Aquatic Elf

Sea elves share the temperament of their woodland kin but live beneath storm-beaten coasts. Gill slits line both sides of the throat, their skin is a silvery green, and their stringy hair ranges from emerald to deep blue. Men keep it short; women may let it trail up to 4 feet. Though they live for centuries and show few other signs of age, great years often show in their eyes. Unlike mermen they have legs, and they dress in finely woven garments of reeds and sea plants, usually green, black and brown in subtle swirling patterns. They speak elvish, sahuagin and a strangely accented common.

Aquatic elves are peaceful and seldom strike first; a whole band marches to war only when its community is threatened or a mighty enemy appears. Once committed, they fight with a courage and skill that astonish their foes.

Given a choice, they fight among reefs or thick weed beds. There their coloring and stealth hide them as well as wood elves vanish into trees, giving enemies a -5 penalty to surprise rolls, and they swim through seaweed without hindrance. They have no infravision, but their sight is extraordinary: a sea elf can count an enemy's soldiers up to 1 mile away.

Spears and tridents serve for both hunting and war, and sea elves gain +1 to attack rolls with either. They also throw combat nets with the off hand, taking no penalty for doing so thanks to their Dexterity; a hit against AC 6 snares the target. Half the time the net catches only the victim's weapon, natural weapons like a shark's jaws included, and otherwise it traps the whole creature. Escape requires a bend bars roll to tear the net or a Dexterity check at -3 to wriggle free, and spells with gestures cannot be cast while netted. Tactics vary from band to band.

On some worlds sea elves cannot cast spells at all, and these elves claim the drow stole their magic in some distant age. Like land elves they resist sleep and charm spells, have 90% immunity to charm person, and still receive a normal saving throw if that resistance fails.

Leaders scale with the war party: a 3rd-level fighter per 20 elves and a 4th-level fighter per 40. Forces over 100 add a pair of 5th-level lieutenants under an 8th-level fighter, and those over 160 also bring a thief of 6th level and a fighter of 9th, all beyond the band's base numbers. Any party of 20 or more has a 50% chance of 1d3 dolphins along. These are friends and allies, not pets or expendable troops, and they join the fight willingly.

Sea elves live in small communities of 3d100+100, usually hidden in dense weed beds in calm waters or in caves beneath lagoons and reefs. Homes are cut into the rock under the seaweed and are nearly invisible to outsiders; finding one is as hard as finding a secret door, though the 3d6+2 dolphins that usually swim nearby are a clue. Wandering heralds carry spoken news from settlement to settlement, a charming but slow system. Each community has the leaders described above and is ruled by a 10th to 12th-level fighter guarded by eight 7th-level elf fighters. Any magical weapons belong to the ruler or the guards.

They shun air-breathers and other sea peoples alike. They bear no ill will toward mermen, tritons and other good undersea races, but see no reason to meddle in the affairs of such short-lived folk, and wish others would leave them alone in turn. A sea elf who gives his word keeps it to the death, and if he dies first his whole band takes up the vow. Doubting that word is a grave insult. They accept no promises from non-elves, since only elves live long enough, and honor their dead well enough, to be sure a vow is kept.

Beyond dolphins, sea elves feel genuine warmth for land elves. Children of the two have high elf coloring with greenish hair and hidden gills that open underwater, letting them breathe air or water indefinitely; they usually (65%) follow the ways of their mother's people. Even with magic to help them breathe, sea elves are uneasy above the waves, and while few have seen a forest, most dream of the impossible journey.

Their great hatred is the sahuagin. Nearly every sea race except the twisted ixitxachitls loathes the sea devils, but the elves' fury surprises even themselves. Rumor of sahuagin nearby sends war parties out, and they nearly always attack when they have the numbers. They also kill great sharks in their waters. They resent surface fishermen, whose nets snare elves and who sometimes slay them, mistaking them for sahuagin. Legends speak of distant sea elves who can take the shapes of dolphins or sea otters, though searchers have never found them.

Each band feeds itself, farming kelp and fishing as needed. They are avid scavengers who adore the idea of magic but leave its use to their land cousins, trading curios and rare finds from wrecks and sunken ruins to high elves for metal tools and weapons they cannot forge underwater. Their traders recall histories older than most races' memories, making them priceless sources of lore about the deep, if they can be persuaded to share it.

Neither race admits it, but sea elves and sahuagin are linked. When elves live within about a mile of a sahuagin lair, roughly one sahuagin birth in a hundred produces a child who looks like a sea elf. Most of these malenti end up devoured by the adults who spawned them, but a few are raised as spies, since their elven looks paired with a sahuagin upbringing make perfect infiltrators. Many gain a knack for sensing the location of any aquatic elf within 120 feet. Few sea elves believe malenti are real, because the idea raises unsettling questions about where sahuagin came from.

Malenti are real, and nearly identical to sea elves, though they age much faster and live only about 170 years. Elves rarely spot them, but a dolphin has a 20% chance to sense one, and malenti dislike dolphins accordingly. When sahuagin and malenti breed, the young are always malenti, and over time some sahuagin communities have been wholly replaced by them. These very rare groups look like sea elves apart from obvious details such as lifespan and languages, but they remain as evil as their kin, fight in sahuagin fashion and worship the same dark powers.