Shark-kin

Shark-kin are scaly sea folk with huge staring eyes, finned crests, and clawed, webbed hands and feet. Their legs are shriveled; a thick alligator-style tail does the swimming. Adults run 6 to 7 feet long and 190 to 250 pounds, and usually live about 120 years, a few twice that. Most are reddish brown speckled or banded in white or yellow, while some are blue or blue-black marked with silver, pale blue, or metallic green, and every pattern is unique. A reflective layer behind the eyes lets them see well in dim or murky water and makes their eyes glow like a cat's in strong light. They speak their own tongue, and 40% also know Common or another sea race's language.

Though fierce hunters, shark-kin avoid fighting intelligent races except to defend themselves or their range. Adults bear tridents and javelins, and every fourth member of a war or hunting band also has a net. Unarmed, they use claws and bite; armed, they swing a weapon and still get a bite that round.

Each tribe keeps 4d6 sharks, about one per two or three adults. A quarter of the pack are 7-8 HD, a quarter 5-6 HD, and the remainder 3-4 HD; a tribe of 50 or more adds one giant of 10 to 12 HD. An empathic bond lets any shark-kin give its sharks basic commands (come, go, stop, turn, attack) out to 360 yards. In battle the tribe spreads wide to surround foes from every direction, then on the elder's signal everyone converges on one point so each enemy there faces as many attackers as possible.

A tribe follows a 3 HD elder and defends roughly 120 square miles of sea against all other ocean races. Visitors get courtesy but not a long welcome, and no outsider may hunt or remove anything without the elder's permission. Wrecks are prized as reefs full of life, so salvagers must haggle hard or fight. The tribe wanders its range hunting and tending its sharks, which serve like hunting hounds, and only stops to build makeshift homes where food is unusually rich, such as a fish spawning ground.

When an elder dies, the adults' legs lengthen and their gills adapt to air over a few weeks, letting them walk like humans; sages call it a throwback to the race's land-dwelling past. The 10+1d10 senior adults climb to a traditional hilltop or peak, choose a new elder in an ancient rite, and return to the sea, where all revert to normal.

Their food is any seafood they manage to catch, mainly fish and mollusks, plus sea mammals when available.