D&D General An Atlantean Empire who are it's people and what are their capabilities?

[Kobold Avenger]

So I'm thinking on the concept of a great underwater empire that spans all the seas in a world and might be the most powerful nation in that world.

They might have originally been from the surface before their great city sank into the ocean, or they just might have been in the ocean this whole time.

First of all what's their population?

I liked to think of it being a mixed population with most of it's people being Merfolk, Tritons, Sea Elves, Water Genasi, Locathah, Koalinths (Sea Hobgoblins) and smaller populations of Merrow, sea people that are at least present in some form in 5e. Humans are very rare in this society as most Humans can't breathe underwater.

Would this underwater society be somewhat caste-based or more egalitarian? Do Ixitxachitls, Sahuagin and Kuo Toans have a part in this society, or are they the great enemies? What about the presence of Morkoths, Storm Giants, Krakens, Aboleths, Bronze Dragons, Sea Hags and other powerful sea creatures?

Who would be the rulers of this empire? Are they a powerful Merfolk/Triton/Whatever Archmage, a Marid noble, an Empyrean scion of a Sea God or a shape-shifted Kraken in Humanoid form?

How are they the most powerful empire in the world? Can they sink cities and continents, and control the weather? How do they span all the seas of the world? What sort of presence do they have on land? Is the empire linked to places outside the Material Plane like the Plane of Water and Feywild?

 

[John R Davis]

Ran a desert/Mediterranean area DND BECMI campaign where the Atlantians were elves, so not a pc race. They also used iron/steel, while everyone still had bronze stuff. They were arrogant and cruel as they thought all other people's where mainly underlings and chattel to be abused

 

[el-remmen]

Maybe the rulership is a Triumverate? Like a merfolk, a sea elf, and a koalinth. Or different representations after each seat's individual succession war.

 

[jgsugden]

I've got this in my setting. I can share a bit about that situation for inspirations.

My setting takes place on a world that has a surface area that is 12 times the size of the Earth, with a Dyson Sphere like Underdark surface nearly as large that is about 100 miles under sea level. The oceans are vast (80% of the surface world as opposed to the 71% of the Earth) and the surface of most oceans are riddled with powerful storms.

The oceans are populated by many underwater nations. Some are xenophobic about other species, while others are mixed with members of many different species. Locathah, Merfolk, Sahauagin, Deep Scion-ish peoples corrupted by the Far Realm, Merrow, Trions, Water Genesai ... and my Atlantean equivolents which are just templated members of other Species that gain a swim speed, underwater breathing, and see their land speed reduced by 10 feet.

When first designing them in the 1980s, I took the Grey Box from the Forgotten Realms, mirrored it, flipped it top to bottom and then spread out the cultures over the map of the globe I had drawn. Then I drew inspiration from this exercise to create the underwater empire. Cormyr became my Atlantean Equivalent. The Sword Coast and Waterdeep became an empire that ran along a long Coastline that lived on trade with the land dwellers. Moonshaes? Salt Water lake residents. Calimsham? They live beneath stormy seas in a wasteland with pockets of sheltered society living in valleys in the sea floor protected from the crazy water movement of the storms.

That was 40 years ago. Since then they have evolved as PCs interact with them - which has been rare. So, for the most part, they just became background lore and sources of "alien" magic or technology. As I was a kid, a lot of the politics were modeled on Aquaman and Namor from the comics. However, they've refined a bit over time as I've expanded the lore to make them more organized and individualized nations.

My Atlantis equivalent is the most engaged with the surface. They have islands at the center of their empire that they use as communication and trade hubs with the surface world. The Kingdom puts on a good show for the surface world, but over time they've become more sinister and the living conditions within the empire are seen as being pretty dangerous.

My Waterdeep Equivalent contains the greatest accumulation of information to ever exist. It stores information in durable formats capable of surviving the seas or land ... and it is a place PCs of higher level often end up visiting to explore a mystery. That city is unique in that it it has elements that are on islands, in the Underdark beneath the islands, and in sea coastal communities around the islands. The library itself has sections in each of these environments.

I have clans of Deep Scion-eque creatures that go on land, corrupt humanoids, and then lure the corrupted creatures to live in the sea. Heavily inspired by Lovecraft lore from Innsmouth, these beings live in dangerous Far Realms linked areas flush with aberrations and other foreign monstrosities. The seas within these area are filled with corruption that alters the seas into madness incarnate over time. These areas are slowly growing and present a lingering threat to all life in the seas as these pockets pop up like infections and slowly envelope and drive off societies. They are the 'major threat' that the sea creatures worry about that keeps the majority of them from focusing on the surface world.

Then there are mighty denizens of the sea like the Kraken, Titans, Demi-Gods, Archdevils, Archfiends, Archfey, etc... They all have their little empires that operate like border kingdoms in the surface world. Each is twisted by their leadership.

 

[Stormonu]

For my homebrew, there are three major sea kingdoms

Nydonna's Sea Kingdom - led by tritons, this realm has population of sea elves, merfolk and of course, tritons. They mostly live in shallower waters, using coral, seashells and metals that do not rust. They have a central city, similar to Atlantis that has portions above water and below, allowing some interaction with the surface world. The sea god, Triton dwelled here for a long time and the empty throne is kept for his return, with priests and a steward in control of the government. It is a mostly benign rule, rigid in adherance to law more than promoting actual good. They do, however, generally look down upon the surface races as inferior and as meddlers in areas where they ought not be.

The Sinking Lands of Haadjt-Tuu - this is a chaotic land infested by sahaugin, locathah, k'less tau (psionic walking squids), mind flayers and the far-realm reptilian Ister-suul, kuo-toa as well as many other watery races. The realm consists of country-sized land plates that alternate between being above the surface and deep beneath the ocean. There are minor kingdoms (not all of them evil, but more often than not dangerous to outsiders), but they tend to be thrown into chaos when the land-plates move. Central to this "realm" is the dead city of Nazgadoom, greatest of the Ister-suul and a near-deity like being (think dreaming Cthulhu in R'yleth). The Ister-suul and sahaugin have ongoing feuds with Nydonna's Sea Kingdom (and each other), but are rarely organized enough to do more than raid and poke at the Kingdom's edges.

Zarame Kull - once the capital of a land-based kingdom (named Randu), this city slipped into the sea at the end of a great war that saw the gods fighting in the city's very streets. As it slipped under the waves, its citizens cried out for help - and were answered by the little-known shark god M'Kree Malka. Touch by the bite of his holy sharks, the noble citizens were turned into weresharks, priestly wereoctopi and the populace became the shark-like Shaakasti. The great Emperor himself was turned into a Kraken enslaved to M'Kree's will. Now, fanthoms below the surface, the worshippers of the shark god prowl the seas, seeking to covert others into minions of the shark god's will. One day, the shark god hopes to rules the seas, from the broken city of Zarame Kull to the shining citadels of Nydonna's Sea Kingdom and across the chaotic lands of Haadjt-Tuu.

Spoiler

The Ister-Suul

Shaakasti

A Kraken-Li, offspring of the former Emperor of Zarame Kull

A K'less Tau

 

[Deset Gled]

Would this underwater society be somewhat caste-based or more egalitarian? Do Ixitxachitls, Sahuagin and Kuo Toans have a part in this society, or are they the great enemies? What about the presence of Morkoths, Storm Giants, Krakens, Aboleths, Bronze Dragons, Sea Hags and other powerful sea creatures?

Who would be the rulers of this empire? Are they a powerful Merfolk/Triton/Whatever Archmage, a Marid noble, an Empyrean scion of a Sea God or a shape-shifted Kraken in Humanoid form?

If you want to go in this direction of different groups/castes and add a level of realism, a neat way to do it would be to segregate cultures by water depth.

In the real world, different aquatic species survive at different depths. The amount of light (photic zones), temperatures, and pressures cause distinct levels where different things live. Run with that. Pick an ideal depth for each group of monsters, and branch out from there. Some groups could be antagonistic to those above them (they want to expand their territory and get closer to the sun). Others could be focused on creating harmony with their neighbors (they respect the ecological benefits that come from those above and below them).

The bigger monsters come from deeper down, of course. And the top dwellers have the most contact with humans. Atlantis itself should be somewhere around 3 layers down - deep enough to be entrenched and surrounded, but not so deep that humans can't access it when the story demands.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

I have clans of Deep Scion-eque creatures that go on land, corrupt humanoids, and then lure the corrupted creatures to live in the sea. Heavily inspired by Lovecraft lore from Innsmouth, these beings live in dangerous Far Realms linked areas flush with aberrations and other foreign monstrosities. The seas within these area are filled with corruption that alters the seas into madness incarnate over time. These areas are slowly growing and present a lingering threat to all life in the seas as these pockets pop up like infections and slowly envelope and drive off societies. They are the 'major threat' that the sea creatures worry about that keeps the majority of them from focusing on the surface world.

I just realized that the Simic Hybrids from Ravnica could be a Deep Scion-like option for PCs, at least the ones with Underwater Adaption.

 

[Kobold Avenger]

If you want to go in this direction of different groups/castes and add a level of realism, a neat way to do it would be to segregate cultures by water depth.

In the real world, different aquatic species survive at different depths. The amount of light (photic zones), temperatures, and pressures cause distinct levels where different things live. Run with that. Pick an ideal depth for each group of monsters, and branch out from there. Some groups could be antagonistic to those above them (they want to expand their territory and get closer to the sun). Others could be focused on creating harmony with their neighbors (they respect the ecological benefits that come from those above and below them).

Any particular ideas which species should be at which depths? I see Merfolk and Sea Elves as being more towards the surface as they might be the most related to land Humanoids, even though you could argue so are Koalinths as a Hobgoblin offshoot but they seem to be more deep sea than a Sea Elf might be. Locathah have more of a resemblance to certain deep sea fishes, so I guess they could be from lower depths.

The bigger monsters come from deeper down, of course. And the top dwellers have the most contact with humans. Atlantis itself should be somewhere around 3 layers down - deep enough to be entrenched and surrounded, but not so deep that humans can't access it when the story demands.

I'd think Atlantis would have some buildings that are air bubbles for land dwellers, but I don't think you'd find too many land dwellers.

 

[Stormonu]

Air-gel could be thing too, like from The Abyss, allowing areas for surface races to visit that are filled with Airy Water or the like. Surface races could be also given mimetic breathers to visits the shallow areas, though there might be air-filled areas for long-term guests.

Another interesting thing could be sea horses - in contact with air, they are true land-based horses. Underwater they are hippocampi or transform into sea horses, allowing for trade caravans that can traverse land or sea.

Finally, I'd personally ditch the "crushing depths" of the ocean and instead have it be pockets - either artificially made (perhaps as a defense by Krakens or such) or the result of Wild Magic. This allows you to have sea races at any depth you want, but there still be possible danger in "forbidden" areas that can't be traversed without special gear or adaptations.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

How do they control heat or fire? All technology beyond stone and bone needs heat or fire. To smelt metals, forge metals or distil elixirs. How do they control heat underwater with any degree of efficiency and without scalding themselves?
Or do they use some kind of magical biotech? In that, all their tools are creatures designed for the role, or the waste products of creatures designed to produce that.
I think that is where I would start.