Saltbloods

''“No risk too great, no enterprise too unlikely! If you don’t have the nerve, keep yourself to dry land!”'' - Captain Yvonne Billows, master of the ship Storm Serpent

Locations
Woeful Straits, Wavebreaker Beacon, Harshbank, the open sea

Typical Physical Attributes
The Saltbloods were born from the union of the human Windborne and Sea Elves. Their human ancestry shows in their humanoid body plan, and their sea elf heritage in their webbed ears and to some extent their hands and feet.

Prevailing values
Saltbloods inherited the curious nature of their human parents, as well as the utilitarian pragmatism given to the Sea Elves by Fleetwit at the dawn of time. They have combined these traits into adventurous ambition. They trust in their ability to overcome anything, as long as they do it with enough style and flair.

Customs
Saltbloods are a rambunctious lot. If something isn’t worth throwing a party over, it’s not worth doing.

Aesthetics
Piratey. Their ships are barnacle-encrusted galleons made of finely-grown coral, and sail from mobile islands of living coral.

History
As the Windborne started to sail the seas, it didn’t take long for them to get entangled with Sea Elves, even romantically. The offspring from these unions shared the characteristics of their parents, and were thought to have various sea-related powers.

Among Sea Elves these half-breeds were naturally segregated by their inability to breathe underwater, and thus from fully participating in Sea Elf traditions. This led to many Sea Elves seeing them as incomplete and broken, and while not actively persecuted, Saltbloods were effectively shunned in embarrassment. Therefore, it was only natural that these Saltbloods would found their own communities on the islands and beaches near the Woeful Straits. There they put to use a fairly common Saltblood ability to shape and accelerate the growth of coral with their words and songs.

Windborne considered Saltbloods lucky until their numbers grew and they started to form a cultural identity of their own. Many Windborne were jealous of Saltblood abilities (whether real or imagined) and started to persecute them. This led to The Parting on the Seas, when many Saltbloods escaped what amounted to slavery and joined their kin on Wavebreaker Beacon.

The population pressure these newcomers imposed on the smallish settlements led to a number of the artificial coral islands being separated to sail the seas. Those from Windborne communities brought with them many advanced shipbuilding technologies and adapted them for use with coral and kelp.

And so were born the great Coral Flotillas of the Saltbloods, that now cross the seas to many far-flung places, trading, pillaging, pirating, and otherwise being adventurous and romantic. These people have recently come to call themselves Jaunters.