Question up front: To what degree do Dark Myr remain amphibious?
Long version: I'm curious as to what exactly are the Dark Myr's remaining aquatic capabilities after the sacrifice of Syronai. I'm not screaming lore inconsistency or anything like that, because I'm pretty sure the answer is simple; I'm just really into the lore of the game and have so many questions that I wanted to start with something simple. Anyway:
In the telling of the invasion of Reignfall during the Deicide War on the Age of Chaos page, there is a passage that reads as follows:
...the Dark Myr waited patiently beneath the icy surface for an armada of Revenant transports and set upon them with murderous glee, sinking, burning and climbing on the decks of the silent convoy as it passed through the night. So fierce was their zeal that the Ogres assembled on the shoreline (expecting some ships to pass through) watched in astonishment until their allies finished the fight.
To me, the above passage implies that the Dark Myr were capable of subnautical combat in conditions too harsh for, say, an Ogre to operate in (read: frigid temperatures, longterm submergence, etc.). I guess this does not mean necessarily that the post-arrival Myr are capable of breathing underwater on Terminus, but it does mean they must still retain some advantages in the aquatic arena not present in other races.
Remember from the Dark Myr page three things: that the waters of Terminus are poison to the traditional breathing apparatus of the Dark Myr, and that Syronai's sacrifice had two consequences:
[Her sacrifice gave] them a lung by which to breath on land and legs with which to walk.
Neither of those are useful traits for traversing harsh oceans, and legs in fact are quite detrimental, nevermind the fact that the legs very clearly are transfigured from some other appendage (probably but not necessarily a tail, speculating here is not the point), ostensibly more suited to aquatic life.
I guess my question boils down to: If the Dark Myr lost their appendages most useful for aquatic life, and are not capable of underwater respiration, what advantages do they still retain? How amphibious are they?
I assume the answer is simple: that they have advantages similar to a frog's traits. I'm just curious if anybody had any additional insight.
Secretion of slimy substances to increase glide in water?
Skin between places like fingers and toes to increase easy of swimming?
Extreme ability to hold breath?
Hightened underwater senses? (Hearing, smell, maybe that thing sharks do with electric signals?)
Just some plausible possibilities I thought of, got no lore or anything to back it up.
//Voices of Terminus' Youmu Svartie
If you look at the races page and mouse over or click the Myr picture, it changes. There is a land picture with legs and a water picture with tail/fin.
I am guessing it's like TV where the change when wet/dry.
I also got the feeling that they could shapeshift between the land and sea versions. In the lore it says that after killing Syronai, the Nythirian Red went back into the sea to search for a way to return to their true form. At that point, I guess they couldn't breath in the Terminus oceans...but that was in the Age of Chaos. It seems that they have found a solution or adapted/mutated by the Frail Age. I also remember reading somewhere that their starting city was aquatic. I can't remember where I saw that, though. Anyway, the last passage of their lore reads:
In the present Frail Age, the Dark Myr are seeking to claim the old glories of Issul. They have subdued their realm of the ocean and built a glorious city in honor of Syronai. Yet beneath the surface of splendor, there is an unsettling current that runs through the deep places, where the Dark Myr have descended like the ancient leviathans they were born to destroy.
That makes me think they have the water-breathing under control by this point, and also that their city is underwater. I guess it could be interpreted in different ways, though.
That's possible, but "beneath the surface of splendor" might be a play on words to describe the apparent calm of their society using words that evoke the ocean. Doesn't explain the descent into deep places though, so I assume you're right. It was just interesting to me to the lore description page went into detail describing their painful loss of connection to the sea, but suddenly they're justback to being aquatic like nothing happened.
Beefcake said:If you look at the races page and mouse over or click the Myr picture, it changes. There is a land picture with legs and a water picture with tail/fin.
I am guessing it's like TV where the change when wet/dry.
Which would make them amphibious..exactly why I want to play them, aside from ocean exploration and probably my own home beneath the sea. :)