I absolutely love this lorepiece and find myself looking forward to if the LT decide to accept it or not. I’m hoping they do, because underwater RP is something I hadn’t even considered before this and it sounds absolutely awesome.
Flipping over to my response to Kiaus though....
There’s already a buff to some creatures/races that allows them to breathe underwater. Wights, for example, have an innate ability (upon setting the creature on their character card) to not have the need to eat and don’t lose the little bubbles when they’re underwater. I imagine something similar could be created for these lads, since it’s just a solid copy-paste and minor edit so they can eat instead.
The, uh... breeding things. Wholeheartedly agree, since it’d make sense for the creature to instead lay eggs. Maybe have a 1/100 roll like elves – though, rather than having it be 95+ or whatever, it’d instead be 75+ for a fertilized egg. I like the concept of ferals being borne and causing a mess for the other Shuul, since it’d give an innate conflict for them to deal with; assuming it was RP’d properly, a lot of different solutions could be made. Hell, they could probably try to employ these ferals as mutts to help with on-shore raiding. Places like Sutica, which are ripe hotspots for water-centric RP, could become an area they’re at odds with. Ship attacks and the like would be interesting too, I’d love to see some water-creatures come up from the depths and strike at a fishing vessel.
Flipping over to the bit you mentioned with activity, I’m confident the lore could be modified so that Shuul can build up a natural trait to survive in fresh water. Having a small settlement located /in/ a river would be pretty neat to see, especially if they create caves that lead into the surrounding riverbeds for minor housing and temples. This could also lead to interaction with civilizations further inside the continent, whilst also limiting the population because a deep river could only support so many large, sentient creatures.
At the end of the day though, with a few minor tweaks (because it’s safe to say, the LT will definitely want some number of edits for whatever reasons – something we’ve probably missed) this could be an interesting creature with a lot of depth and plenty of fun interactions for the different playerbases.
I’m not sure if it was noted in the lore itself, but are these creatures capable of magic? I’d assume not, but I’m asking since my small brain really doesn’t want to ctrl-f it right now. Having magic may be a negative thing for them since the physical capabilities of these creatures is such an important factor for their daily lives both on land and in the water.
Big +1 anyway, hell yeah