So you've never had a Merman Magic-User, eh? Me either. Let's post one and see if anybody gets inspired to play one:
The Damp Man (Rory March, New England Outcast)
Origin: Merman Class: Magic-User Level: 3 Alignment: Neutral
STR 12 AC: 9/10 (normal clothes) HP 10 Attack +1 Move 12 on land, 11 in water
INT 11 Save: 15, +3 vs Poison, +4 vs Spells, +1 vs Missles and Plot
WIS 9
CON 15 (+1) Current Karma: 1 Current XP: 2500 Current Funds: $170
DEX 11
CHA 13
Background: Journalist. Rory has an uncanny talent for ferreting out records, composing catchy and informative articles, selling said articles and turning reluctant interviewees into chatty gossips, +1 when applicable.
Hangups: Strange Luck (this guy could roll up 'Random Encounter-Ogre' just ordering Chinese Takeout!) Outcast (penalty die when interacting with any lost Dyzan colonies) Rootless(gets Karma every time he moves his Home Base to another city).
Origin Abilities: Rory takes a -1 penalty to Attack, Damage and Wrecking Rolls when out of water for over an hour. Can breathe water, swim quickly, and gain +1 to Wrecking Rolls in water.
Class Abilities: Rory can cast spells. Unlike most M-Us, Rory does not use a permanent Focus-he creates intricate charms of knotted cord, destroying them with a yank and a muttered phrase. He can knot these charms into an easily-grasped bracelet or secrete a few charms in pockets or shoes-but needs hands and voice free to use them. Other than that, Rory is a normal M-U able to enter into Contests of Wills, study other M-U's Foci etc. Can currently create and maintain 3 Lvl 1 charms and 1 Lvl 2 charm per 12 hours. Rory cannot effectively wear Armor and uses only simple weapons. Spells Known: LVL 1-Read Languages and Magic, Cure Light Wounds, Poof! Shield, Feather Fall, Sleep, Light, Reduce Person. Lvl 2-Summon Mobster I, Invisibility.
Equipment
Trusty 16mm Newsreel camera in waterproof case
Tape recorder in waterproof case
Lots of high quality, weather-resistant notepads and pencils
A raincoat with the waterproofing removed and a thin layer of absorbent cotton lining inserted-holds liquids like a sponge
Mask of liquid-absorbent cheesecloth for when anonymity is needed.
A set of Brass Knuckles in case of rough stuff (1D6-1) and a modest handgun (range 200, 1D6 damage, no Attack Bonus applied)
Cushman Scooter with a sidecar and cover
Sleeping bag
2 First Aid Kits
Silver flask (often full of salt water)
Small hand-mirror of obsidian Shewstone (allows access to a sympathetic Dyzan SCM, but only for advice and gossip)
Description: Rory March is a man of completely average height and weight, short, dull brown hair-and sunken sea-green eyes that can pierce the soul. His collar is always turned up to hide what appear to be scars on his throat. His clothing is neat but often slightly faded, as if he washes it too often. His breath smells not unpleasantly like sweet salt-brine pickles.
Issue Zero: Everything that happened was completely and utterly my fault. I don't think that there is a way to ever make it right.
The First Rule of Journalism-always, always, ALWAYS verify your sources! And yes, all of the people in that small New England town (I refuse to name it to this day) looked-a bit odd, acted severely stand-offish and treated me like some bizarre Moon Man, but that did not make them some horrible cult of child-sacrificing cultists to strange pagan gods. In fact, I found out later that fully half of them were Lutheran and they had a sizeable Quaker influence as well-i'm sure that the poor souls were mortified when the gossip got back to them...
It was a case of mutual panic-a few locals in the tavern overheard the wild tales my 'interviewee' (a chronic opium sot and boozer in the last stages of wet-brain and liver failure) was spinning for me out of whole cloth-then they discovered that I was a reporter-and that I had Family here (big surprise to everybody on that one!). So of course almost the entire town went looking for me, just to set the record straight and, well, eventually let me in on the real secret-but naturally I saw an entire purposeful mob fanning out like some nightmarish scene out of Der Golem and I ran like I had never run before, and somehow managed to convince a posse of Sheriff's Deputies, local cops and 'concerned citizens' in the next town to, well, do something about my strange tale...
The whole farce went about as well as you could expect-they burned the entire town to the ground. The only saving grace to this horrible, horrible tragedy was that not a single resident died...the entire village had been completely abandoned by the time the 'authorities' got there. The whole incident became completely blown out of proportion, and soon the local news was full of 'FBI raids' 'Mysterious Disappearances' and 'Dynamited Reefs'....Good God. Worse yet, some racist hack Pulp writer got wind of the gossip and wrote this overblown novella about Evil Alien Rampaging Fish-men who Worship Bizaare Gods-and dey wants our women, Blah blah blah ad nauseun...I better not meet this fellow in person, even now i'm not sure what i'd do to him.
Six weeks after the...incident, four men knocked on my door-and one of them aimed a gun at me. As soon as the doors were locked though, the man-who turns out to be a distant uncle of mine, Caleb March- carefully hands the pistol to me, puts a box of bullets in the other hand("wasn't loaded" he remarked offhandedly) and explained carefully and quietly to me the sheer, utter magnitude of my mistake...
The Dyzan have been with us since Ancient Days-the first people that they met, the Dogon of West Africa, believed that they had come 'from the Stars'-even the Dyzan themselves no longer know the truth. What is known is that they can use the vril energy to perform great feats of what may as well be miracles to us, and that they are a remarkably fecund race, capable of breeding outside their own species-this latter fact has caused quite a bit of..shall we say, genetic drift? When your cousin has sonar, your sister has tentacles and your kid brother came out with membranous wings and can't talk-well, there's a bunch of highly evolved Plains Apes next door to stabilize their lineage with, why not go see if a deal can be made? And no, I wasn't sure I approved, but I didn't have to, did I? All parties involved seemed, um, satisfied with whatever arrangements had been made...
And then I completely ruined it. And it wasn't just the one small New England town-Law Enforcement tends to gossip, and at least one commune in California and a Monastery in Oregon had to pull a Marie Celeste. There were many local colonies mostly untouched, in the South Seas and possibly the South American coastline-but overall I had done quite a bit of damage with my ignorant panic attack. I'd really like to visit those colonies someday, if only to apologize...but, really, would you trust me after all of that? No, I wouldn't either. Uncle Caleb didn't leave me completely alone in my Exile though-he left me a way to communicate with, well, anybody on the other end who wanted to meet Judas Iscariot face to face...and eventually a certain Yvanne Waite decided that I was actually worth holding a conversation with. The Dyzan bloodline runs strong in her, and she's taught me just a bit of Vrilcraft, and i've learned to focus my mind through intricate knotwork (Yvanne uses an insulated rod wrapped in brass wire herself, the vril focuses uniquely for each user.) And best of all, I found out why I always felt healthier for awhile after a quick dip-these scars around my throat aren't scars at all..
At any rate, I might get to rejoin the Dyzan one day-my Dyzan, as unthinkable as the concept might have been at first-but in the meantime, I still have Truths to pursue. And a lot of bad Juju to get rid of-mistakes to atone for, and secrets to properly uncover...once my sources have been thoroughly checked...
(Editor's Note: In 2nd Edition H&H Mermen cannot be M-Us. But in 1st Edition they can, so
...)