D&D: Need a Character With Depth? Be From the Ocean
Prove to everyone that it’s better down where it’s wetter—be a D&D character from under the sea.
I know they say the seaweed is always greener in somebody else’s lake. But, D&D offers a surprising number of options for the character who needs to have hidden depths—because they’re from the ocean.
Whether you are playing an emissary from an undersea kingdom or just an adventurer who’s fed up with current events (Get it? Current, like the sea!) And hoping to get their land legs, you can get a lot of mileage from crawling out of the thalassian abyss.
So embrace your roots (because all life emerged once from the abyssal depths), and play someone who comes from the sea. Here are some ways to do exactly that.
Triton
Iconic. And not just because in pre-Tasha’s 5E, Tritons made for amazing characters with their natural strength and charisma. But in some versions of their existence, they were both self-absorbed and yet also benevolent:
“Tritons readily sacrifice themselves for the common good. They will fight and die for humans, merfolk, and other creatures without question. Their self-absorbed nature makes them overlook the history of other creatures, but they also endure a sense of guilt over allowing the evils of the Plane of Water to enter the Material Plane and threaten its inhabitants. The tritons believe they owe a debt of honor to the world, and they will fight and die to pay it.”
Of course, you can make of them whatever you want. But these are noble guardians of the depths, and they know very little about the surface world until they go their for themselves. So if you want to play a character who is getting used to not having things float in the sea around them, or who can be confused by the ways these surface dwellers deal with things, triton may well be the option for you.
Plus you get a swim speed, resistance to cold damage, the ability to cast fog cloud, gust of wind, and water walk, and you can talk to fish. Or any creature with a swim speed.
Sea Elf
If you ever needed proof that the folks at WotC love elves more than anything else, look no further than the existence of the dozen different varieties of elves. You’ve got sun elves. Moon elves. High elves, wood elves, and dark elves. There are Eladrin and Shadar-kai and even astral elves whose whole deal is just that they come from space. So of course there are aquatic elves.
Sea elves live in the ocean, where they do the typical elven things. They are good at boats, building beautiful elven cities, and in general are their own versions of masters of the waves. They’re for people who want to be from the ocean but are too cowardly to want scales and gills and fins and stuff.
As a Sea Elf, you’ll get resistance to cold, the ability to breathe water and a swim speed, as well as the ability to speak to any Beast that has a swim speed. Plus you get all the normal elf stuff, including darkvision, resistance to charm, and a superiority complex.
Vedalken
Now this is more like it. Vedalken, from Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica, are blue da ba dee da ba di. These blue beauties are like a good Star Trek alien, in that they’re basically human, but they’re slightly weirder than usual because they are blue (and hairless). And they’re basically like vulcans, because a vedalken typically believes in dispassionate reason as a guiding principle.
They understand that pobody’s nerfect—but then they try to improve themselves. Which is why you find so many of them in the Simic Conclave. They are a great way to be someone who has hailed from the ocean but is caught between worlds, because they are only partially amphibious. Vedalken cities have air bubbles around them, essentially.
Water Genasi
The Genasi are one of my favorite options in D&D. They are just cool with their various elemental powers—it’s a great way to feel like a fantasy character without being the usual human/elf/dwarf dichotomy that you can get mired in. And water Genasi are a ton of fun.
In addition to being able to breathe in the water and having a swim speed, you also get resistance to acid damage, and can cast the acid splash, as well as casting create or destroy water, and water walk for free once per day.
Tortle
These hard-shelled turtle people come from the sea. Or at least islands out on the sea. Though again, I could just as easily see domed cities built beneath the waves, though they can only hold their breath for an hour. But it’s still pretty easy to imagine a tortle who lives in an oceanic empire coming to land to visit and learn the ways of the land-lubbin’ adventurer.
You get a n AC of 17 that you can improve with a shield or a sccant few other options, so your choice of class may vary. But aside from that and the aforementioned hour long holding of breath, tortles have surprisingly sharp claws and the ability to withdraw into their shells for defense.
Sea you in your next campaign! Be sure to wave!
