Fish are friends, not food! chuckles
The Locathah pronounced “lo-ka-tha” were a fish-like humanoid race also known as fish-men, gill-men, or kaparl who are resilient and have endured war, slavery, and mistreatment at the hands of other aquatic creatures. They dwell in submerged tribal communities along seacoasts and hunt both above and underneath the water.
Aside from the Sea elves and deep-diving Merfolk, the locathah are the friendliest of the aquatic races and the most likely to institute trade agreements with surface cultures. Most locathah live in communal tribes and are welcoming of strangers.
Locathah Features
• Ability Score Increase: Your Strength score increases by 2, and your Dexterity score increases by 1.
• Age: Locathahs are not long-lived. They mature to adulthood by the age of 10 but have been known to live not beyond the age of 100.
• Alignment: Locathahs are neutral in alignment. They are generally good and eschew evil. They are very compassionate people probably because they come from a culture where compassion for the downtrodden is commonplace.
• Natural Armor: You have tough scaly skin. Your AC is 12 + your Dexterity modifier when you are not wearing armor. You can use your natural armor to determine your AC if the armor you wear would leave you with a lower AC. A shield’s benefits apply as normal while you use your natural armor.
• Observant and Athletic: You have proficiency in Athletics and Perception skills.
• Leviathan Will: You have an advantage on saves against being charmed, frightened, paralyzed, poisoned, stunned, or put to sleep.
• Limited Amphibiousness: You can breathe air and water, but you need to be submerged at least once every 4 hours to avoid suffocating. Weird right?
• Size: Locathah stand between 5 and 6 feet tall and average about 150 pounds. Your size is medium.
• Speed: Your base walking speed is 30 feet, and you have a swim speed of 30 feet.
• Languages: You can speak, read, and write Common and Aquan.
Characteristics
The Locathahs have gone through thick and thin over the years. They have been taken into slavery by virtually every race of the Sea of Fallen Stars. It has been said that during times immemorial, the Locathahs were at odd with their allies and they went their various ways. This caused a great asunder within them.
Then came their enemies like ravaging wolves and sweep them off their feet and they were taken into captivity. Ever since they have been known to seek dependable allies wherever they could trying everything in their power to regain their freedom. Locathahs believe that being taken into captivity is not evil in itself, but not trying to regain one’s freedom after being captive is evil.
Despite their history of slavery, they are free-spirited, they abhor vengeance and anger toward all and sundry even their captors. When treated with utter cruelty, they never take it to heart.
However, it is easy to upset or offend a Locathah without the intent to do so. This is because they have myriads of unwritten rules, customs, and etiquette. For example, Locathahs detest having bodily contact with other species.
Conversations and interactions are done from a reasonable distance. Many have argued that this is a result of fear while others think that they keep their distance to keep their purity intact and avoid being soiled by other species.
Description
Although humanoid in shape, locathah are piscinoids and share little semblance with land-based humanoid races. Locathah vary in their scale color, temperament, and size. Females and males look very much alike whatever area of the ocean they come from with the only distinctive feature among the males and females being the two ochre stripes found in the females marking their egg sacs.
They have fine scales covering their bodies that range from olive green to ochre in color although their stomach scales instead range from sea green to pale yellow. They have fish-like heads with bulging large eyes, either all-black or all-white, they possess toothless mouths and small fins where ears would normally be. They have dorsal fins and flukes in place of hairs.
Habitat
Although there are still some locathah slaves dotted around the deeper oceans, most are now free and living in more shallow waters as nomads. Ideally, Locathahs love living in the deep waters but they don’t. This is because their captors live in such places.
This has driven them to live in warm shallow coastal seawater regions. Locathah can remain out of the water with little side effects. However, Suffocating after 4 hours on land is pretty limiting for a character in my own view. Well, I guess it adds spice to the game. Their surface scales, while providing little protection against weapons seal tightly when dry and prevent severe dehydration effects.
Tips for fish enthusiast
If you are a fish enthusiast, I would suggest you stay Hydrated. You can breathe both water and air, but every hour that you spend without submersion will have negative impacts on your health. Submerging for ten minutes will fully hydrate you, cleansing you of all the following effects.
- After two hours, your scales will dry out, removing your natural armor bonus.
- After three hours, your eyes will lack the proper moisture for your heightened perception. You now have a disadvantage on Perception rolls.
- After four hours, your joints will begin to ache, giving you a disadvantage on Athletics or Acrobatics stunts.
- After eight hours, your resolve weakens. You no longer have an advantage on saving throws against being charmed, frightened, paralyzed, poisoned, stunned, or put to sleep.
The race gets some -nice- bonuses. But this drawback does not really do anything balance-wise to stabilize the class. Instead of creating a possible situation where the player’s power diminishes and must play around it, the player is always strong until they find water or roll a new PC. Either the DM has to account for the player’s need for submersion every 4 hours, or just kill their PC.
The Locathah is uncomplicated and versatile. Strength dexterity increases in the same race are rare. Which only exist in the Bugbear and Locathah. you get some natural armor, two good skills, and advantage on saves against 6 status effects. Since they are mostly aquatic, Locathahs are good for aquatic campaigns.