Shoreborn Skirmisher
Humanoid (Surface Humanity) -- Medium -- Tidal zones, estuaries, flooded ruin complexes, coastal settlements
We did not see them until we were in the water. The tide had come in faster than the charts said it would -- or the charts were old and the channels had moved, which amounts to the same problem -- and we were wading chest-deep through what had been a forecourt when the first one surfaced two feet from Marsh and looked at him with those wide flat eyes and said something in a language none of us spoke. It was not threatening. It was, as near as I could reconstruct it later, asking for our documentation.
-- incident report, coastal survey, flooded district, filed with the transit authority
Ecology
The Shoreborn are an amphibious Humanoid lineage found along coastlines, in tidal estuaries, and in the increasingly common flooded ruin districts where the encroachment of the sea over pre-Forgetting infrastructure has created a permanent interface between land and water. They breathe both air and water without apparent effort, and their body structure reflects a lineage that has lived in this interface long enough for the Miasm's ambient shaping to have run its course: webbed fingers, a lateral-line sensory structure faint beneath the skin of the jaw and neck, and eyes adapted for underwater clarity at the cost of some drylight acuity. They see better in the murk of an estuary than any surface human, and they use this advantage deliberately.
Shoreborn communities are organized around water-right in the same way surface settlements organize around water access, with the additional dimension that the Shoreborn control transit -- anything moving between the tidal and the dry zones, whether goods, information, or people, moves through Shoreborn territory and on Shoreborn terms. This gives them leverage disproportionate to their numbers. A coastal settlement that has made enemies of the local Shoreborn quickly finds that its supply lines are unreliable in ways that are very difficult to trace and even more difficult to complain about.
The Skirmisher is the Shoreborn's perimeter role: a trained position held by those members of the community who are fastest in the water and most comfortable with close-range engagement. They are not warriors in the surface sense -- the Shoreborn do not maintain standing armies -- but they are competent, and they operate with the specific advantage of an environment they understand completely and that most opponents do not. An engagement that begins on a beach or in a flooded corridor is an engagement on Shoreborn terms, and they know it.
Their weapons are practical rather than specialized: spears that work equally well in water and on land, short blades for close work in confined spaces. The Shoreborn are not aggressive toward strangers; they are precise about territory. Cross a marked channel without permission and you will meet a Skirmisher. Arrange passage first and you will deal with a merchant.
Stat block
| AC | HP | Speed | Initiative |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11 | 11 (2d8 + 2) | 10 ft., Swim 40 ft. | +1 (11) |
| STR | DEX | CON | INT | WIS | CHA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10 (+0) | 13 (+1) | 12 (+1) | 11 (+0) | 14 (+2) | 12 (+1) |
Senses Passive Perception 12
Languages Common, Shoreborn tongue
CR 1/8 (XP 25; PB +2)
The Shoreborn Skirmisher can breathe air and water.
Melee or Ranged Attack Roll: +2, reach 5 ft. or range 20/60 ft. Hit: 3 (1d6) Piercing damage, or 4 (1d8) Piercing damage if used with two hands to make a melee attack.
Amphibious
Spear
Encounter use
Shoreborn Skirmishers appear at the boundary of Shoreborn territory: at the water line, at the edge of a flooded district, at the mouth of a tidal inlet. They are sentries, not soldiers. The first encounter is usually a demand for identification or a request to state purpose rather than an immediate attack. If the party treats this encounter as hostile, the Skirmisher retreats into the water -- its land speed is poor and it knows it -- and returns with more of its people. The tactical advantage of a flooded or tidal encounter space is significant: the Shoreborn can submerge, navigate beneath the party's position, and surface wherever the party is not looking. Parties that have made enemies of the Shoreborn in a coastal environment should expect this.
Salvage
The Shoreborn carry navigation knowledge that is not available by any other means: tidal charts, flooded-district maps current to within a few weeks, and information about what the underwater ruin structures actually connect to. A party that can open a negotiation rather than a fight will find Shoreborn knowledge worth considerably more than Shoreborn gear, which is functional but unremarkable.