Blade Maidens: Dead in the Water – 8 & 9

“Little is known of merfolk society, and what scraps we have gathered can prove difficult to determine what is fact and what folklore run wild in the imagination.

Most can agree on the broader details: there are vast kingdoms under the waves, far more than we have made contact with. Civilizations of coral and stone, some perhaps older than even the most ancient of Telosian dynasties. Entire wars for thrones that we will never see fought hundreds of miles below our ships as we pass in the night.

The Shallow Lands, as we’ve come to know them, are the only merfolk civilizations that have any regular contact with Telos, trading for surface goods through rudimentary sign language or the rare trader who has learned our tongue and short jaunts to tide pools and reefs accessible by skiff. Even these encounters are often tense and confusing, despite years of the custom.The kingdoms that lie along the sea beds of the deep are even more unknown, with encounters on the surface being rare enough for decades to pass without occurrence. We may only speculate as to what they think of our kind, whether as an idle curiosity or a potential threat to be snuffed out. Only time may tell.”

– From The Histories of Our World, Vol. 7 by Professor Raylin Helver.