Hi, long time player. In all my travels, I have a sharp memory of encountering a whale and a pod of dolphins at one point. There was no way to interact with them, as everything would go through them and it was briefly lived, but I did not have the presence of mind to screenshot as I thought it was just a thing. Now I'm looking around and can't find evidence that anything like that was ever a possibility. Am I being gaslit by circumstance? Am I legitimately crazy? I feel like it is a super rare occurrence, but not non-existent.
On the note of whales, however, I had an idea for a whale themed adventure. Since whaling is a bit dark of a topic for a 12+ game, there could be implemented whales that flock around and protect treasure. The skeletons are attempting to unjustly force all of the whales out of the shores of plenty (make it a new area, increase the boundary to add a true deep sea as opposed to the red seas). The players could go in this adventure as the heroes, coming in to save the whales. Let's say, the skeletons are trapping the whales and the players come in to save the whales, stop the ships they are hunting them with, diving into the water or getting on the skeleton ships to use a sword and cut the ropes for nets, vanquishing the skeletons and saving the whales. Maybe the whales lead you to a treasure trove in thanks. This way you could reasonably have whales roaming the sea while being able to make them something much more.