You're Forgetting Something In Your Worldbuilding...

the lands of men ancient forests of elves deep caverns of dwarfs and the Seas of who exactly we've got a blind spot in fantasy and it's obvious to see why as humans it turns out we're best telling stories which involve bipedal land-based humanoids but in my view at least in some worlds we might see a third ancient empire alongside the all two classic elves and dwarfs because Des despite our assumptions life below the waves is far better than we like to think let's dive [Music] in so for this video I'm going to be discussing merfolk to keep things simple I'm going to assume that they can breathe underwater but that being outside of water doesn't cause them immediate death things change slightly in a more positive direction ction later on if we assume true amphibious but it doesn't matter that much they are assumed to be reasonably unaffected by ocean pressure as long as they stay within the photic zone or at least the first few hundred meters of sea depth variants who can enure higher pressures will be discussed later so how much space do murol actually have to operate theoretically the top layer of ocean for the entire world but it does rather depend on which World they inhabit to be a settled people it is likely that a set location is required with perhaps physical structures or at least some concentrated agriculture as such our murol Empire likely needs Solid Ground under their fins if we require said ground to be in the photic zone the first 200 M of water where the vast majority of sunlight and photosynthesis happens then our murol are limited almost exclusively to Waters over a continental shelf atol seamounts volcanic island chains and saraso seas serve as very thematic exceptions to this rule but continental shelf is the largest by far of any of these environments however in our world this environment takes up 8% of under sea floor yet almost all kelp seaweed coral and in fact almost all ground M plant life in general exists in this region as light simply can't penetrate much deeper this also means that an abundance of sea life lives here too as this is where the vast majority of the plants are but as we know 70% or above of the world is covered with water 8% of that is Coastal shelf and 1% is rivers and lakes that's a lot of coastal shelf in fact this one environment takes up 15% of all of our Continental tectonic surfaces just behind mountains at 21% in other words there is certainly room for a vast Coastal Empire of undersea folks but surely living underwater is horrible well early humans use shelters both caves and built structures to avoid bad weather and scary animals largely but bad weather doesn't really exist underwater sure you get freak tight tsunami and the occasional water spout or Whirlpool but by and large humanoid creatures would be able to manage all of these weather the storms pretty well even tsunami if they can follow the tide out and notice early enough hail snow high winds driving rain or scorching heat mean very little just 30 m below the water surface and best of all sea temperatures remain relatively stable but sharks and kilow whales fair I raise you wolves bears tigers hippos and the like but in all seriousness M folks do need a way to deal with ocean Predators which are more than just sharks and Ora as well as some of the dangerous poisonous creatures and plants Under the Sea perhaps the most useful invention in this regard would be the spear or pole arm more generally murol tools likely start out using sea creature bones and teeth and some rocks as well so finding a half long enough to be useful may be a matter of carving into large found whalebones but as soon as Muro can present a legitimate threat from some distance deterring or at least redirecting attacks gets much easier it's likely that an alert enough mer person can deter all almost any solo Predator long enough for it to give up assuming murol has stamina and skill that is see murol could build shelters under the waves but I don't know if they'd even need to it's genuinely that good to live underwater as a water breathing humanoid as long as you can communicate ancestral teachings about which creatures are dangerous how to deal with them and which things are just worth staying away from it is worth interrogating quickly exactly why our planet is so set up to provide this lovely shallow enough habitat for myol it does seem mightily convenient like much of the existence of life on Earth the fact that we have Coastal shallows which support all manner of wonderful sea life feels like a massive Cosmic coincidence it turns out at some points in Earth's history there were few or no Continental shelves at all the fact that this relatively shallow relatively well-lit environment even exists at all is due in large part to ice melts since the last ice age before this the continental crust ended pretty much after sloping down towards the water line dropping off to some Grand horrible Abyssal ocean if your world uses tectonic continent Al masses it is worth considering if this Zone this safe shallow Zone actually exists at all or if at the edge of each land mass where a continental plate meets an oceanic plate there isn't just some great terrifying Abyss just meters from Shore and so without farmable plants these kind of shallows sea life environments or the ability to build shelters on the ground except for those few environments mentioned earlier I can see murol in this sort of world remaining as hunter gatherers sustaining on phytoplankton algae and the odd hunted fish however if you don't want to bother with complex plate tectonics which let's be fair many world Builders don't then your seas are likely to be much much much shallower than those on Earth and much less varied in depth such a planet would likely need towering gigantic volcanoes to vent planetary heat and would experience a dramatic variety and volatility of climate across its lands so kind of your classic dramatic semi tropical fantasy world then even down to the gigantic volcanoes everywhere if this is the case in your world or you simply hate plate tectonics then there is nearly no excuse for adding a merfolk Empire grander than any human dwarfen or Elfen one shallow Seas like those created by this sort of setup like you're adding water to Mars for example would have abundant corals and sea life abundant merfolk hunting grounds and very very few deep sea leviathans to worry about it's literally the perfect breeding ground for a murog Empire but tangent aside we're going to assume limited coastal regions with no real need to build shelters to protect them at least from weather the trouble is why would creatures in such a situation bother with building a civilization more than most hunting and Gathering suits this Coastal environment incredibly well to build clothes tie together broken Spears and build nets for fishing kelp seagrass and seaw weed are pretty useful and living in or near a coral reef could prove exceedingly useful in defending or deflecting attacks from creatures with this said farming a kelp forest whether you've planted it or not just makes sense especially as it provides shelter both for murol and a variety of tasty and useful creatures clams make incredible sense as a farmed creature uh they're not great at getting away and their shells can be incredibly useful finally kelp forest style Farms could be really quite efficient not only providing excellent hunting grounds for a bunch of tasty fish but also incredibly efficient vertical Farms which mfol can consume the product of as well as weave into useful items so for defense crafts food and simplicity the first merfolk settlements would likely be around kelp or seaweed forests likely shifting their mentality from nomadic hunter gatherers to settled hunter gatherers and eventually working within the structures of farming and Agriculture and this abundance of resources on offer means that even if merfolk don't seek shelter for themselves they will likely need somewhere to store their harvests from a place to cure or dry seaweed to storage for shells bones and other useful items even storage for harvested seaweed caves May suffice for a time but eventually a settled Society will likely seek more convenient structures closer to their Farms or hunting grounds originally these structures would likely be conglomerations of natural corals and large bones but if any civilization is likely to discover Roman style Marine concrete early it's murol volcanic materials are easily acquired from undersea Vents and undersea volcanoes and mixing it with lime is literally the only other step in making this concrete considering seawater which is also a resource needed as surrounds them the big hurdle really is determining that there is actually value in trying to smelt shells another readily available resource under sea to make lime thankfully it's a massively important construction material for mixing all sorts of things in our ancient world so as long as Mur folks have connections in some kind of people who plaster people who make bricks or people who create mortar anywhere in their local surroundings this most amazing of building materials in the ancient world is perfectly within their grasp but why is this Roman Marine concrete so important well it turns out specifically when exposed to seawater it is one of the best building materials ever invented it even repairs cracks in its own form naturally and at least for marine uses is strictly better than the concrete we were making 60 years ago so once our molk have ventured onto the shore with the purpose of smelting shells or you know got someone else to do it for them it's Off to the Races it's like ly that the first uses of this kind of concrete would be to reinforce natural or semi-natural undersea structures like caves um and especially dead corals and these perhaps Coral bone structures generally but in time I can imagine this concrete being spread in more ambitious structures too likely domes with holes at the top but this isn't the only way for undersea Coastal creatures to thrive and survive it is true that nutrient depletion and over fishing are huge threats avoided by remaining in a nomadic hunter gatherer style Society in my view it's likely that before mfol develops sustainable farming practices they will likely experience hardships and food scarcity likely leading to Breakaway tribes following one of two molds either moving in One Direction across the coastal shelf keeping to the shallows or for braving that Abyssal trench strategy one would likely eventually lead to a group circling around the entire Coastline of their continent or Island so may result in some doubling back eventually but I must say the idea of a murol civilization meeting back up with those who abandoned it 100 years ago as they've made an entire loop around the continent seems like the sort of thing that should be in someone's world there are also a couple of ways that these deep sea Expeditions could go either they stay on the surface of the sea and seek out a sea mount saraso sea or another continent hoping for a safe harbor in another direction or they Ally with some significant undersea threat to dragon a dragon Turtle a kraken or aboth or something of the sort a a whale large enough will certainly do and serve as custodians protectors or Hangers On or they find an undersea deep sea thermal vent these vents team with life but deep down in the dark oceans this life is largely pretty ugly and pretty parasitic in terms of its relation to scavenged food if merfolk who Brave these trenches can survive the water pressure they would lik not need to see living down here for a particular amount of time and might transform into quite the Fearsome scavengers around thermal vents perhaps with the ability to make Metals themselves but back to our settlers we have some degree of farming and domestication and if they survive in place a method of somewhat sustainably extracting resources from the same location over and over again but this does not an ancient civilization make we need to see technological advances and that is tough Without fire I've already discussed the difficulties with making quick line out of shells but their deep sea neighbors by thermal vents may not actually need to worry unfortunately our shallow sea murol are going to struggle to move Beyond bone and shell tools without magic or emerging onto the surface to create fire and smelt as they most likely did with uh quick climb in small smelters on the beaches fortunately the absolute best Advance a murol civilization could possibly need is bronze Iron and Steel are next to useless and at least until stainless steel is invented but bronze is incredibly unreactive in water all more fol need is a way to smelt it and they would in tool strength alone likely surpass many of the limitations stopping them from literally ruling the Seas either a friendly local civilization or shore-based stone smelters using animal blubber as fuel and it is likely that we have a serious civilizational Contender on our hands because murol have one more secret weapon as the smartest and best equipped creatures in the Seas domestication of animals proves reasonable and likely from seal and dolphin Scouts and mounts to swordfish platoon not to mention octopodes and Crustaceans so many useful creatures could easily be trained by simply feeding them regularly as this Cosmopolitan concrete dwelling Society by the time other civilizations are starting to sail the seas in Earnest mfol will likely have enough undersea clout to seriously hamper any of unsanctioned Waring trading or Sailing In general sea trade considering it starts literally at the edge of any mfol territory would likely be controlled by such a civilization whether vessels need to pay tolls to the waves or make habits of seeking protections and advice for the Seas from the merfolk attempting to sail without their go-ahead would be foolish indeed I would consider modeling murol Society upon Bronze Age Greek and Phoenician societies heavily multicompetent trading peoples who Thrive off of their diplomatic connections indeed murol sign language may become an international standard for seaf farers in blustery winds driving rain hand and arm signals seem eminent ly useful after all perhaps all of the death perhaps all of the de people in your world have ancient merfolk to thank for their inclusion at the table the presence of merfolk Empires on these coasts would also likely have significant impacts on maritime law and the feasibility of seab based smuggling and imports it's very difficult to keep smuggling or shipwreck Enterprises afloat when a group of civilized Vigilant folk Patrol above and below the waves very regularly I can easily imagine ancient merfolk chastising egotistical human upstarts seeking to master the waves or even some Rogue elements of murol society getting very rich indeed for knowing exactly who to wreck where to wreck them and where to hide the goods perhaps Sirens are less mythological and monstrous than we imagine considering all of this so I must say if we zoom out much of what I've suggested today is not that novel domed structures undersea Empires using domesticated undersea creatures these are are Staples of pretty much every Atlantean fantasy but it is that way because they work and they make sense and please remember that murol designed cities would look strange there's no doors likely at all no doors certainly at floor level that's just nonsensical under sea and in a future world where flight and Magic become democratized few have more experience in 360° combat situations than the muruk besides how other than just dropping heavy things in the water do you ever go to war with these guys before chemical warfare is an option which would destroy the very uh reefs that protect your coasts from Great Waves no barring calamities or in D and D specifically aths merfolk are here to stay an ancient empire on the level of elves and dwarfs unless your world has some unusual Seas indeed thank you so much for watching I hope you've enjoyed this deep dive on another Fantastical race of creatures if you are enjoying this sort of thing please do let me know in the comments leave a like and share with a friend as well why not and do subscribe so you can see more videos like this but with all that said I've been Tom otherwise known as the grung and master thank you so much for watching and I will see you in in the next video

Channel: The Grungeon Master

Views: 10,606

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Id: d1eStVB1dzU

Length: 21min 35sec (1295 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 26 2024