As if one discussion of extremely unconventional culture wasn't enough, I'm going to begin another one. An idea I've played with in a few of my world is races that live underwater. One of the big questions in this scenario is "How would an underwater race communicate?" I've thought of a few possibilities in the past, but wanted to see what yall thought.

My first idea was telepathy (again, a fairly obvious answer that feels a bit like deus ex machina, but then again, if God made a race that lives underwater, it would make sense that he would give him a way to communicate).

I've also thought that sign language is a possibility except that visibility isn't very great in most bodies of water, so the race would have to have good eyesight (not a far stretch). Bio-luminescent skin could also help with being able to see the sign language. Of course, I could just go the route of having all communication be through bio-luminescence.

I've also contemplated the possibility of giving them gills in order to breather and having their vocal chords "tuned" in such a way that their voices could be clearly understood underwater, which would mean that their voices would either sound very peculiar to humans and other land-dwelling races or be completely inaudible to them. I'm thinking high-pitched (if you think about orcas, and other types of whales, I'm pretty sure that their voices are of a higher frequency than ours).

There are of course other cultural aspects to be considered, cooking and clothing being among them. Ariel's seashells from the Little Mermaid is not an option, and sushi would be a bit of an easy solution, except for the whole rice part of the sushi.

So what do yall think. I'm interested in seeing what ideas yall suggest.

In Christ,
Jordan
P.S. - it's only a matter of time before I get yall thinking about my non-corporeal races

Wow Seer....are all these for one book? Your poor readers! Just kidding, I think it's great that fantasy writers can expand beyond the conventional humans and elves. That's one of the things I'm trying to work on in my book...I've just got humans and dwarves and a few creatures. But anyways, back to your questions.

Perhaps some sort of communication that is entirely through vibrations or some sort of sound that would travel through the waves. Or perhaps they communicate by touch? (i.e. Touching their fingers together or something like that). That would make long-distance communication very difficult but maybe because of that they could be a very compact race, living all together...I don't know.

One last thought, perhaps they communicate using objects? This would only work if they are a very simple race, but I mean, if you're in the ocean there can't be much to talk about. A combination of sign-language and carrying objects around? Couple with the luminescence, which I think you should include regardless of what communication method you end up choosing. Reminds me of those deep-sea fishes (that I really like looking at in movies and such...they glow! ).

eruheran

I actually don't know what they're for since it's been years since I've tried to write a book . The Apsarans are currently worldless (never figured out which world I wanted them in), the Underwater races are in a couple of my worlds, but most prolifically in Fantasia (my world that is populated solely by races based off of fairies), where there could be several of them: the freshwater Nixes, Naiads, and Limnades, and the saltwater Merrows, Roanes, and Selkies . In my amorphous world of Mythica, there are essentially 2 underwater races (well...maybe 3). The River people (currently unnamed) and the Merfolk (which need to be renamed). The noncorporeal races are mostly in Mythica but I might have one or 2 in Fantasia as well. With the exception of the Apsarans (which were my own brainchild) I generally do the same thing that the earliest fantasy authors did: look at the fairy creatures of legends and adapt them into races (I can't wait to introduce you to the Poltergeists ). I just tend to pull from worldwide fairy-lore. This is similar to an idea that I saw in a Disney Channel Movie called the Thirteenth Year (which is about a boy who finds out he's a merman at age 13 after growing up on land his whole life). In it the main character starts exhibiting strange features as his mer-nature slowly emerges. One of these is that he generates lots of static electricity (this first happens when he tries to kiss his girlfriend and winds up shocking her). When he finally completes the change and meets his mermaid mother, her palms glow and he touches them and it's implied that this is why he generated so much bioelectricity and that it's how merfolk communicate.

Oh I saw that movie! I like the idea of the touching hands for communicating, even if it was in the movie. Alot of the people who watch it anyway are younger kids and they might not pick up on those details.

I also think that telepathy wouldn't as original, and you would have to put limits on how far their "talking" could reach.

Yes, it wouldn't work if 'Halibut' were communicating with his friend across an entire ocean...kind of unrealistic.

And seer, about the races...hit me. I'm ready...all you've done is piqued my interest. Perhaps you could do one long post for each world that gives an overview of each race. I'm especially interested in the non-corporeal ones...definitely not a genre convention!

eruheran

Okay. Clothes. Clothes would get waterlogged, hold down the merfolk as they swim, slow them up, get caught on things and basically be very inconvinient. I don't know if this would work for you, but I personally would write nothing for males, and possibly for the females too, though you might have to remove some...things. I'm sorry, highly inapporpriate. But really, below water there is really no need for clothes, unless the merfolk really care about modesty. But if you remove....things, then the tails eliminate other...things, so there really would be nothing to be modest of. Hopefully you're not just writing people with tails, but making the merfolk be a totally unique race.
Sorry again, highly innapropriate. But relevent.

Slight problem. Only one or two of my underwater races are merfolk-ish. At least one of the others are fully humanoid in physiology and nudism is out of the question, and I'm pretty sure that includes certain things. I don't think you were being inappropriate at all, you handled the conversation very modestly and admirably. Now back to the Races, I figured on probably skin tight clothing similar to scuba-suits(which are both skin tight and modest) that allow freedom of movement and made out of some light material so as not to weigh down them down (I'm thinking cloth made from fibers of river-weeds and seaweed). I have in my possession Arthur Spiderwick's Field Guide to the Fantastic World Around You by Holly Black and Toni DiTerlizzi (authors of the Spiderwick Chronicles, on which this book is based) which is supposedly one man's attempt to scientifically record his studies on fairies. In it, the merfolk have no clothing, but rather are very fish like creatures whose raiment and hair are actually thin fins and the Nixes (freshwater water fairies) also have no clothing or hair (again their "hair" is really fins) and look very amphibian-like. I considered something like this, but decided all of his drawings made them look a little more animalian than what I was going for. But I might consider your ideas for the merfolk.

In Christ,
Jordan

So wait a minute, you said you had two underwater races. One is the mer-folk and the other gets the skin-tight suits?

eruheran

No. I said I had two types of underwater races. The humanoids get the skin-tight clothes and the merfolkish ones might get something else. But as for numbers, there was one point in time where I had somewhere between twelve and twenty underwater races. Most of them were freshwater and in the same world. And some of them were semi-non-corporeal and some were shapeshifters (mainly the Selkies and the Kelpies), and some were completely non corporeal. However, the current number of underwater races is still being hashed out. Needless to say, each one is slightly different both physically and culturally.

Ah, I see. Looking forward to seeing them.

eruheran

For clothing you could go for bio-clothing... have them naturally grow a sort of cape that wraps around themselves. It can be made of similar stuff, or look like fins. That way the race can even do temperature control by oscillating their outer-skin, increasing adaptability, and could even be useful for pressure changes under water.

My merfolkish underwater race get skin-tight garments made of fish scales. That's why they are sometimes described as scaly, but really they have no scales. But if that's what your humanoids have I don't know if that would work.

Hm...will think about that.

I love this idea.

I've got an underwater sea-kingdom called Idilva that I'm currently developing. The waters of Idilva are extremely clear, so the visibility isn't an issue. They have the ability to speak underwater without getting a mouthful of salt, too. But your ideas sound awesome, Seer

Oo! I hadn't thought of underwater communication for my race... *rushes off to develop*

*really needs to get into the Scholar's Hall more* Thanks for bringing this one back to my attention guys. I have an underwater race on Nadrae, the second world in my universe, thus I will eventually have to figure out underwater communication, etc. *sighs* May as well hop to it, I suppose.

eru

I think it would be fine to have full clothing on them. After all we here above the water wear very impractical and unconformable coverings all over ourselves.
Man was not originally intended to wear clothes.

All of my mermen wear clothes and communicate by sound. I am still wondering how much they use touch writing systems. There are large nations of mermen that use chemical cold light for lamps. Many mermen wear extra clothes because of the cold. Few of them are part fish.

What are these clothes made of, and how? I ask because most clothes that we wear, if we fall into the water without careful preparation, are actually worse than nothing both for keeping warm and for being able to move after they get wet. What do your mermen make clothes out of that won't get waterlogged out of, and how do they make them underwater?

Skins of such things as polar bears, otters, seals, and so on. I do not know whether skins of such things as porpoises, whales and such like would make good clothing (and I do not believe that blubber would make warm, flexible clothes).

As for cloth, I know that wool, and therefore probably felt, does not become heavier when it is wet. Since flax or cotton does not grow underwater, and I have not heard of an underwater equivalent (though I am pretty sure there are some), the fibers for underwater plant based clothing would have to be made up (I have not made one up yet though). I suppose they would be woven much like on land.

I tend to imagine the mermen as having simple, colorless clothes of very high quality; fine, seamless, very strong cloth.


I have two basic sorts of merman: the vertical dwellers, and the floor dwellers. Those that live vertically must rise to the surface to breathe, and the floor dwellers have gill holes in various places, and walk on the floor of the sea. Some of the floor dwellers have light, and others do not.