Overview
Originating from the seas beyond Sornieth's elemental regions, the maren are the only aquatic-based members of the beastclans. While they may seem mysterious or aloof to most, those familiar with maren society know them to be passionate individuals, fiercely dedicated to their communities. Their culture prioritizes balancing the fortitude necessary for undersea survival with fostering the fullest possible life for themselves and their schoolmates.
Physical Attributes
Maren are a species of fish-folk, with bodies that transition from skin to scales or blubber-lined flesh around the midriff. Many have webbing between their fingers to aid with propulsion. Their powerful tails make them lightning-fast swimmers--and, naturally, limit their ability to travel over land. While their gills are capable of processing air for short periods, doing so is uncomfortable and most prefer to remain beneath the waves.
Maren most often bear one child at a time, with twins as the occasional exception. Young maren are able to swim by instinct shortly after birth, though they are otherwise reliant on their parents for food, safety, and other general care.
Individuals present a broad range of scale and skin colors, hair styles, and adaptations depending on their home region. Those from colder waters have thicker layers of blubber, while reef-dwelling maren often display vibrant scales. These differences are never more evident than when comparing abyssal maren with their shallow seas relatives. Abyssal maren have long since adapted to the Depths, their bodies accustomed to the crushing pressure so many fathoms beneath the surface. While their scales have faded in color over time, many have developed patterns of bioluminescence, which they use to help locate food, communicate with other maren, confuse would-be predators, and more.
Diet
Survivors at heart, maren have a varied palate and will eat just about anything they can catch or harvest. When outside of their settlements, efficiency is the priority--the faster one can devour a meal, the less likely they are to attract attention from nearby predators. With no sense in wasting time fileting or otherwise preparing catches, maren on the go eat their food whole, letting the specialized acids in their stomachs break down any fish bones.
Within the safety of their own communities, meals are more of a shared joy. Those who have been out foraging bring their finds back to feed their family, and any remaining spoils are passed out to neighbors. Maren cuisine is all raw, of course, though cooked dishes from land-based traders occasionally find their way into an underwater city. Skewers are a popular form of serving meals.
Given their cities' isolation from other beastclans, most food is based on what is locally available. On the occasion that a maren travels to another school or clan, they will often bring a delicacy that is more prevalent in their own region as a hospitality gift. To share resources with those outside of one's own community is viewed as a deep kindness.
Trade
Maren primarily engage in trade with other maren from adjacent territories or, occasionally, Water flight dragons. These exchanges are often practical in nature, focused on necessities that aid with survival. Even so, art always enriches the fullness of one's life, and it isn't uncommon for maren to close a deal with a few trinkets or poems to go with their new food and supplies.
While their home within the seas of Sornieth limits the maren's ability to trade much with outsiders, the ocean provides plenty of opportunities for exports. Any maren who takes advantage of available merchant cities has plenty to barter with at their disposal; undersea flora, food, shells, pearls, sunken treasures, and the occasional lost mysteries are all popular with onshore traders. Any coastal city with a thriving merchant class has harbors and receiving pools designed for transactions with the maren.
Clan Structure
Individuals within maren clans are expected to be well-rounded in their capabilities and skills. Despite this culture of self-sufficiency, there is still a heavy focus on supporting those around them--fostering one's personal abilities is not about being fully independent, but about contributing to uplifting the community as a whole. Given the ruthless nature of their surroundings, maren settlements consider the strength of their united societies to be of vital importance. Civilization thrives with variety, so each individual's personal talents and abilities are not just fostered, but celebrated.
Schools vary widely in size and traditions depending on their location and how much they travel. Their leadership structure tends to be sovereign in nature, though the details differ from region to region. Abyssal maren follow an absolute monarch known as a "crown". Crowns have sole discretion over naming their own heirs, who are not always descendants or even family members. Still, it is expected that these leaders will not transition into their role unchallenged. Some schools rely on simple combat to settle these disputes, while others determine a victor via trials of survival in the darkest, deadliest stretches of the Depths.
In the rest of the seas, schools rely on seers and prophets to name their next sovereign, often referred to as an "archon". Maren society scrutinizes the nature of newly-named archons, believing that the oracles' choice serves as a glimpse of what challenges lie ahead; a warrior archon signals conflict to come, while a crafter may mean it is time to build up the society--both literally and figuratively. Entertainers and socialites as archons are regarded as a sign of plenty. The most fraught outcome is for the seers to name one of their own number as the next archon. A seer stepping into a leadership role can only mean one thing: times of great uncertainty loom ahead.
Regardless of the specifics of leadership, seers serve a heavy role in advising most maren settlements. Various prophets and oracles work directly with a school's leadership to help guide the community. Many tend to handle small matters themselves, leaving crowns or archons to focus on greater threats.
Cities & Architecture
Maren settlements make use of existing landscapes whenever possible. Most can be found in undersea caverns or built into the walls of great trenches. Any necessary structures are crafted primarily using seaweed, kelp, coral bones, and the skeletons of leviathans. These buildings are less about providing shelter from the elements; storms and extreme temperatures are not so devastating once one is far enough below the surface. Instead, they focus on dissuading potential predators via obfuscation or inconvenience. The most defensible parts of the city are reserved to be shelters for the society's vulnerable members during a crisis.
In shallower cities, maren build walls of rock, bone, and seagrasses to function as wavebreakers. This is what ultimately helped them weather the maelstrom better than most, which allowed maren within the Sea of a Thousand Currents to play a strong role in aiding the Water flight during their recovery efforts.
Combat
Given the long list of dangers within the seas, all maren are expected to learn at least some degree of self defense. Cities train and utilize a structured military for protection, and many also maintain capable militias that can be called upon in times of need. These groups are not rank-and-file soldiers. They primarily consist of scouts and sentinels for fending off natural predators, but anyone familiar with the maren knows better than to tangle with these guardians. When up against a threat to the city, maren warriors are notoriously ruthless. Some maren have even been known to carry specialized tonics that can be imbibed before battle to turn their blood poisonous.
Despite their impressive prowess in a fight, maren rarely engage in individual combat unless they are forced to. If a threat catches one out alone, the maren's goal is often to lead their would-be attacker back to their allies rather than risk facing it without the advantage of numbers.
Alliances & Feuds
Due to their geographical isolation, maren have fewer ties to the rest of Sornieth than most of the beastclans. They are slow to make enemies; one cannot afford to waste energy on needless conflict in a place where anything sizable or determined enough might make you into a quick meal. Those they forge positive relationships with find themselves with a steadfast ally--despite their ruthlessness when it comes to undersea survival, maren offer unshakable loyalty for those they consider friends or supporters. After the maelstrom, many Water flight clans abruptly found themselves surrounded by maren crafters, healers, scouts, and any other capable hands who wished to contribute to disaster relief.
While not all schools are comfortable interacting with the dragons, some are glad to work with those in the Sea of a Thousand Currents. The dragons serve as go-betweens for trade and communication with surface dwellers or offer up their powerful elemental magics, while the maren provide resources and knowledge from hard-to-reach treasure troves in the depths. Meanwhile, some schools who have settled in the seas beyond Sornieth offer respite for the Fathom dragons as they make their grand migrations. Amongst these allies, news, information, and stories of the far-flung oceans carry more worth than trinkets or even food.
The most curious tale of friends and foes among the maren is that of the Lost School. The initial cause of the split has long since been lost to time, though the remaining songs from that era--one of the maren's primary methods of passing down their histories--make reference to some kind of great tragedy. The lyrics have grown archaic in phrasing, and the songs themselves are unusually vague compared to other historical pieces. As a result, maren rarely agree on the exact nature of the rift. Some believe the Lost School left after a grave and terrible conflict, slowly migrating their way further and further from the surface, while others suspect that "Lost" carries a more literal meaning. Regardless, the recent reunion of the Lost School and their shallow seas relatives has since been met with jubilation, and the maren have been glad to swap tales and experiences from such otherwise disparate seas.