Selkie's cloak

The cloak is made from the skin of a seal slain in a ritualistic hunt. It is given to peltcrafters who work the pelt into the cloak, painstakingly decorated with rune and knotwork and tapestry of the sea. The two are are made whole through ritual, where the cloaks wearer is wrapped in it and submerged in a deep tide pool where upon success the soul of the seal has entered and the wearer made truly selkie. From then on the change is made when the selkie having draped the cloak over them submerges themselves in the sea. The cloak takes hold. In seconds the wearer fully takes the form of a seal, their human body held within and able to return to it at any time. To return to human form they must wilfully detach from the seal and return to the land to shed their skin.

It is said that the first selkie was Kell. A cloudborn woman who kept watch over the grotto of the sea god Gelsean as he spilled his blood to form the seas. Over the years as she travelled with him through his new creation she so loved the wonders of the world beneath the waves that she wished never to leave. So the tidal laird took the skin of a seal which was her favorite of all the beasts of the sea. Then draping her in it he pierced a vain on his wrist. With just a taste of his blood the woman and beast became one, and so she could venture through the reefs and depths as she willed, always able to take it off without forsaking her life upon land. This skin she wore upon her always, pinned with a broach of whalebone that she may never be separate from her tie to the sea. Such legends Selkie elders tell tales of how their kind hunted the seas in the form of seals since ancient times, when snow and ice covered all the world.

To the selkie folk of the grotto isles it is more than just a garment. For them it contains a second half of themselves. A part that connects them to the sea and all its creatures. Thus they wear it constantly and never part with it for if it were to be lost or destroyed, they would be selkie no longer. As such it is vital that only selkies receive such a cloak. If during the ritual of intertwining the recipients selkie blood is too weak the soul may not be able to connect to them. In solitude this participant must burn their cloak, and scatter the ash to the seas.