Deeprealm Hunters
Also referred to as Spiney Whales, these Sorniethian cetaceans are highly intelligent, social, and skilled magic users. They live in tight-knit, matrilineal families, either migrating seasonally or sticking to one general area. Over the past century, they have become a resourceful, if mysterious ally of dragonkind in certain coastal areas. Some communities see themselves as protectors and stewards of their greater marine communities, including other peoples such as maren, and the ecosystem as a whole.
Powerful magic users, Deeprealm Hunters weave magic that seems to be wholly separate from draconic magic. While their skills aid them in hunting, travel, communication, and tradition, maybe the most noted ability of theirs by dragons is that of shapeshifting. Being an art that takes long study, not every individual from every Community will be as capable as any other, but the most skilled are known to be able to take draconic forms and integrate further into shore communities that way, even leading nearly entirely terrestrial lives if they choose.
Origins
Though in the eyes of dragonkind these whales have only begun emerging about a century ago, in truth they have been around for much, much longer than that. In that time they have largerly kept to themselves (with the exception of certain coastal dragon and beastclan communities interacting with local resident families) and have only begun seeking cooperation with dragons in the wake of the upheaval known as the Bounty of the Elements. With their grandfather deity gone and the ecosystems they steward thrown into chaos, the Deeprealm Hunters seek allies in a changing world.
Deities
The name of their primary deity in the whistled speak of Deeprealm could perhaps be transcribed as
Viiu'EehE, but she goes by many names. The Matriarch, Deepmother, The Old Family, Runegiver. Each with a story of its own.
Though Viiu'EehE is technically a minor deity operating in the Tidelord's domain, she has long made her home in the World Sea rather than the Sea of a Thousand Currents she had come to life in. She operates largely on her own to guide her children and watch over the Deeprealms as a whole. While different dragon breeds trace their ancestry to different deities of the Eleven, these deities hardly ever concern themselves with the home of the Deeprealm Hunters, and so most whales show more interest to the minor gods who do. All Deeprealm Hunters hail from Viiu'EehE, much like a single breed of dragon, and the difference between communities is more comparable to a fae living on the Snowsquall Tundra and one living in the Sunbeam Ruins, than to a fae and a tundra hailing from the same place.
All Deeprealm Hunters trace their ancestry to Viiu'EehE, and all return to her in the end. When encountered by her mortal family, she manifests as a large pod of individuals from all communities, difficult to keep more than a couple in your sight at once, always shifting. It is said that when a Deeprealm Hunter dies - matriarch or loner, calf or elder - they join her family, become a part of her. No whale's wisdom is too little to join what she has amassed over centuries, no whale too strange to be welcomed into the Old Family.
(Respectful euphemisms for death include "rejoined the Old Family" or "swimming with the Old Family.")
Legend has it that Viiu'EehE was the one who created the first Runestones that all Deeprealm Hunters carry over their pectoral fins. She taught this art to her oldest children as they dispersed from her to form their own families, and today every newborn calf's Runestones are created by their own matriarch, but with the aid of all members of the family. Runecrafting is a skill one cannot become a matriarch without. The runes are blessings, not all-powerful but a small ward to keep a calf out of trouble, to make an adult feel connected even when far from home. Common blessings include swiftness, an ability to navigate, wisdom, and the ability to always find food.
Communities and Families
(Community roughly translates to ecotype, family roughly translates to pod.)
Deeprealm Hunters live in right-knit groups referred to as families, which are almost always matrilinial and led by the most experienced cow of the group, the matriarch. Loners and small families of 2-3 individuals are also not unheard of, but nonetheless uncommon. These small groups are usually made up for mature bulls splitting from their birth family if it has grown too large (often it is brothers sticking together or possibly taking a younger niece or nephew under their fin) or a mature cow with 1-2 calves of their own.
Small groups that have split from the family recently will still occupy a similar range for years and will often be seen hunting together before separating again. Ousting, exile, and bloody conflicts when families split is so rarely heard of as to be considered nonexistent by some.
Communities
- Sunbacks
- Distribution: off the shore of Light territory, resident
- Identifiers: small body size, very fine markings, fins often have a "diaphanous" look
- Typical family size: 20-57
- Diet: schooling fish, opportunistically seabirds
- Notes: only distantly related to the [nature/light/shadow]. Theorised to be descended from Worldsinger families that chose to settle year-round in the area, and shrunk significantly in body size to accomodate their highly gregarious nature.
- Light-Nature venturing up near Shadow (strangely only distantly related to the Light residents, theory is that the latter have been around for a lot longer while the Light residents formed more recently out of migrating families deciding to stick around year-round instead)
- Distribution:
- Identifiers:
- Typical family size:
- Diet:
- Cloudherds
- Distribution: migrating between Ice territory in the summer and Fire territory in the winter
- Identifiers: stark markings that run the length of the body, to the point where in some cases, the eye patch may be hard to distinguish or even completely absent. Fins are short in comparison with other Communities and often tattered in appearance.
- Typical family size:
- Diet: marine mammals. In the summer they hunt seals resting on ice floes by breaking the ice under them or washing them into the water. In the winter they feed on different seal (and occasionally shark) species drawn to Fire shores by the abundance of schooling fish in turn nourished by the nutrient-rich runoff that comes from inland (an abundance of prey that drops off in the warm season due to the water temperature rising above a lot of migratory species' comfort zones.)
- A smaller resident community in Arcane which on pure timescale are still pretty close to the Ice-Fire transients but are genetically already distinct due to accelarated mutation rates caused by Arcane exposure
- Distribution:
- Identifiers:
- Typical family size:
- Diet:
- There is a smaller community of residents in Water territory and no one can agree on how they got there. Through natural waterways despite the wild change in salinity (the World Sea and The Sea of a Thousand Currents are both saltwater but the connecting waterways are freshwater)? Over land using shapeshifting, meaning only experienced adults would've been able to make the journey? Did their deity put them there just because she thought it would be funny? Who knows! They're there now!
- Distribution:
- Identifiers:
- Typical family size:
- Diet:
- Worldsingers
- Distribution: perpetual, year-long migration (see "The Migration")
- Identifiers: stark markings that follow the shape of the body, often incorporating shades of grey rather than just black and white. An impressive, sail-like fin running almost the full body lenght on the back, which can be flattened to improve speed or flared to improve turning. Large body size. Almost headache-inducingly chatty.
- Typical family size: 1-17
- Diet:
Divergence of Communities
The distinctness of each Community is both cultural and geographical in nature.
Different communities simply don't tend to interact often enough and for long enough for much geneflow to take place. While generally friendly with each other and often referring to whales of other communities as distant cousins, meetings don't occur often, or not at all in communities isolated from each other. Most interactions happen in the overlap between Light and Light-Nature-Shadow resident territories, and between the World Migration community and every other community they encounter.
However, with the cultural divides, it is rare for whales of different communities to pair up. Committing to joining the World Migration as a whale born into a resident community is an enormous commitment, and otherwise the only communty the World Migration is near during breeding season is the Arcane residents, and even those tend to be a bit out of range for everyone but the earliest risers.
Geneflow in terrestrial populations is much more present but overall negligible compared to the size of the global whale community.
It is important to note that the limiting factor isn't genetic. The whales from different communities are very much genetically distinct and this is very clear from their morphology as well - most individuals' birth community can be identified at a glance. However, Deeprealm Hunter reproduction is much similar to dragon reproduction in that it involves a whole lot of magic. Much the same that an imperial and a mirror can sire a healthy clutch of offspring, so can two Deeprealm Hunters from different communities, even with the high magic content Arcane residents or the completely isolated Water/Inland residents.
There is a wide range of morphological differences between the Communities that makes them easy to tell apart to the trained eye. The shape and colour of markings, similarly the shape and colour of the fins, as well as overall body size come together to give each Community a unique look. The Water/Inland Residents represent the smallest individuals, though one might guess that title goes to the Light Residents instead at a glance, simply because they are much easier to compare to their larger Light-Nature-Shadow cousins living in the adjacent areas. Though there is some debate as to which Community boasts the largest individuals, concensus generally seems to be the World Migrating Community.
Family Structure
Aside from minor variations, Resident family structures and roles are very similar across the board despite the geographical and cultural isolation of various Resident communities. The number of individuals ranges from 3-15 in Arcane residents (who culturally still seem to be carrying a lot of their more recent Transient ancestry) to 20-57 in the case of the most gregarious Light community.
All Resident families, and for that matter even Transient families, are matrilinial. They are led each by a matriarch, the oldest and most experienced cow in the group, with her adult sons and other elder members of the family also taking important roles in decision making and teaching the younger members of the family.
Fatherhood as a social role is unknown to Deeprealm Hunters, much to the confusion and culture shock of most dragons. Bull calves remain with their birth family into adulthood and often until death, and sire calves of their own during meetings with other families during the breeding season, and those calves in turn grow old with their own birth families. It is typical for a Deeprealm Hunter to not know who their father is or only know of them as a distant acquintance.
Deeprealm Hunters however place an emphasis on the concept of being an uncle, and a good one at that. The ideal adult bull is large and powerful, yes, but also wise and caring, involving himself in the raising of all calves born into his family and especially those of his mother and sisters. Bulls who are aggressive, snappy towards calves, or seek divide in the family rather than facilitating discussion are seen as unpleasant characters at best. Bulls form a close bond with their siblings, nieces and nephews, or with any calf born into their family regardless of blood relation. One of the most common ways for a new family to split off from an old one is by an adult bull or two to strike out on their own, possibly with a niece or nephew in tow.
This all is however ignoring the simple fact of preference and friendship. While families are largely based on blood ties, whales joining other families due to a variety of reasons is relatively common, though often limited to individuals. Lifelong friendships that eventually lead to a young whale (most often a cow) "moving out" this way can be formed during socialising between families, whales may leave a family due to a conflict in desires or overpopulation, or disaster may strike that leaves a family decimated or an individual with no ties to their current family. Though all whales in any given family are perfectly aware which individuals they are or are not related to by blood, this fact is wholly separate from who they consider to be family. Interestingly, completely unrelated individuals belonging to the same family group will nonetheless never breed.
In contrast with the tight-knit Resident family structure, Transient families are smaller, with looser associations. While still highly social, and with families that rejoin and split regularly based on season and resource availability, Transient whales often form smaller units of 2-5 individuals who especially prefer each other's company. And yet, at the same time, the Globally Migrating community is more gregarious than even the Light residents. These whales tend to extend the concept of "family" to not only their own species but those they associate closely with as well during their eternal migration, such as maren. A "lone" migrating whale is rarely ever actually alone, even in the absence of other whales in their vicinity.
Language
The language of Deeprealm Hunters consists entirely of whistles, which can be heard over large distances. Clicking is used solely for echolocation (with some families barely using it at all, depending on the hearing range of their prey species) and plays no role in communication. This whistle-tongue is almost completely unintelligable to dragons, with even the most dedicated only able to pick up on a few, highly context-dependent phrases, and completely unable to respond. Deeprealm Hunters find more luck learning to understand common draconic, though obviously need to take a draconic form themselves in order to speak it (which also helps match their hearing range to that of the average dragon, making draconic speech much easier to understand.)
Body language plays only a small part in communication, complimenting the long range of the whistles.
Repetition is a key part of the language, with the most important part of a "sentence" often being repeated multiple times during its course (though the concept of a sentence, in itself, is a bit blurry when it comes to the way Deeprealm Hunters construct their communication.) Each family possesses multiple calls that serve no specific meaning, and are instead "contact calls" bounced back and forth in the family while travelling together. Smaller sub-groups that prefer to stick together in looser Transient families tend to also have a unigue contact call of their own, in addition to ones they share with the rest of their family.
Integration into Dragon Society
The Migration
Winter around Nature, spring spent fattening up for the journey around Light (-> Whalesrest), summer pass through the Frigid Floes, autumn breeding ground somewhere around Arcane/Earth
Individuals
- Deities
- Viiu'EehE (main deity)
- The Matriarch's Calves
- Trickster spirit pending
- Light-Nature-Shadow resident
- Light resident
- Global Migratory
- Ice-Fire transient
- Arcane resident
- Inland/Water resident
