the deep, locath are not isolationist out of hatred. They simply trust in small circles first. Clans that have forged alliances with raft-cities send surface envoys who trade medicine, salvage, rare deepwater harvests, and tidal wisdom for tools and protections their people cannot make easily. Faith varies between clans, but most venerate patient sea spirits and quiet guardian powers who watched over them in the darkest years, along with ancestor-lines honoured through song and ritual.

Biology & Lifespan

Locath are fully amphibious fishfolk. They breathe water through gills and air through a secondary lung system, though dry air tires them quickly and prolonged time out of water cracks their skin. Young locath hatch as free-swimming fry that resemble small, finned fish with oversized eyes. Over the course of a few years they undergo a gradual metamorphosis, developing stronger limbs, broader chests, and the distinctive fin-crests of their clan.
  They grow quickly in their first decade and reach physical maturity around fifteen. Locath live roughly seventy to eighty years, though elders who avoid war and accident can grow older, becoming thinner and more translucent, with fins that fray like worn banners. Injury and hardship leave visible marks: torn fins, scarred scales, and clouded eyes are common among veterans, who wear such wounds without shame as proof that they survived.

Homelands & Environment

Most locath homelands lie far below the raft routes, in deep reef-walls, canyon mouths, and collapsed shelves where few dryfolk ever swim. They favour places with complex terrain and plenty of hiding spaces: thickets of coldwater coral, forests of swaying kelp, and caves reinforced with coralcrete and scavenged stone. Many of these sites are rebuilt ruins, painstakingly repaired after earlier collapses.
  Where alliances with surface folk exist, clan outposts can be found beneath major raft-cities, anchored to the underside of the flotilla like living roots. These outposts tend to be quieter and more open than the main deep holds, with glow-lanterns to welcome trusted visitors who can handle the pressure. Locath are most at home in colder, high-pressure waters and often find shallow, sunlit bays a little too bright and noisy for comfort, visiting them only when they must.

Relations with Other Peoples

By nature, locath are gentle and cautious. Their first instinct is to offer aid, but their second is to remember how often that kindness was abused in the past. They get along best with tritons, sea elves, and water genasi who share their understanding of the deep. Some clans have close ties with particular raft-cities, acting as unseen guardians who clear threats from below and guide drifting settlements away from hidden hazards.
  Dryfolk who prove respectful and patient are often rewarded with the firm, enduring friendship of a locath clan. Humans, dwarves, and smallfolk merchants benefit from these relationships, gaining safe deepwater routes and rare goods in return for tools, crafted goods, and political protection. On the other hand, slavers, raiders, and those who treat the sea as something to be strip-mined find locath utterly unyielding. The people who survived being nearly erased once are not eager to give anyone a second chance to try.