Selkies and Seals for your OSR Adventures

 Hello again! It's been a while, I've been writing a submission for a zine called 'Neuromyths' on the subject of neurodiversity and mythology. It's a short story called 'Changelings' and I'll link it and drum up a commentary when everything is in place, but for now I'm going to share a player class and monster stats all to do with Selkies!

WHAT IS A SELKIE?

Selkies are mythological creatures from various folklores around the UK, but they tend to be particularly associated with the island of Orkney off the coast of Scotland. The tale I have heard (there are numerous variations) goes like this:

   Once upon a time, there lived a lonely fisherman. He had no crew, no friends, no family. He would go out onto the sea in his one-man coracle and catch fish to feed himself, sometimes taking the extra haul to the market on the other side of the island, but never staying longer than his business demanded, for he was a grim and proud man. Others found him wearying to talk to. 

One day, he had sailed far out to sea, much farther than usual as the fish wouldn't bite and he was getting desperate. All was peaceful, the island nothing but a misty blur on the horizon, when his coracle was rocked hard by a dark shape beneath the waves. He nearly lost hold of his fishing rod and groaned aloud to see little silver shapes wriggling away into the inky depths. He sat up to grumble and curse his poor luck when a rogue wave, three times as tall as himself on his tippy-toes, rolled on by where a moment before his little boat had sat. He would have been knocked clean off his boat and likely died of shock in the freezing waters before even drowning! 

It was then the dark shape reappeared and surfaced its head by the boat's rim. A grey seal fixed the fisherman with its eyes and let out a short bark. It seemed pleased. The fisherman tossed over a fish in thanks, and the seal caught it in mid-air with a big grin on its little face. The seal vanished beneath the waves once more, but reappeared a little further away, towards the shore, and barked once again. 

The fisherman followed the seal all the way to an isolated beach, inaccessible from the cliffs above. Seals lounged on the sand and the rocky tidal pools were stuffed with fish, ripe for the taking. The fisherman was delighted! He threw one more fish to the seal that guided him and turned home, as it was dark and he knew he could always return the next day with fresh nets.

The fisherman was so excited he could barely sleep, and set out early the next day before the sunrise. When he found the beach he was shocked to find it completely abandoned. Not a single seal in sight and the tidal pools filled only with limpets and tiny, meagre crabs. He pulled ashore and cursed himself for his foolishness. He must have been dreaming yesterday! All he could see was a great leathery hide halfway buried in the sand. Perhaps it had fallen off a poaching vessel? Most sailors were superstitious about hunting and skinning the seals, but some were desperate enough to try. 

There was a cry, and from a cave just above the tideline the fisherman spotted a beautiful naked woman. There was great sorrow in her eyes, and she pointed to the leathery skin in his hands. "I am a selkie, and I am cursed to obey whoever keeps and holds my seal-skin. Please, for the help I gave you yesterday, return the skin to me!" She said, begging on her knees in front of the fisherman. 

"Maybe I'll give you back the skin, but you have to marry me first!" The fisherman said, and the selkie could only mutely comply. The very next day the once hermit fisherman arrived to the town on the other side of the island and married his sad-looking wife, and all the townspeople felt sorry for her, but she would not speak a word against him.

Many years passed. The fisherman never returned the sealskin, concealing it instead in a locked chest in the attic. He kept the key on a necklace and forbade his wife from ever taking the key from him, and so she was bound to spend the rest of her unhappy days with him. She gave him a son, and the boy was healthy and beloved, though he never saw his mother smile. When he was finally a young man, he asked his mother: "Mother dearest! All my life you have seemed so miserable, for my birthday my wish is that you could tell me what would make you happy."

"My sweet boy, I am always so cold and the rain chills my bones. Your father keeps a good coat in a locked chest in the attic, bring it to me and I will smile forevermore, I promise you. Ask your father for a birthday gift from the locked chest and he will not deny you." She said. Her son was so pleased he rushed out to the docks where his father was repairing the coracle. He asked for the birthday gift and the father relented, taking him right away to the locked chest. He was an old man now, and had long forgotten about the secluded beach and the sealskin. He was puzzled by the choice of gift, but the son was so delighted he couldn't refuse him.

When the mother held the skin in her hands again she smiled. She kissed his cheek and said: "You will ever be safe at sea for what you have done, I will always watch over you." In the night she fled before supper, with the old man and the son baffled to see her footprints in the sand turn suddenly to a trail like a seal dragging its body along the shore towards the sea.

The old man never went to sea again, he would wander the house looking for his lost wife and calling for her until his final breath. The son would leave the miserable little island as a sailor in search of a better life, and it is said he was blessed by Poseidon himself for any vessel he was on never sank, and was always guided to safety from storms and rocks by grey seals, who he thanked with little fishes thrown overboard. 

THE CLASS

I've built this one for Old School Essentials, but with some tweaking you could use it in other systems. I loosely adapted it from the Wolfwalkers of Osraige from the OSE Folklore bestiary in my original draft, but I've tried to separate it a bit more in this version. For the seal stats go to the very end!

Requirements: Minimum CONSTITUTION 9

Prime Requisites: STRENGTH and WISDOM

Hit Dice: 1d6

Max Level: 10 (levels as an elf)

Armour: Light and Shields

Weapons: Spears, daggers, hatchets

Languages: Alignment, common, the tongue of all seals

Wild Forms: Selkies may use the skin of seals and related creatures to transform into seal forms. All selkies start with a Leopard-seal skin at level 1 and may disrobe to don the seal skin. They can stay in this form for as long as they like, but taking lethal damage will also kill them in human form. At level 5 the selkie may transform using Walrus skin, and at level 10 may transform with Elephant-seal skin. A selkie with multiple skins may use any one they own. To acquire a new one they must hunt and land a killing blow before skinning the kind of seal they want to transform into OR perform a quest for an elderly seal of the type they want to transform into to earn the right to skin them after death. HP is tracked separately for human and seal forms, with the form the selkie is not currently wearing healing twice as fast as normal during rest.

Supernatural Charm: The Selkie may innately cast a single spell each day but only whilst in human form. The selkie may cast a different spell as they level up:

Level 1+ Charm Person

Level 4+ Hold Person

Level 7+ Charm Monster

Level 10 Hold Monster

Bound by Skin: If any of the selkie's seal skins are stolen by another person, so long as the selkie can see or hear that person they are charmed by them and must follow their instructions as if they were affected by a charm person spell.

Strong Swimmers: Even in human form selkies are strong and confident swimmers. So long as a selkie is not bound or restricted in movement and has a pocket of air to return to, they don't need to roll to swim or avoid drowning.

Stronghold; After reaching 9th Level a selkie can create a coastal colony in the form of a secluded village or sea cave. A secret selkie village can be spotted as the fishing of the village will always be successful, but the boats will never leave the harbour as the villagers will disappear to go fishing in their selkie forms under the light of the moon. A selkie settlement of any kind can provide services like scouting the coast, scaring off/attacking ships, recovering sunken treasure or rescuing people from shipwrecks. 

SEAL STATS