Mermaids, we have seen them and all know of them, but do we really know anything about them? Truthfully, outside of a few snippets here and there, we do not know much about this mysterious race. I think that should change, and I think it would be amazing if mermaids were fleshed out a bit more, so here are some things I thought of.
Random mermaid encounters:
- As this title suggests, I think we should be able to encounter mermaids (not related to returning to your ship) out in the world.
- These mermaids would either be good or evil.
- There would be no distinguishing features between the two types, leading to purely chance encounters.
- Both encounter types would have an equal chance of occurring.
Good Mermaids:
- As this title suggests, these mermaids are “good” and will not try to trick, deceive, or harm the player.
- There are a number of different encounters that could occur with good mermaids (these are all of the ones I could think of).
The Mermaid storyteller (most likely won’t work with the current lore):
- A type of good mermaid encounter that would retell various stories about the mermaids, their origins, and/or things they mermaid did in the past, through dialogue interactions.
- This would provide the bulk of mermaid related lore.
- This encounter would be rare/incredibly rare to come across.
- This mermaid would look much older/ancient than the others.
- This mermaid could be encountered at the shores of islands.
- This mermaid would be one of the very few mermaids who can speak the player’s language.
The Mermaid savior:
- A type of good mermaid encounter that has a chance to occur if the player is drowning.
- In this encounter, the mermaid would push the player to the surface of the water, preventing them from dying, it would then swim back down to the depths.
- This encounter would only have a chance to occur if the player was about to die by drowning (as in very low health).
The Mermaid guide:
- A type of good mermaid encounter that would guide you to a piece and/or multiple pieces of treasure deep under the water.
- The mermaid would simply swim and show you the way to said treasure.
- This mermaid would be encountered near the shore of an island, gesturing for the player to follow it.
- The mermaid would swim at a speed so the player could easily follow it.
The Mermaid warrior:
- A type of good mermaid encounter that would fend off one shark attack.
- Can only occur if the player is not near the shores of an island/near a ship.
Evil Mermaids:
- As this title suggests, these mermaids are “evil” and will try to trick, deceive, or harm the player.
- There are a number of different encounters that could occur with evil mermaids (these are all of the ones I could think of).
The Mermaid ? (Couldn’t think of a good name):
- A type of evil mermaid that only has a chance of occurring while the player is drowning.
- Instead of bringing the player to the surface, it would latch on to the player and pull them down to the depths.
- This encounter would only have a chance occur if the player has just started to drown.
- A crew mate can shoot the mermaid once to cause it to let the player go, but this will be fairly difficult to do.
The Mermaid trickster:
- A type of evil mermaid encounter that would guide the player to their deaths.
- This mermaid is the opposite of the mermaid guide, instead of leading you to treasure, it would lead you to a group of evil mermaids that would grab onto any nearby players and drag them to the depths to drown.
- This mermaid would be encountered near the shore of the island.
- This mermaid would swim at a speed so the player could easily follow it.
The Evil Mermaid warrior:
- A type of evil mermaid encounter that would cause the player to be bit by a shark.
- The mermaid would grab onto and hold the player until a shark bites said player. Afterwards, this mermaid would retreat back to the depths.
- This encounter would only occur if the player is not near the shores of an island/near a ship.
The Shipwreck guardians:
- A type of evil mermaid encounter that would occur at all shipwrecks.
- These mermaids would attempt to drown players via grabbing them and pulling them, in order to prevent them from stealing the shipwreck’s treasure.
- These mermaids could be fenced off for a short time via shooting them/at them, however they will quickly return.
A new ship encounter (like the Kraken/meg):
- Along with the evil mermaid encounters, I had an idea for a new type of ship encounter based around mermaids.
The Sirens:
- This new type of ship encounter would occur in a similar fashion to the Kraken/meg.
- The player would hear an eerie song through the entirety of this event, and the song type would denote it’s affects.
- I have thought of two types.
The Wheel Sirens:
- As this name suggests, this type of siren encounter would cause the player currently driving to lose control and attempt to steer into rocks/islands.
- In order to counter the affects of the sirens song, all other players on the ship must use an instrument and play a song nearby the player on the wheel (to drown out the noise of the sirens song).
- After drowning out the siren’s song, players would have a small amount of time before the sirens sing even louder, causing another player/the same player to take the wheel and lose control (this would again have to be countered).
- This event could end in three ways. The players sail out of range of the siren’s song, the players sink, or the players survive long enough to be rescued by good mermaids.
- In the event of the player has survived long enough for good mermaids to come rescue, the player will see good mermaids driving off the evil mermaids.
- These good mermaids will bring treasure to the surface for the player to take (presumably as an apology gift).
- This is the only way to “beat” this type of ship encounter.
- This type of encounter would not occur pop up for a solo sloop.
The Anchor Sirens:
- As the name suggests, this type of siren would cause the players to drop anchor upon hearing their song,
- Once the anchor is dropped, evil mermaids will swim underneath the player’s ship, and create holes in the ship using tridents.
- The player can not raise anchor until they have countered the sirens song.
- In this event, the sirens song can be encountered by firing a cannonball directly at the mermaids who are singing.
- These mermaids would be located on a rock nearby.
- This cannonball, if fired correctly, will cause the mermaids singing to briefly scatter, from the rock, giving the player time to raise anchor and start sailing away.
- The sirens song will also randomly stop for a small amount of time, this is another opportunity for the player to stop and attempt to get away.
- At random times during the event, the evil sirens hitting the ship will stick their tridents through holes in the ship. This will prevent the player from patching said holes until they shoot/hit the tridents in sticking through the holes.
- This event could end in three ways. The players sail out of range of the siren’s song, the players sink, or the players survive long enough to be rescued by good mermaids.
- In the event of the player has survived long enough for good mermaids to come rescue, the player will see good mermaids driving off the evil mermaids.
- These good mermaids will bring treasure to the surface for the player to take (presumably as an apology gift).
- This is the only way to “beat” this type of ship encounter.
- This type of encounter would occur on a solo sloop.
I truly believe that fleshing out mermaids a bit more would be a great way to improve the overall Sea of Thieves world. The things I listed above are just some of the things I could think of, but there are tons of different ways/directions you could take mermaids.
