Hello, everybody! I'm being depressed, or at least as close as I can get to showing such emotion, and you know what cheers me up? Educating people about strange and wonderful animals/horrifying abominations against all that is good and true!
>But how is this Veeky Forums related? You ask. Good question. And I answer; look, I am having a bad day, can I not at least post deep sea horrorfish in peace? Also, deep sea horrorfish make good inspiration for monsters. They're at least twice as weird as anything you can come up. I even statted some for DnD.
>Did you not post this before? You ask. Yes, but I have some new pictures, and that was almost a year ago, so I assume many people have not heard it.
So, without making you read further drivel, I will be commencing of posting of pictures of things that make you want to stay as far from the ocean as possible. Maybe also mermaids, but only the creepy deep sea kind (everything down there is creepy).
First things first. The abyss, also known as the deep sea, the midnight zone (actual scientific term, by the way), or underwater vore hell (not actual scientific term, but very accurate description), can be defined as the area of sea deeper than 1 kilometer (technically this is called the bathypelagic; abyssopelagic is below 4 km, but both are dark and have weird fish with way too much teeth).
Light only properly penetrates the upper 200 meters of ocean, which is practically nothing. Below that you get some light, but not enough for plants to photosynthesise. Below around 1 km, you have no light at all. Everything is dark, cold (water is densest at 4 degrees C, so that's the common temperature of the deep sea), and generally not what you'd call hospitable. In fact, for the longest amount of time, people belived nothing except maybe invertebrates and bacteria could live down there. They were, of course, wrong. Nature will find a way to stick something into any environment something could theoretically live in.
So, how the hell do things survive in an enormous pitch-black volume of water with no autotrophic life? Well, as I'm about to show you, the answer is "by being really horrifying" (little known fact, but 75% of nutrition of deep sea fish come from the nigthmares of mortals. This is not an actual scientific fact, so don't write than on an exam).
Brandon Jackson
The biggest problems deep sea animals face is the fact that the abyss is mind-bogglingly huge and mostly empty (an environment like that can't really sustain a large amount of animals per volume). So simple things as finding anything to eat ot mate with are suddenly very difficult. This leads to the whole "being really horrifying" part, because in order to survive deep sea fish have had to evolve extreme adaptions that tend to make them look very alien and unsettling.
In order to conserve energy, they've lost as much unnecessary "dead weight" as possible, such as scales and unnecesary bone- or muscle-mass giving many of them either blobby or almost skeletal appearance and slimy, scaleless skin. In order to hide themselves from predators their skin is pitch black or blood red (red is the first colour to be absorbed by water, so being red is as effective camoflage as being black). And because there is so little light, they either have huge eyes to catch whatever little light there is, or very small eyes. Many species also generate their own light to attract prey or mate, or help them see. Since no plants can grow in the deep sea, all life there (aside from those aside hydrothermal springs and things like that, but that's a very special case) are either scavengers or predators. The size and emptiness of their home also means that the average deep sea fish is lucky if it encounters anything even vaquely edible, so they tend have evolved means of ensuring they're able to eat any potential prey, even if it's bigger than themselves and wanting to eat them (while there is a food chain in the deep sea, large part of it is pretty much just a bunch of fish all trying to eat each other). As such they tend to have huge gaping mouths, needle-like teeth, and elastic stomachs that let them swallow prey their own size or bigger.
I'll introduce some specific examples of deep sea horrofish next, starting with my personal favorites. Also, please ignore random boat slut in picture.
Jeremiah Reyes
Keep going man, this is interesting stuff
Dominic Martin
Ah, yes, the gulper eel (actually, the animal in picture is properly called the pelican eel, which a slightly different but closely related). One of my all time favorite animals. You might call it ugly, but I think it has a certain beaty in its simplicty, it's "purity of purpose" if you will.
A gulper eel is what you get when you take a fish and remove all the extraneous features. It has no scales, no ribs (what what bones it has are about as minimal as you can get), no swim bladder, only a few fins, muscles with simpler structure than on any other fish, and barely a brain. What is does have, however, is a gigantic mouth and a highly elastic stomach. Pretty much every other part is there just to get said mouth and stomach to food. The gulper eel has a light at the end of its tail, which it may use to attract prey (like most other deep sea fish, it's not much of a swimmer, and rather just waits in place until something edible comes by). The inside of its mouth is completely black, so the prey won't notice it until they've literally swum right into its mouth. While its diet appears to mostly consist of small shrimp and fish, it can swallow a fish of its own size or bigger. They're also quite big for deep sea fish, capable of growing up to 2 meters long (most of that is from the very long and thin tail, though).
Here's a cool video of an intact specimen. You can see ventral gill slits, which I hadn't seen before. The large holes of the gills slits probably help in evacuating the water which the eel swallows along with its prey.
As I mentioned, there's actually two genuses of gulper eels: saccopharynx (proper gulper eels, with multiple species) and eurypharynx (with only one species, the pelican eel). Eurpharynx is smaller and an even more simplified design than saccopharynx, being pretty much nothing but a mouth and tail (saccopharynx has at least a more distinct body).
Carter Cox
The deep sea anglerfish (to distinct it from the non-deep sea anglerfish, which is also a thing) is probably the most famous deep sea fish. They're also called sea devils, which is probably a pretty appropriate name (everybody knows anglerfish are lawful evil). There's a lot of genuses, with very large variation in shape and size, although most tend to look something like an angry football.
Angerfish are called anglerfish because they have a lure (properly called an esca) attached to a "fish rod" (properly called an illicum, which is actually a modified dorsal fin bone), which they use to attract prey. In deep sea anglerfish, the lure glows in the dark. The exact mechanics are apparently very complex, with bioluminescent bacteria to provide the light (as with most deep sea fish), and a complex array of lenses and shutters to control the amount of light. Strangely enough, some species have apparently evolved two completely different kinds of light-producing lures for one fish. Some anglerfish forgo having the lure hanging above their head, and instead have it inside their mouths. Some have lures and rods that really look like a fish rod with a bait, complete with a hook on the lure (the purpose of which is unknown). Some have an upper jaw that folds over their lower jaw like some kind of bizarred bear-trap.
Another thing anglerfish are famous for, but which is really only present in a few genuses, is the concept of "parasitic mating". Only female deep sea anglerfish have a lure and a huge gaping maw. The males are much smaller, and have highly advanced sensory organs (nose, eyes, or both, depending on speces), but very little else. They even lack a functioning digestive system, and exist only to find a mate before they starve to death. This kind of sexual dimorphism is actually typical to deep sea fish. The ones that don't do it are mostly hermaphrodites.
Isaac Morales
On some genuses of anglerfish, the male will upon finding a female bite into her and secrete an enzyme that causes his tissue to fuse with her. Over time, the male's body will attrophy to the point where he becomes little more than a set of testicles that can impregnate the female whenever she needs to lay eggs. Interestingly, while some species of anglerfish often have multiple males fused to one female, some appear to be "monogamous", and have been never encountered with more than one male per female. Whether this is just coincidence, or if additional males are somehow prevented from fusing with the female (which would be in the best interest of the first male), I don't know.
Aaron Ramirez
Chiasmodon niger, also known as the black swallower, or more informally, the horrible vorefish, despite looking pretty normal by deep sea standards (it still has black scaleless skin and lots of pointy teeth, but at least it's the shape a fish should be), is pretty much the posterboy (or girl, considering we've already established that most deep sea horrorfish are female; I haven't actually found any information on mating habits and potential sexual dimorphism on C. niger, though, so I can't say for sure) for why we also call the deep sea "underwater vore hell". Being able to swallow things bigger than yourself is part of the grab-bag of deep sea fish traits along with "glows in the dark" and "looks like it swum out of HP Lovecaft's nighmares", but the black swallower is one of the most extreme example. It has been regularly documented having swallowed fish twice its size and ten times its weight, and has been know to swallow prey four times its own size. In fact, most specimens collected have been due to the fish eating something so big that it couldn't digest its prey completely before it started to decompose in its stomach, and the gasses generated lifted the swallower to the surface like some kind of grotesque balloon.
James Perry
Another of the freakier deep sea fish (which admittably is kind of redundant statement) is this baby right here, the Malycosteus niger, or stoplight loosejaw. That picture is accurate, by the way. The fish's jaws actually do that. Yes, this is a real animal that totally exists.
The "loosejaw" part of the name of the fish should be pretty obvious now. Its jaws are hinged in a way that lets its lower jaw spring forward and spear its prey. To reduce water resistance, it's even missing the floor of its mouth (confusingly enough, most of its diet appears to be actually composed of small invertebrares: how it can eat them with a hole in the bottom of its mouth I don't know).
The really interesting thing about the stoplight loosejaw, however, is the "stoplight" part. It generates red light! Not impressed? Well, there's only a handful of animals on the planet that can do that, with the only other fish all being close relatives to the stoplight loosejaw. As I mentioned above, red light is the first spectrum of light to be absorbed by water. Because of that most deep sea fish can't even perceive it. The stoplight loosejaw, however, can not only generate red light but also perceive it (using a really weird method no other animal does, that relies on a deriative of chlorophyl of all things). This gives it a short ranged "invisible searchlight" that is can use to illuminate its surroundings without being detected by predators/prey.
Kayden Kelly
The viperfish and the dragonfish are ones of those "classic" deep sea fish that everybody knows, along with anglerfish and gulper eel. They have long, serpentine bodies and very long teeth (infact, they need to have special "sheathes" for their teeth so they don't accidentally stab themselves in the brain whenever they close their jaws). Though the picture might look like the fish has scales, it actually doesn't. Instead the skin is covered with what wikipedia (always the reliable source) only calls "unknown translucent substance". Viperfish also have a bioluminescent lure attached to the dorsal fin like anglerfish. Unlike a lot of deep sea fish they're actually capable of swimming quite fast, if only for short periods of time, and can rise closer to surface to feed (apparently only during the night, because creatures such as these have no place in the world of daylight).
Another wird trait they have is that their larvae have their eyes at the end of very long stalks, which as they mature are slowly reeled in to their sockets. The remnants of the eyestalks are still present in the adult fish, coiled up in the base of the eyesocket.
Caleb Butler
How deep are skeleton shrimp found? They're small and harmless, but awesomely terrifying.
Nathan Edwards
Go on
Joshua Gray
This thread intrigues me, do go on OP
Isaac Gonzalez
Another example of sexual dimorphism among deep sea fish, here we have three fish that were found out to be one species only with DNA testing.
The female whalefish (which, being the first discovered, got to keep its original name) kind of looks like if you started drawing a fish but got bored halfway through. It's clearly a fish, and has most standard fishy bits, but is kind of missing all the details. The picture doesn't show it veyr well, but they also come in a vivid blood-red colour. They have small, almost non-functional eyes, but many pressure sensitive pores around their bodies, as well as a big gaping mouth that's standard for most deep sea fish (kind of lacking in the teeth departmen, though).
The male fish was originally known as the bignose, due to its well-developed olfactory organs. Its mouth, however, is atrophied and it must rely on the energy stored in its enlargened liver to survive long enough to find a mate.
The larval stage, as is common with deep sea fish, lives close to surface (deep sea fish eggs are usually buoyant and float up after being laid) until reaching maturity and descending to the lightless depths, never to see the sun again. Many of the traits common in deep sea fish (such as the very simple musculature and bone structure, and lack of swim bladder) may actually be due to neoteny, or the adult retaining traits normally found in fish larvae into adulthood.
According to a quick search, they're primarily found in shallow waters, although a few species live in the ocean depths as well.
Nolan Hernandez
I'd love to see more world building for this undersea vore hell.
What would the civilizations or justification for sentience be?
Easton Young
"Small and harmless, but awesomely terrifying", is pretty much the tagline for most deep sea creatures, by the way. Althoug I prefer to think of more as a difference in scale. In their own world they're plenty terrifying, but compared to us they tend to be small and harmless.
As a bit of a breather from all the terrifying things, lets look at something that both looks like and is harmless, even compared to other inhabitants of the abyss (unless you're a small shrimp or something, in whcih case it's still large and harmful enough). This is the lanternfish. You've probably not heard of it, or if you have not really spared a thought for it, but you're looking at what is probably the single most abundant vertebrate on the planet. There's relatively few species of lanternfish, but they make up for that with the sheer number of individuals, easily outmassing the population of every commercially fished species of fish combined.
Lanternfish aren't quite "true" deep sea fish, though, as they live in the twilight zone (not the one hosted by Rob Sterling), the area between surface waters and the abyss, where there is some light. They have some traits of deep sea fish, like light-producing organs and large eyes, but they lack the nightmarish appearance and have a swim bladder, which allows them to rise closer to surface to feed. Them having a swim bladder is actually a reason for a phenomena that used to baffle early sonar operators. When doing sonar scans in the open ocean, you can sometimes get an impression of a "false bottom" several miles above the actual ocean floor, which seems to vary in depth depending on the time of the day. Turns out the illusionary ocean floor is actually caused by sonar waves reflecting from the swim bladders of trillions of lanternfish and other similar vertically migrating deep sea dwellers.
Brandon Ramirez
>What would the civilizations or justification for sentience be?
Somebody dropped an intelligence-raising device in the area. Suddenly the abyss becomes the Underdark meets the Stone Age, all savagery and primitive tools and weird mythic beasts lurking around trying to eat you.
Jonathan Martin
Another entry for club "harmless but scary-looking", the hatchetfish (which from the side looks more like a normal fish, but from the front sports that lovely "damned soul in eternal agony" look) is another small deep-dwelling fish that rises closer to the surface during the night to feed on small invertebrates. That face is about what you'd expect from a relatively normal fish stuck in underwater vore hell with all the freaks uphread.
Realistically speaking, nothing. Resources are too limited, life too fragile. Not enough resources to sustain civilization, not enough energy to waste on developing a fancy brain that can think of concepts beyond "swim, swim, hungry".
But hey, in fantasy anythign is possible. I wrote rules for deep sea mermaids with traits based on different deep sea fish entirely because I thought it'd be cool, real life logic be damned.
Kayden Butler
Do deep sea fish feed on large corpses of whales and squids? Could the dead bodies of leviathan beasts, like say multi-kilometer whales, potentially provide enough food for the fish to get bigger and take on more features than the bare minimum required to swim, eat and mate?
Landon Johnson
Maybe the death of some ancient elder God whose corpse sank to the deep would create smarter life?
James Anderson
...
Lucas Walker
For something not a fish, we have the Vampiroeuthis infernalis, winner of the "most metal species name" award every year (seriously, this thing is literally called "vampire squid from hell"). Despite the name, the vampire squid is neither a vampire or a squid. It's more of a...morlock octopus or something. It's not quite an octopus either. The vampire squid is actually the only living member of an order of cephalopods that used to be more prominent during the mesozoic times (aka. then dnisaurs ruled the world, rather than just pooping on my car and getting breadcrumbs thrown at them by old ladies), but were eventually overthrown by the modern squids and octopuses. The sole surviving species managed to find an ecological niche in the deep sea, specifically the oxygen minumum zone (which is an area of ocean at the depth of 600 to 900 meters where, as the name implies, the oxygen content of water is at its minumum, too low to support most complex organisms). It feeds primarily on marine snow (matter composed of dead organisms and organic waste constantly drifting to the ocean floor) and presumably plots for the day it can take vengeance on the usurpers that banished it to the lightless depths (the thing is called a vampire squid, it can't not be brooding and kind of edgy).
When it comes to defence, the vampire squid subscribes to the "draw a blanked over your head and pretend you're not there" strategy tested by most children when confronted with a potential monster in their closet. Its tentacles are connected by a memberane with a balck underside (which is what it gets its name from, as somebody thought the membrane looked like the cape of a stereotypical vampire costume), which the squid can draw over its body to hide itself from view. While doing this, it also releases glowing ink and pulses its light in a way that makes it appear to be moving further away. Hopefully the potential threat chases after phantoms, leaving the real animal safe.
Isaac Hughes
After swimming the depths of the Aeons and creating life above, her last act of benevolence was to die and give her corpse to her children in the Dark.
Blessed be the mother who's body we feasted upon granted us souls and and knowledge of the self!
Landon Brooks
Whalefalls are very valuable source of food for things living in the abyssal plains (the practically endless expanse of mud that cover the bottom of most of the ocean), but not much use for the stuff I've covered so far, which tends to live considerably above the bottom (there's bottom-dwelling deep sea fish as well, at least as long as the bottom is above a certain depth, beyond which it gets impossible for vertebrates to survive simply due to limits of biology, but those ones are usually less freaky-looking since they've pretty similar to "normal" bottom-dwelling fish). Corpses of large animals can serve as "oasises" in the otherwise barren abyssal plains, attracting large amounts of scavengers or animals feeding on said scavengers. There'se several species of worms and micro-organisms evolved entirely to feed on bones of dead whales, for instance.
Cool, a piture I didn't have. That's less of a gulper eel and more of a viperfish/stoplight loosejaw combination, though. The skull of an actual gulper eel is simplified to the point of ridiculousness. See the drawing below the gulper eel in this picture.
Luke Williams
>so the prey won't notice it until they've literally swum right into its mouth
Badass as fuck
Owen Evans
OK, the abyssal plain. What do we have there? Mostly mud. Endless flat expanse of mud, covering area far large than all of the land surface of Earth combined. Mud that's almost entirely composed of remains of trillions upon trillions of organisms, constantly drifiting down from above like particularly disgusting snow. On the plus side, at leas you don't have to worry abotu food, as long as you're willing to eat mud compsoed primarily of fish poop and dead plankton.
Most common animals in the abyssal plains are sea cucumbers, crinoids, giant isopods and the like. You also got some fish, like this tripodfish (notable for perching itself some distance above the ocean floor with its elongated fins. They're also hermaphrodites and extremely long-lived), chimaeras (aka. ratfish, which are distant relatives of sharks and rays), and hagfish (which barely meet the definition of fish, or vertebrate in general). Some deep sea horrofish might alos be found around here, depending on the depth, but are usually confined to the parts of the abyss where the ocean floor might as well not exist. Things here tend to be a bit more boring-looking, since having giant mouths with needle-teeth isn't necessary when you can just eat mud rather than waiting for a month for something roughly your size to swim into your mouth. It's still not what one would consider a hospitable environment, though, as it's still impossibly vast and empty and mud isn't known for being very nutritious.
Zachary Foster
>which would be in the best interest of the first male
How would it be in his interest? He's dead.
Nathan Allen
>fish eating something so big that it couldn't digest its prey completely before it started to decompose in its stomach, and the gasses generated lifted the swallower to the surface like some kind of grotesque balloon.
fucking badass
Carter Evans
Another type of deep-sea "oasis" are underwater hydrothermal vents, such as the famous "black smokers" (there's also "white smokers", which as the name implies release white "smoke"; the difference is due to different mineral content of the wate). These are primarily found around mid-oceanic ridges, with some found near other geothermal hot spots. They form due to water circulating in fractures in the ocean floor and getting heated up by magma, at which point it rises up and dissolves minerals from the fracture walls, depositing them in its surroundings as the water cools (creating the characteristic "smoke" as well as the "chimneys" the smoke rises from). The water released from the vents is extremely hot and highly toxic to most form of life, but some bacteria can feed on the dissolved suplhur, and some animals, most famously giant tubeworms, have a symbiotic relationship with said bacteria. Other animals, like fish and crabs, eat the tubeworms and clams that rely on the bacteria to produce energy, forming the basis of an ecosystem independent from the sun.
Hydrothermal vent fields are apparently quite transient on long term, with individual fields usually only lasting for a few centuries, but new ones are also constantly forming in geologically active areas. The minerals they deposits could also potentially be economically viable, if they weren't so difficult to reach. Several major suphide ore deposits are, however, formed from ancient hydrothermal vent fields.
Juan Bennett
He's still alive. He gets his nutrients parasitically through the female.
Jeremiah Perry
Back on the "terrifying deep sea things" category, we have the goblin shark (also known as the elfin shark, because when I think of elves, I think of weird things with pink skin, elongated snout, and way too many needle-like teeth). A very primitive species of shark, being the only living member of a family that dates back over 100 million years. They're found around continental slops, underwater mountains, and undersea canyons worldwide, up to the depth of over 1 km (some of their teeth have been found lodged into underwater cables as deep as 1,3 km). The elongated snout has large amount of electricity-sensitive organs all sharks have, allowing it to search for prey even in total darkness. The long and narrow jaws can extend rapidly forward to catch prey.
Biologically speaking. A male "wants" to spread its own genes, so it's obviously better if it doesn't have to compete with other males. If the female anglerfish has only one male attached, it has to use that male's sperm to fertilize its eggs, while if it has multiple males it can fertilize its eggs using any of the males.
Nicholas Phillips
Here's a picture to better appreciate the weirdness. This one's from an individual that's been caught and brought to the surface, and has clearly dried up and shriveled, but they're about as freaky (although less wrinkled) in their natural environment.
Charles Sanchez
Ffangtooth (a pretty self-explanatory name), also known as the ogrefish. Pretty standard-looking as far as deep sea fish go, but it has two notable distinctions. It has the longest teeth on any animal relative to body size, and it's a tough mutherfucker. Most deep sea fish tend to expire, often explosively, immediately when brough to surface. Ogrefish, however, have survived several months in captivity. They are also among the deepest-living fish, having been documented as deep as 5 km.
Landon White
Oh uh, looks like posting weird stuff has summoned Yog-Sothot himself. All hail the One-In-All and All-In-One! Iä! Iä!
No, actually, this is a siphonephore. Or more accturately, these are siphonophorea. Siphonophorea, most commonly known of which is the Portuguese man'o'war, are relatives of jellyfish, but unlike jellyfish each of what seems to be one animal is actually a colony of multiple polyps. Deep sea siphonophorea are filter-feeders and lack the stinging cells of the man'o'war, but they make it up be being weird eldritch-looking masses of undulating tentacles that can be composed of thousands of individuals and be hundreds of meters long. Imagine driving around your submarine or whatever, and running into a hundred of meters long Cthulhoid thing. While completely harmless, this is another thing that manages to be terrifying by its sheer alienness.
Angel Barnes
It's getting late, and I'm starting to run out of new animals to introduce, so I'll just post some more pictures of the things I've already talked about.
Chase Wright
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Logan Green
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Tyler James
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Nathan Adams
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Jayden Foster
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Nathaniel Cox
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Evan Turner
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Gabriel Taylor
I like these old stlye illustrations. IIRC, this one was actually drawn by one of the first people to dive in a bathysphere and observe deep sea animals in their natural environment.
Ryder Martin
'Lantern bearing sea devils from station 74' is officially the best B-movie never made.
Well, I'm done for the night. I'd say I'll continue tomorrow, but I kind of expended most of my stuff (although still have more pictures, and I've also collected a decent amount of freaky deep sea mermaids to go with freaky deep sea fish). Maybe I should try to actually do an entire deep sea themed supplement for the oceanic-themed DnD homebrew thing I did.
Nicholas Roberts
I love how the top one is really nicely detailed, but the one on the bottom looks kind of half-assed.
Henry Ramirez
Top thread, AbyssalAnon. And please do, any and all freaky content is very welcome.
Tyler Peterson
jesus christ how horrifying
Jonathan Parker
>literally a Junji Ito creature
nope nope nope
This thread makes me want to do a Delta Green or Laundry game where the chars are exploring another dimension. Except the new dimension is just a deep sea trench... in a dimension where the life is mind boggling huge.
>send submersible through portal >12 mile long gulper eel passes overhead
jesus Christ why
Kevin Bailey
Awesome! I recently finished reading Starfish by Peter Watts. The Rifter's trilogy, plus this thread, make me really want to run a game in a deep sea setting.
Christopher Roberts
>elfin shark >not the Xenomorph Shark the "sticks it's jaws out of it's mouth" thing is kinda distinctive
Oliver Fisher
Excellent setting
I think I've seen a video of something like this
Thomas Sullivan
>2 meters long >it can swallow a fish of its own size or bigger
Jesus fucking christ. For years I consoled myself with the knowledge that most of these things were just a few inches long. My fucking God OP. You don't know what you've done to me.
Oliver Hughes
Me, scrolling through this image >Weird, weird, weird >WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT >Hey, she's kinda cute >Weird, weird, weird.
Jason Diaz
There's a few other quite big deep sea fish. This anglerfish is the largest species known, and is about as long as a grown man is tall.
However, even the big fish wouldn't be a threat to humans, because they're very soft and squishy (both because in order to survive the crushing water pressure their tissue needs to be mostly water that has the same pressure as the surroundings, and because they're ambush predators that don't water energy on developing powerful muscles).
Nathan Reyes
>I think I've seen a video of something like this Here's one that I've found. For some reaosn there's a pretty annoying background music, though.
That's nothing. Moray eels literally have a second set of jaws inside their throat like the xenomorph (look up pharyngial jaws; that's a real thing some animals have).
John Perry
Rolled 93 (1d100)
>video Roll for SAN loss.
Kevin Watson
This looks beautiful.
Parker Anderson
God dammit, I thought moray eels were scary enough, and now it turns out they also have xenomorph jaws.
I recommend this channel to everybody in this thread.
Benjamin Green
What type of deep sea fish is this?
Jason Hernandez
That's a Wo-class aircraft carrier boatslut (which, like the rest of the enemy fleet in boatsluts is loosely based on the USN fleet; in this case the Yorktown-class CV). She's a cute.
Joshua Cox
I want to touch transparent flesh.
Elijah Lewis
The angry ghost type
Parker Ortiz
This isn't the video I was talking about, but I think it's the same organism:
If I was actually going to write deep sea themed homebrew stuff for DnD (5th edition, since that's what most of my other hombrew has been), what exactly should I add? I've already statted a few deep sea creatures, and included a deep sea subrace of mermaids when I did a general oceanic-themed homebrew, but I consider that it could be expanded.
Also, have an actual deep sea themed 3rd party stuff (for PF, because you can find 3rd party stuff of anything for PF).
Benjamin Evans
Never seen that video before, those are some gross looking gills. I had no idea that's where they were, either.
Tyler Howard
>a "false bottom" several miles above the actual ocean floor, which seems to vary in depth depending on the time of the day dis really sounds scary
So back in the time before time, when the god of mankind began to explore on conquer the world, he came upon Leviathan, a sea beast of truly unfathomable proportions. Man god slew the beast but was unable to retrieve it from the sea due to its incredible size. The whale god sank down the depth of the ocean, fish devoured its flesh as it sank, letting its blood and organs seed the seas with strange and dangerous life that would always hate man. Fish spirits and mermen entered the beast's body to feast as it sank, some becoming trapped. When the beast finally reached the bottom of the ocean, it harbored a world's worth of creatures plucked from their homes. These beasts feasted, fought, and intermingled in the pitch darkness.
The sea beasts shrank and shriveled the longer they lived in the pitch black depths, their bodies wasted and thinned until not even bones held them together. They devoured the old god's brains and with it gained primeval knowledge of the old ways. They crafted the old god's body into a tremendous fortress of bone, flesh, and gore.
Centuries passed and the surface world forgot about the depths, mankind grew and prospered. He tilled the land, dug into the earth, even crossed the sea. But mankind would never dive down into the water depths. Where the sun dimmed sea demons would slay man with sharpened teeth, poison prongs, and raking claws. Even deeper the ocean itself tried to push man away, crushing him to dust if he resisted. Further still is a swarm of biting fish so thick they block all sight, stretching in every direction from horizon to horizon. Only the massive corpses of sea beasts penetrate this writhing layer of scales and teeth, even then barely intact.
These corpses have sunk and been collected and been collected, adding to the abomination of a home the deep things live in. It has grown and expanded, become almost as titanic as the beast that spawned it denizens.
Logan Davis
massive pillars of fossilzed bone hold it aloft in the eerie depths. No flesh of it touches the ocean floor, a mass of sucking mud host to long legged things that stride through sucking on the bed of offal and garbage twice devoured and thrown away until it hit the very bottom of the planet. The deep things live in the fortress suspended on those massive bones in homes of carved flesh. Their bodies squirming masses of tentacles and gills. They communicate through lights emitted from hideous bulbs on their face. They have crafted everything a civilization would need from the corpses of sea beasts. Their most valuable tools are tremendous hooks of carved bone secured to their fortress with stringy tendon and flesh to form miles and miles of tree thick rope. They cover these hooks in bulbs of precious air they have collected to pull the hooks outward and upward, allowing them to capture and harvest corpses across the sea, not just ones that fall above onto their fortress.
Sailors say that devils live at the bottom of the ocean. Stories and rumors passed down from sailor to sailor to sailor to sailor... They say these demons through up hooks from the ocean floor in a cruel parody of the fisherman. The hooks grab living things and pull them down, and sometimes, if the demons are feeling especially wicked, they let rise hooks on their longest lines which rise and rise until they break the surface of the waves. Their slimy body crawl across the hooks, looking for mankind which they hate with a ancient vendetta and pull them into the path of sea ships. Woe to the lookout who shirks his duty and lets his ship be driven onto one of these horrific hooks, for he is doomed to be pulled under the ocean, down and down to the very bottom of the world where fish will devour him alive and slick demons rip out his guts for their evil rituals.
