Datalog #9

Ah, mermaids. The most beautiful creatures to ever grace the Great Sea. With the upper body of a beautiful humanoid and the lower body of a flexible fishtail, they are truly a sight to behold. But what are Mermaids, really, and where did they come from? These questions and more will soon be answered. Mermaids are the prime creations of Vorpo, seraphim of water. After the establishment of the great kingdom of First Arcadia, Vorpo left the other Seraphim to do their thing while he headed deep into the oceans to discover its secrets. After Vorpo discovered a good place to settle down, Vorpo used his share of Nargi's creation powers to create the merfolk race, a race of beautiful humanoids with the upper body of a human and the lower body of a flexible fishtail who could breathe both water and air.

Merfolk come in three different tail colors, being salmon, deep green, and shining gold or silver. Their tail color marks their status within society, and can be passed down through the generations. Salmon-tailed mermaids are the most common, and serve as the general populace for mermaid society. Green tailed mermaids are next, and are always in peak physical condition no matter the circumstance and are always stunningly beautiful, unlike salmon tails who have a large range of body types like regular humans. Female green-tails also always possess a curvaceous figure and massive breasts, giving them special privileges and making them the most desirable for mating.

Gold tailed mermaids possess all the same traits as green tails, having beautiful bodies, massive breasts, and a perfect, curvaceous figure. However, what makes gold tails more unique and surprisingly much more common is that the only requirement to be born as a gold tail is to possess 25% or more of royal blood. This also means when a salmon or green-tailed mermaid marries a gold-tailed one, they also become a gold-tail and all physical imperfections are erased, making them incredibly desirable for marriage.

Unlike other races, who possess souls meaning that they can return to the Gaea Crystal to be reborn or to ascend, Merfolk are one of the few races to not possess souls of any sort. While this against popular belief doesn't prevent them from having emotions, which are often much stronger and more profound than human expressions of emotion, this does prevent them from having a life after death, their bodies becoming sea-foam and what exists of their consciousness returning to Limbo, the darkness beyond time. However, though multiple different means, a mermaid can gain a human soul. Mermaids can choose to take temporary human form, replacing their tail with human legs. However, if they ever return to the sea, they will become a mermaid again and be unable to change back for 12 whole years. During the time they're on land, if they are able to marry a humanoid they will gain a soul and be able to return to Gaea to be reborn upon their eventual death. However, the drawback to this is that they will lose their normally long lifespan, easily lasting 600 years or more, gaining the life-span of whatever species they married. On the other hand, they could willingly turn a humanoid into a mermaid themselves and marry under the sea. This will also allow the mermaid in question to gain a soul, but both of them will be forever unable to return to the surface.

Mermaids possess many special abilities. All Merfolk are extremely proficient in magick, namely water, ice, and healing magick. Along with that, they can cast a spell with their kiss to turn other humanoids into mermaids themselves, though the spell only works if the target is willing somewhere in their heart. However, this transformation sometimes comes with an unintended side effect. Most races male-to-female ratio is locked at 50/50. However, for Merfolk, their ratio is a bit different, with 75% of their species being female while only 25% of their species being male. Due to the inconsistency in ratios between merfolk and most other races, there is a 25% chance that when the spell is used on a male humanoid, the humanoid's mermaid form would be female, leading to some minor complications. Luckily, the gender transformation isn't permanent, as unlike naturally-born Merfolk, transformed Merfolk can return to their original human form as soon as their tail dries, and will return to their mermaid form once they are submerged in water again. This is the case until they choose to marry another mermaid under the sea, making them unable to return to the surface ever again. 

Against popular belief, simply touching water won't trigger the transformation. Only once at least a humanoid's legs are fully submerged will the transformation begin. Transformed-merfolk also aren't limited by the "12 year transformation cool down" limitation, so they can easily switch between mermaid and normal form with relative ease. Mermaids are also unique among most races as they are not usually attracted to physical traits, but rather the nature of someone's soulscape. A soulscape is an inner projection of a person's true, spiritual body, as oftentimes a person's actual physical form doesn't completely match their soulscape, a result of the curse of S.K.I.N. still plaguing humanity. 

Merfolk have the rare ability to see into the soulscape, and are attracted to that inner projection of self, rather than a person's actual physical body. Therefore, even if a male humanoid is transformed into a female mermaid due to ratios between races being different, the person who transformed them could still be attracted to them even in female form due to merfolk's attraction to the appearance of the soulscape, not the appearance of the physical body. Mermaids can swim incredibly fast in water, faster than most fish, and due to possessing both lungs and gills they are able to breathe both water and air. They also possess telepathic powers, allowing them to communicate even underwater where sound waves don't travel nearly as well as air. However, they can only communicate telepathically with other Merfolk, making interaction with other races difficult unless they are both on land.

Merfolk also possess incredibly beautiful singing voices. Their songs are also magickal, able to charm their foes or even completely hypnotize others. Due to this, many rebellious mermaids leave the sea to join the theater, where their beautiful singing voices are able to charm larger and larger audiences, earning much fame and fortune and maybe even love. Another interesting fact is that like snakes, Merfolk have their genitals tucked away on the lower-back of their tails near the tip, making them very hard to find unless they are willing. Merfolk mate in a way not dissimilar to an underwater dance, their tails wrapping around each other as their souls embrace one another.

Mermaid clothing is often very minimal in order to not slow down their swimming, but at least most females are courteous enough to cover their breasts or at least their nipples, using shells and seaweed to make make-shift bras or using their magick to hide their breasts using fog or shifting small scales into place to cover their privates. The Merfolk lived in many different locations, always ruled by an incarnation of Vorpo who takes the form of a muscular, bearded merman in order to appear more relatable to his subjects. Vorpo has had countless wives through his numerous incarnations, birthing many sons and many more daughters. These children are called the Naeraids, and due to their seraphic blood they are often even more powerful than the majority of their brethren, some even possessing the ability to use dragonstones when they're on the surface.

After an extremely short pregnancy, female Merfolk secrete out a small egg which quickly grows larger and larger in order to support the growing fetus inside. Once the fetus has finished growing due to the goop inside the egg filled with growth hormones and chemicals, they will use their extremely sharp teeth to bite off the umbilical cord and break out of the egg's shell, making their way through the ocean instinctively to their mother. However, this birthing process has caused numerous issues, since if a humanoid happens to find the egg, the substances within could affect them greatly. While small amounts of the substance can be beneficial, such as increasing the amount of time one can stay underwater, improving one's beauty, making one's hair shinier and smoother, and a couple other things, upon too much exposure to the substance can completely alter a humanoid's DNA to become a Merfolk matching the gender of the child though a slow and painful process, a process that can be rapidly accelerated with prolonged exposure to water, namely salt water.

Some intelligent humans have exploited the unique properties of the special birthing substance, using it to create various expensive cosmetic products that increase a human's swimming speed, increase a person's beauty, give a person a more feminine or masculine looking body, improve hair smoothness, growth, thickness/thinness, and shine, and even completely change someone's gender entirely. However, many merfolks aren't too thrilled with their sacred birthing process being used to make a quick buck, raising tensions between merfolk and humans. Some merfolk go as far as to raid ships carrying supplies of these cosmetic products, killing their crew and sending their stock into the ocean. One particular place, Mermaid Lagoon, has become infamous for this, as people who swim for too long in its waters turn more and more overtime into beautiful maidens, and in some instances, even mermaids, making it an incredibly popular tourist attraction, especially for gender-nonconforming folks.

After the Crimson Meteor landed on Zutara in 1999 AF, the merfolk were mostly unaffected, though Vorpo, now one of the few first seraphim remaining physically, mourned the loss of his brothers and sisters. However, there were more pressing matters to attend to, as the Crimson Meteor made a hole straight through the earth, a hole connecting the dangerous realm of Nivalir with the underwater realm of Mermaidia, where the Merfolk lived. 

The elder demons of Nivalir then started to invade Mermaidia, making the oceans far more dangerous than ever before. The merfolk now had a new mission entrusted to them by the goddess Barbello herself: defend the upper world from the Elder Demons, and protect the sailors of the surface from coming to harm. However, no matter how hard the merfolk tried, they could not prevent a large majority of Elder Demons from wreaking havoc on the surface waters, even though they sent every male merfolk they could find to help in the effort.