Brine Kelpreef
the Ventward Merman
Named for Brine, the concentrated salt of the deep, and Kelpreef, the tangled forests that grow at the edge of the vents — a name that speaks of the boundary between life and scorched rock.
Power
You can call a jet of superheated brine from the seafloor, scalding anything in its path — but the vent seals itself after, and you feel every degree of heat you borrowed as a cold ache in your bones.
- Familiar
- A scaly-foot gastropod named Cinder
- Tide
- the Blacksmoke Tide
When you are not there, the reef-kin say you smell of sulfur and rust. They say you were never part of their kelp-courts or coral dances — that you rose from a black smoker with a voice like cracking stone, and you only come to the shallows when something is burning somewhere deep.