Triton

The triton are not a militant race by nature. They shy away from battle except when the sahuagin attack, and then they only defend themselves and retreat into the depths where their foes can’t follow. This trend begins to change. As the tidecallers come to rally their people, some triton men and women take up arms.

The triton ruling houses were chosen, they say, at the dawn of time. Granted lordship over all the races of the sea by some now-forgotten god. These bloodlines continue, passing rulership from father to daughter and mother to son through the ages. Each is allowed to rule their city in whatever way they choose—some alone or with their spouses, others in council of brothers and sisters. In ages past, they were known for their sagacity and bloodlines of even-temper were respected above all else. The tidecallers prophecy is changing that: nobles are expected to be strong, not wise. The nobles have begun to respond, and it is feared by some that the ancient blood is changing forever. It may be too late to turn back. Time and tide wait for none.

The tidecaller is part priest, part outcast among their kind. They speak with the voice of the deeps. They can be known by their mutations—transparent skin, perhaps, or rows of teeth like a shark. Glowing eyes or fingertips, angler-lights in the darkness of their underwater kingdom. They speak in a strange tongue that can call and command creatures of the sea. They ride wild hippocampi and cast strange spells that rot through the wooden decks of ships or encrust them with barnacles heavy enough to sink. It is the tidecallers who come, now, back to the cities of the triton, bearing word that the prophecy is coming to pass. The tidecallers speak and the lords begin to listen.