Assistance with a Triton's Background

[Gromnar]

Hello En Worlders,

I'm wondering if someone can help me with coming up with a solid story based on an image I've found for my campaign.

If any of my players are reading this, please stop now, as there's spoilers ahead!



Anyway, onto the topic.

I found this image image of a beautiful sea creature. The image linked does contain nudity, so click at your own risk. For those that don't wish to, the description of the image shows a pale/silvery skinned woman mostly emersed in water that has the back of her head and hair as an octopus, not hair. I think its a different rendition of Ursula the sea witch from the Little Mermaid.

My campaign takes place in Dambrath of the Forgotten Realms, and the story I had thus far for the creature is she's a sea witch (sorcerer/sea witch) the prestige class from the Stormwrack supplement. In Dambrath, the Bay of Dancing Dolphins contains a city of Tritons. The description is:

A hidden city does exist at the bottom of the Bay of Dancing Dolphins, and its inhabitants are tritons. These outsiders were quite friendly with the Arkaiun tribes that once occupied the coast of Dambrath, and the two races traded occasionally. Even thea, however, the tritons kept the existence of their city a secret, preferring to venture close to the shore in small groups to deal with the humans. Several centuries ago, a dispute over the value of pearls caused the tritons to withdraw, and the human tribes eventually forgot about them. By the time the drow overran the surface and conquered the Arkaiuns, the tritons were no longer even a legend. The tritons keep the existence of their city secret through potent magic worked by a circle of powerful clerics dedicated to their own deity. The magic hides the walls and spires of their city by simple displacement - that is, the structures appear to be at various other spots in the depths of the bay. The triton clerics are also responsible for the perpetually calm weather in the bay, and the dolphins are indeed their friends and allies. A portal in the heart of the triton city leads to the Elemental Plane of Water.

I'm trying to come up with a story for this creature, which I'm looking at this point of being a unique triton. Obviously tritons do not have octopus' growing out of their head, so I'm looking at a general background for the creature.

Right now, the sea witch is in a nearby pirate port and is known as the local witch (for obvious reasons). She has a small hut on an isolated rock in port where visitors can dare to visit her to trade for goods or information.

The background ideas I've thus far are:

1. Half-Unseelie Fey/Half-Triton: Unseelie Fey are known for creating strange hybrids, and an aquatic fey mating with a triton could have done this. Perhaps the hair changed into the octo-head late in life and she's left her people after being ostrosized.
2. Fiendish Graft/Affliction: The triton insulted Umberlee, the Bitch Queen and paid the price for being transformed into the abomination she is. Either the octo-head is a symbiot and half controls her actions or its a superficial change, but regardless, she left her people due to being ostrosized.
3. Tauric Creature: Normally its impossible to add the tauric template to an outsider, but an experiment that went wrong could be the source

I'm wondering which idea makes more sense and is easier to work with. I'd like a mechanical representation for the creature via official rules, but its not a requirement if such doesn't exist. The important part is the background and what exactly she is.

Any help would be appreciated!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

She could also be part Illithid/Triton....or have a template like spellwarped.

But she does not seem to have a triton's scaly, finned lower legs. And those lights may be like a deap-sea anglerfish's luminous lure.

Perhaps she should be a unique aberration. An aquatic being from the Far Realm.

Or some magical equivalent to the Mimic Octopus...

[MENTION=2072]Aeolius[/MENTION] might have some ideas...

 

[Gromnar]

I'm not opposed to her being something else other than triton, I'm just looking for a connection to the tritons described above. A sea witch would know much about the sea, but I'd like her to have a personal connection to the triton kingdom some how. Part of the character element is she's been either banished, ostrosized or hated because of her appearance.

Another idea I've thought up is maybe an amiphibious medusa or half-aquatic fey/half-medusa. Instead of snakes, she's got the tentacles, but that sort of eliminates the ostrosized element since medusa would always be ostrosized by default.

 

[Aeolius]

You have some great ideas, here. That's a lovely image. I might have to "borrow" that for my own undersea campaign, for beings native to the Sunless Sea.

You might also explore the Half-Illithid template in the 3e FF, or perhaps investigate the Pseudonatural Creature template. I too experimented with grafts in my undersea game, using mermaids and a kraken's tentacles:

Though I see her grafts as being from an Eye of the Deep and a Tako.

Perhaps she is absolutely unique, a product of her environment much as I postulated for the origin of the morkoth . Perhaps she is the daughter or granddaughter of a Cthulhu-esque deity like Dagon or a Triton god like Persana. Perhaps there is a connection to the tales of Scylla and Charybdis. Perhaps she was altered by a magical artifact ( the Pearl of Lao Tzu comes to mind).

 

[Gromnar]

Hi Aeolius! Where is the tako graft from?

 

[Aeolius]

The Tako was in the 3e Oriental Adventures.

Granted, it could simply be a hat

 

[Gromnar]

My main thought right now is to narrow down if she's born with the change or if it was afflicted or grafted somehow

 

[Gromnar]

I think I've come up with the concept. Instead of a triton, make it a Nerid (see Stormwrack) which is a fey creature that looks more humanoid and is related to tritons. Since the triton city has a portal to the elemental plane of water, I might make her a princess or other noble fey that was associating with the material-plane tritons. I might slap the seelie fey template on her to bring out this beauty and importance as the picture shows. Somewhere along the line, perhaps the princess' arrogance had her insult Umberlee, the Bitch Queen, and she punished the creature for the insult by changing her into what she is.

As for what she is, I could either put the unseelie template overtop of the seelie one (rules don't state its impossible), or make the octo-head a fiendish familiar. In either case, the bengin creature then became one of wanton destruction and unlocked the capabilities of a sea witch.

Any thoughts?

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Perhaps they have a symbiotic relationship...she is the brains, it is the brawn...

 

[Aeolius]

Perhaps they have a symbiotic relationship...she is the brains, it is the brawn...

Her armed guard, eh?