Water Genasi

Appearance

Water genasi look mostly humanoid in outline, but every part of them whispers “sea-touched.” Their skin ranges through blues and greens to sea-glass grey, often patterned with faint ripples, freckles like droplets, or tidepool swirls. Most look as if they have just stepped out of the water: beads of moisture gather on their skin, clothes cling as if damp, and their hair hangs or floats as though it were underwater, swaying in currents no one else can feel.
  Their eyes tend toward overlarge and dark, blue-black or deep green, gleaming like wet stones. Some have small fins at the jaw, elbows, or calves, or translucent webbing between fingers and toes. A few bear more dramatic marks of their blessing, such as bioluminescent freckles that glow softly in the dark, pupils like a shark’s or seal’s, or a faint shimmer of foam that traces their footsteps when they are emotional.

Culture & Society

Water genasi do not have a culture of their own so much as they crash into other cultures like waves into a harbour. Most are raised among the people of their birth: raft-city crews, coastal fishing clans, temple households, pirate families, or wandering merchant fleets. They pick up the customs, languages, and loyalties of those communities, but the sea-blood in them nudges toward independence and motion. Many become scouts, tide-guides, salvagers, storm-watchers, or sailors who feel more at home on swaying planks than steady stone.
  Some embrace their blessing openly, serving as priests, oracles, or emissaries of the spirits and gods that touched their family. Others hide their nature behind hoods and gloves, especially in places where being “too strange” draws knives or nooses. Names usually follow the traditions of their home culture, though plenty of water genasi adopt an extra name or title to claim their heritage, taking on monikers like Wave, Spray, Breaker, or Undertow.

Biology & Lifespan

Water genasi are fundamentally mortal. Their bones, blood, and organs follow the same rules as their non-blessed kin, but the sea’s touch runs through their veins like a second pulse. Most can hold their breath far longer than normal, swim with uncanny ease, and shrug off cold spray and salt that would chap another’s skin raw. Their bodies resist dehydration, clinging to moisture, and wounds sometimes knit with a faint scent of ozone and rain.
  A genasi birth can happen in several ways: a parent favoured or cursed by a sea deity, a line that once survived a miraculous shipwreck, or a child conceived or born within a surge of wild magic on the waves. The blessing can skip generations and resurface without warning. Water genasi mature at roughly the same rate as humans but often live a little longer, commonly reaching eighty to ninety years if misadventure or obsession does not claim them first. Age tends to silver their hair to seafoam white and deepen the colour of their eyes, rather than dulling them.

Homelands & Environment

There are no great “genasi kingdoms” on the High Seas. Instead, water genasi appear wherever the ocean’s influence runs strong: in raft-cities that chase the great currents, in storm-battered coastal towns, beside sacred coves and sea-caves, or aboard ships that have a long history of miraculous returns. Some clusters of extended families form loose neighbourhoods on certain rafts, known for their uncanny knack for reading weather and water, but they remain woven into the wider community rather than apart from it.
  Most water genasi are drawn instinctively to shorelines and open decks. Long periods far inland leave them restless or ill at ease, as if they are constantly listening for waves that never come. Many cultivate small comforts even when traveling: basins of clean water, charms filled with seawater from home, or hammocks slung where they can hear the creak of rope and wood.

Relations with Other Peoples

Among the peoples of the High Seas, water genasi evoke a mix of awe, wariness, and envy. Tritons and sea elves often see them as younger cousins of the surface world, halfway between shore and deep. Locathah and lizardfolk may treat them with cautious respect, recognising old sea-magic when they smell it. Human, dwarf, elf, smallfolk, and goliath communities value their talents as navigators, storm-watchers, and mediators with the capricious spirits of the water.
  In more fearful or superstitious places, however, water genasi are as likely to be blamed for storms and sinkings as they are to be thanked for safe returns. Orcs, tieflings, kenku, and others who know what it is to be distrusted often understand them quickest. On harsh frontier rafts, a water genasi might be either the lucky charm everyone wants on their crew, or the scapegoat quietly pushed overboard when fortune turns sour. Those who face such prejudice either harden into wary loners or double down on their need to prove themselves, chasing ever bigger risks in search of a place that finally feels like home.