Locathah in 4e

Recently I posted about the locathah in a thread concerning the fourth PH3 race. I liked what I wrote there so much I thought I'd write my first blog post about it.

Locathah have been cool to me ever since I read about the secrets of Rog'osto, City of Spires in Al Qadim. In that setting, the locathah were the ancient, forgotten builders of these wonderful, silvery spires. The idea of a powerful, fish-like race was further cemented when I read the 3e Wilderlands of High Fantasy material. In that setting, the Viridians are an ancient, sorcerous race descended from the gods and merfolk.

I think this background, coupled with the current description of the race as being intelligent, nomadic hunter-gatherers, make the locathah a good fit for the 4e world.

Ages ago, a powerful empire of locathah dwelled beneath the waves. Avid students of the arcane and of psionics, the piscine race was composed of brilliant builders. Not the least of their achievements was their capitol city, the marvellous City of Spires. However, during the course of their studies, they contacted a variety of malign, alien entities. These eldritch terrors were brought to the world for further research, but something went horribly wrong and the locathah civilization was destroyed utterly.

The locathah who survived the cataclysm fled to the coastal lands and lost most of the lore of their storied race. They became wanderers and nomads, travelling the coastlines of the world. But to this day, tribal chiefs tell tales of the wonders of their ancestors, inspiring the adventuresome spirits of their listeners to seek out their ancient homeland.

Some locathah still dwell in the deeps. These deep ones commune with Dagon, where they learn foul secrets and magic. Others were thought to completely degenerate, becoming kuo-toa, or to give themselve over to savagery, instinct, and evil, becoming sahuagin.

For playability reasons, I'd make the locathah a primarily land-dwelling race. They would still be able to breathe water and to swim well, but most of them still have a great fear of returning to the deep waters of the world. I definitely would give them a +2 to Int to reflect their natural intelligence, but I'm not sure where I'd put their other ability bonus. I like +2 Wis because it would make locathah good shamans, druids, wizards, and psions, but I also like +2 Con to reflect their hardiness and ability to survive the ocean depths.