Early Access
“Their forms vaguely suggested the anthropoid, while their heads were the heads of fish, with prodigious bulging eyes that never closed. At the sides of their necks were palpitating gills, and their long paws were webbed. They hopped irregularly, sometimes on two legs and sometimes on four. I was somehow glad that they had no more than four limbs. Their croaking, baying voices, clearly used for articulate speech, held all the dark shades of expression which their staring faces lacked ... They were the blasphemous fish-frogs of the nameless design—living and horrible.”—The Shadow Over Innsmouth
A deep one resembles an anthropomorphic fish—bulging eyes, gills at the neck, and webbed hands. They have a hopping gait, alternating between two and four limbs. Their croaking voices can form words in their own slurred, unearthly language, as well as in various human tongues.
Some deep ones dwell in coastal regions on land, usually in isolated villages where they might attempt to pass for human. They are able to breathe both air and water. Most, however, thrive in the ocean depths, in ancient underwater cities like "Cyclopean and many-columned Y'ha-nthlei." Deep ones sometimes breed with insane humans to produce squamous offspring that eventually develop fully into deep ones well after maturity (or even middle age).
Motive: Hunger for flesh
Environment: Anywhere near a large body of salt water
Health: 15
Damage Inflicted: Moderate wound
Armor: 2
Movement: Short on land; long in the water
Modifications: Athletics (swimming) as level 6; perception as level 3
Combat: Deep ones make one attack with a combination of teeth and claws, but sometimes they might use a human weapon. In combat they usually give no quarter and don’t ask for it.
A deep one’s skin is subject to drying, and any attack that uses fire or heat inflicts an additional 1 damage against them (ignores armor). Because of this weakness, deep ones sometimes retreat from fire and fire attacks.
Interaction: Deep ones are a strange mix of utter alienness and the vestiges of lost humanity. They are foul and degenerate creatures by human standards, but they make pacts with coastal villages, exchanging bountiful fishing and weird gold treasures in exchange for interbreeding with humans.
Deep ones spend a great deal of time in the sincere adoration of their gods, $Mother Hydra$, $Father Dagon$, and Cthulhu. Their religion demands frequent blood sacrifices.
Use: The PCs wander into a small coastal village where everyone seems standoffish and oddly distant. A few people appear to be sickly and malformed, perhaps from mutation or birth defects. Some of the villagers have scaly skin because they are transforming into deep ones. And, of course, true deep ones hide within the community as well.
Loot: A few deep ones will have a manifest cypher or a gold treasure (such as a disk or an idol) worth as much as an expensive item.
GM Intrusion: The deep one throws a net over the character, trapping them if they fail a dodge action to evade it or a Might action to break it. A trapped character can’t take physical actions except to attempt to escape.
Mother Hydra or Father Dagon (ancient overgrown deep one): level 8; health 38; Armor 4; inflicts a major wound