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>>89770311
If anyone cares why, there are ley-lines under the sea that bad things like fucking with, the whales generally keep these clear of bad-shit and have a sort of symbiotic relationship with several port cities, as no one wants rape-chtulu coming out of the sea. No one hunts whales for this reason, but they do generally try to beach themselves when dying, except whalebone is for reasons above, more revered than utlititarian.
Kind of think native americans idealised relationship with animals. Except possibly with some human sacrifice.

Depends how loosely you want to define 'natural', but if you wanted to play up the symbiotic relationship theme could you do something with barnacles? Failing that all I can think of is some sort of ablative fishy drone-like companions.

>>89770343
>barnacles
That's not a bad idea anon. I was trying to think of something like the OP pic, but there's not a lot (beyond maybe polished and treated bone) that might work underwater and still let you swim.
Is whales armoured in the bones of their dead relatives a bit much?

>>89770311
>>89770320
Taking into consideration what you said here, the armour is made by the port towns, and its a huge event when a whale comes in to get there armour repaired or fitted, it will also have spikes for offense.
The armour itself is made from a material made out of limestone, sand, and shells. with metal, bone, wood and anything else used to reinforce it.
The process of collecting shells from the beaches is a weekly religious activity, and they accumulate tons over time, the mixture is molted and casted into powerful crystalline pieces with dull colour.
The whales in return protect the port town from other human fleets

>>89770516
It's nice to see some old /tg/ style neckbearding going on here anon. Thank you for this.
So you reckon the armour would be a sort of concrete mix? I'm not sure if that can be neutrally buoyant but I very much like the religious aspect of finding things that wash up to armour the whales. I am not averse to throwing in some very thick scales from another sea-critter (maybe they hunt those instead of whales?) or giant sea urchins I suppose?
Also imagine sitting on the quay having a smoke and this floating tank comes up to say hi.

Unrelated.
>Is it all whales?
I was going with it just being sperm whales but now I like the idea of different species of whale doing different things.

>>89770631
NTA that suggested the port town thing, but I can see the whales bringing those people fish or other creatures that the whales have hunted in order to do a sort of exchange. The humans craft the scales or bones into armor for the whales in exchange for the meat or other materials. >>89770320 mentioned drone-like companions that I think could fit the whole bushido thing as well. Samurai and knights would have helpers who would help them don their armor. Perhaps there is another aquatic species that works with the whales in order to keep their environment more safe. A creature that has more flexibility/maneuverability to create armor but lacks the strength of a whale to defeat enemies? And so they assist the whales keep the safety of their habitat by crafting armor and helping them equip it. Just a thought.

>>89770311
Do you want undersea metalworking? Our them trading for armour with land dwellers?
Otherwise it's either magic a la mage armour, or organic, either exoskeletal of they grow it themselves, idk like enlarged theet, or they harvest it from coral or dead whales and shape it like it's wraithbone

>>89770311
Blue Earth literally has this.

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>>89770311
The lead singers of the Whale Choir are Sperm Whales covered in barnacles, sharpened* by their servants. Their blowholes make the lightning which coordinates the choir's singing as to summon storms and calm the seas. They only do this when the Sea and Night goddess orders them.

*Which sometimes is a real thing on the flippers of Humpback whales, making nasty scars on the Orcas that prey on their offspring.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/mms.12343
See the "Armed Response" section.

The Sea Amazons, on the other hand, use pairs of Chitons as living cuirasses, which could also be a suitable armoring.

>>89771263
Never heard of it, there's some retro Japanese vidya called that according to Google?
>>89771298
Barnacle-blades. Ok that's actually pretty cool. Maybe this could be something "grown" onto the whales? I'm picturing something almost like a wet-dock with people helping the growth of razor sharp banracles.
>>89771167
Trading I think, undersea metal working is a complete pain, but wraithbone is seeming a very interesting option.
>>89771116
>helpers
Well that's obviously porpoises for their enormous battle-whale cousins. Neat idea there anon.

>>89770631
>is concrete neutrally buoyant
I'm no physicist, but - as with iron and steel - concrete has been used in shipbuilding. Go look up "liberty ships" - go on, I'll wait.

So a liberty ship floats. The Titanic floated until she started taking on water. And yet if you throw a cannonball or a cinderblock into a pond, it sinks.

Then again, everyone knows wood floats in water, right? OK. Now go away and look up "ironwood".

I would say go with whatever materials thematically fit your setting and handwave the rest. Your party are not going to try and play Archimedes with an armoured whale. If they do, just remind them that a submarine can change its depth at will, and so can the whale.

Loving some of the ideas in the thread, especially humans contributing to the crafting and offerings being incorporated. What if armour was important for heredity - that it is passed down through families, perhaps to the strongest singer? Also for some ideas on culture, read the first book of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy - there are intelligent polar bears who craft armour out of meteoritic iron, and it plays a really important societal role.

Barnacles, bones of other whales or if you want something more "savage" /naturalistic you could replicate the aztecs: Their armour was made of cotton and corn leafs so maybe your whales weave seaweed and maybe throw some marine obsidian from the underwater volcanic activity
Let's be real, they getting nowhere without fire or metalurgy

>>89770311
Watch this. I suggest watching the whole thing, but skip to 45 minutes in and watch from there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHT07mIIgEk&ab_channel=AlphaBetaGamer

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>>89771349
Sorry blue planet

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>>89773897

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If you want some idea of how and where to armour up an aquatic creature, look at the extinct placoderms like dunkleosteus.
Evolution isn't perfect, but it will armour the bits that need it and not waste resources armouring the bits that don't need it, so you can assume that armour on a whale should mostly be focused on the head and forward-facing.

Trying to craft underwater would be difficult, given it's hard to hammer things given water resistance, sufficient heat to mold metal is hard to get, and so on. The idea of humans being the crafting specialists, tool users that we are, doing the kitting out for nature's multi-ton underwater warriors is fucking kino and I like it.

>>89773940
Thank you Anon. I'm glad you like the idea. I also really appreciate the suggestion re dunkleosteus. I've been trying to visualise the armour which I imagine would have at least one or more spikes built in as whale on monster combat is probably going to involve a lot of ramming.
>>89773911
>>89773897
That's OK Anon. I have dyslexic moments too. I see what you were getting at.
>>89771617
Neat!
>>89771364
>>89773940
I think it's going to have to be humans making the armour for the whales, maybe even blessing it or doing other shit that makes the whales more likely to survive. Possibly what that other Anon said about wraithbone and growing it from the bones of old whales. I like the idea it can't be removed so the whales are also reliant on the humans to feed them or at least help them (this may be where the sacrifice bit comes in...).
>>89771357
>your party are not going to play archimedes with an armoured whale
You don't know these idiots. The last time I posted some of their lunacy /tg/got me writing what was basically a novel about it.

>>89771298
Also I just got around to read that article.
>Whale flipper barnacle swords
That's absolutely brilliant. Now if the people in the cities and grow/wraithbone armour they can obviously do the same with barnacles.
>I think I'm having an idea here.
Armoured serrated humpback whale samurai slicing shit up below the pelagic zone.
Even better, isn't wraithbone sung into shape? What do whales do? Sing.

>>89774365
taking dunkleosteus' armour as a base and then slapping spikes on is probably doable! You'd probably want a few things on the front and a few on the sides, or potentially top and bottom, since cetaceans can thrash up-down fairly well.
While we as humans love the idea of "weapon in forelimb", I don't know if whales would do as well there.

also I am very fond of
>My music will shape the wraithbone
and it could bring in a need for cooperation, since different species (whale, other cetacean, and human) can reach different pitches. Hell, if you want Religious Overtones you could have full choral stuff going on as well as organs not like that that transmit human music into the water.

>>89774454
>Catholic Mass as a way of singing the armour into shape replete with candles, a whale half beaching itself and a basilica made of the bones of its ancestors, half a dozen species of mammal joined in song to forge the armour that helps bind the world into shape.
I think we're onto something here Anon
I've missed /tg/getting shit done.

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>>89774425
How about adding other species of whale/dolphin which are the "bonesingers"?

>>89774454
Tail fins are a good spot for armor as well.

>since different species (whale, other cetacean, and human) can reach different pitches.
Let the pod of three dozen dolphin sing, Humans have a different purpose on the ritual of panoply: playing the instruments that focus and coordinate the melody.

Drums and flutes at a couple boats, playing together with the pod as everyone surrounds a whale.

>>89774532
Beaching also has a lot of Religious Markers. You can get a lot out of wielding the Catholic Penance and Suffering hammer here.
>Entering a space normally forbidden to your kind
>As a literal physical journey
>The space itself is dangerous, but necessary for advancement
>Sensation in the space will be different
>Beaching will both test your endurance and will mark you from rock and sand scuffing your body
>Whales already have a lot of scarring from things like smaller fish biting them, shark attacks, tearing off barnacles, various parasites

that's a thought - a minor upside of a long term relationship with humans would be that whales could get cleaned better.

>>89774564
Instead of protective armour for the tail fins, how about some degree of steering-changing stuff? Using what amount to prosthetic Control Surface extensions to change the mobility and maneuverability of the whale?
If some whales are going for things like bludgeoning or spiked face-plates to hammer or smack things with, others could go for blades on the armour and doing long passes up and down targets, for which they'd want a different maneuverability profile (I assume. I am not a marine biologist.)

>>89774365
Yeah not many games let you play as a dolphin with a harness + equipment

>>89770311
>"low-fantasy"
>there's a race of intelligent talking whale-samurai who wear armor made from magical songs and help humans fight monsters

Getting real tired of this buzzword...

>>89774720
Low fantasy shouldn't even have magic past basic thaumaturgy and small flames.

>>89774720
Do I mean mid fantasy then? I don't really know the terminology. I am sorry to have angered you with my whale based idea generating Anon. There's not much magic in the world or at least there wasn't until this all came along.
>>89774705
Didn't Echo have one? It's been a long time.
>>89774647
>Catholic spiritual whales in liminal spaces
Well now that's cool as fuck.
For plot reasons there is of course the usual darkness rising, trade problems across the seas limiting access to (something important for whale singing) and maybe even a schism in the church.
>whale tails
But of course Anon. Don't whales slap things with them? I imagine a bladed edge or something wouldn't throw off their swimming abilities too much.

>>89774720
Yeah we need actual words that describe things, low fantasy and high fantasy is too vague.
Maybe No Magic, Low Magic, Mid Magic, High Magic.
Maybe another word for how departed it is from our own world. Like No shift(our world with little changes, like WoD), low shift(different world but reminds us of ours), medium shift (like middle earth), high shift (like WoW anywhere other than azeroth, or literally any brandon sanderson world).

>>89774793
Blue Earth

>>89774365
>You don't know these idiots.
If your players attempt to figure out whether your setting is scientifically plausible by calculating the displacement of an armoured whale to determine its density, and then calculating how that would behave when immersed in salt water... I think I need to read your greentexts.

>>89774705
>a dolphin with a harness + equipment
A shame nobody ever made a seaQuest DSV RPG... or perhaps not.

>>89774895
>idiots
If you type "Britbongsteros" into 1d4chan some kind Anon archived a lot of the last time I started telling stories. The relative density of an armoured whale is the least of our worries.

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I just wanted an excuse to post Aqua Knight

>>89774793
Actually yeah "mid-fantasy" would be okay, for somewhere in between say The Witcher and Eberron.

FWIW I thought the barnacle armor idea was kind of neat, since it's playing up the whale aspect. I wouldn't go with metal for an undersea race with no hands, that's a bit silly.

>>89774895
>SeaQuest RPG
Ahem. https://1d4chan.org/wiki/WETSUIT

>>89774999
>The relative density of an armoured whale is the least of our worries.
Yeah, you're not wrong there. I once read an epic Shadowrun greentext, and so far this is better... your table must be an absolute riot, anon. Bunch of mad lads. I'd love to get you lot playing Paranoia!

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>>89774999
>We are going on an adventure to the North Pole.
https://archive.4plebs.org/tg/thread/38136190
Checked.

>>89770311
>>they do practice the whale version of bushido. Ceta-shido?
Bushidou is 武士道, force (of arms) + warrior/gentleman + way. Whale is 鯨 and is read 'gei' in compounds, so I would substitute it in the middle to create 武鯨道, 'bugeidou'.

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>>89770311

>>89779622
This.

>>89770311
Go play South Scrimshaw

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>>89779622
>>89781423
Anons, what am I looking at here?