Sahuagin
Sahuagin are evil fish-people from Dungeons & Dragons. Rapacious predators who consider it their manifest destiny to conquer the oceans, they are known as the sea-devils and as shark-men for their malevolent "shark-like" personality, violent hatred of weakness and infirmity, rampant cannibalism, and ability to commune with sharks - although in terms of looks they more closely resemble the Creature from the Black Lagoon with a tail and a beartrap for teeth.
Sahuagin first showed up in the "Blackmoor" supplement in the mid 1970s, despite having no role in Arneson's campaign as far as the First Fantasy Campaign book would tell us. Thus they were distinguished from merfolk from almost the get-go. The sahuagin didn't move to the BXCMI books; X6: Quagmire! went with elsewhere-Neutral lizardmen and mermen (sic) instead (but evil!). They never made good proxies for Deep Ones, being far too sane, so designers have created other aquatic (Aboleth) or amphibious (Kuo-toa) beasties for that niche.
They were one of the "big races" in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons; like Orcs, they received a huge entry in the Monster Manual, and went on to have their own book in the Monstrous Arcana series, called "The Sea Devils". Unlike Orcs, they have a more Nazi-esque mentality, with everyone knowing their place and working for the greater good (well, greater evil), and so they have a racial alignment of Lawful Evil. Sahuagin are also notorious for their propensity to have mutations; four-armed sahuagin are extremely common and usually rise to the highest positions (those seven attacks are a killer!) and the infamous malenti are sahuagin who perfectly resemble sea elves. Eberron ran with this, saying it's because they're the rare intelligent race that practices mage-breeding (magical genetic engineering) on themselves.
It's also noteworthy that the vast majority of of aquatic good or neutral races are limited to a small habitats like shores or rivers or the underdark, are isolationist, or in the case of Sea Elves, not only have malenti infiltrators to deal with, but are in comparison? Dumb. That's right, Sea Elves have intelligence of 8 (less than humans or land elves!)- and Sahuagin have a 14, making them a species of geniuses. Combined with being numerous, organized, and having their own patron god who doesn't mess their society up with mandatory backstabbing, Sahuagin implicitly own the sea elves in most D&D worlds.
The rivals of the sahuagin are largely tritons and merfolk. The 3.5 supplement Stormwrack introduced an enemy to the sahuagin in the form of the darfellan race, killer whale people who opposed the sea devils with the aid of their patron Whale Mother for previously slaughtering many of their kind. The darfellans have not been seen since, however.
| The Races of Pathfinder | |
|---|---|
| Player's Handbook: | Dwarf - Elf - Gnome - Half-Elf - Half-Orc - Halfling - Human |
| Advanced Race Guide: |
Aasimar - Catfolk - Changeling - Dhampir - Duergar Drow - Fetchling - Gillman - Goblin - Grippli - Hobgoblin Ifrit - Kitsune - Kobold - Merfolk - Nagaji - Orc - Oread Ratfolk - Samsaran - Strix - Suli - Svirfneblin - Sylph Tengu - Tiefling - Undine - Vanara - Vishkanya - Wayang |
| Bestiaries: | Android - Astomoi - Caligni - Deep One Hybrid - Gathlain Gnoll - Kasatha - Munavri - Naiad - Orang-Pendak Reptoid - Rougarou - Shabti - Trox - Yaddithian |
| Adventure Paths: | Being of Ib - Kuru |
| Inner Sea Races: | Ghoran - Monkey Goblin - Lashunta - Skinwalker Syrinx - Triaxian - Wyrwood - Wyvaran |
| Ultimate Wilderness: | Vine Leshy |
| Blood of the Sea: | Adaro - Cecaelia - Grindylow - Locathah - Sahuagin - Triton |
| Planar Adventures: | Aphorite - Duskwalker - Ganzi |
Monstergirls
 | This article or section is about Monstergirls (or a monster that is frequently depicted as a Monstergirl), something that /tg/ widely considers to be the purest form of awesome. Expect PROMOTIONS! and /d/elight in equal measure, often with drawfaggotry or writefaggotry to match. |
In a nutshell, /tg/ likes shark-girls, sahuagin are the closest thing in D&D to a shark-people race, so turning sahuagin into sexy shark-girls isn't unknown.
The Monster Girl Encyclopedia has the Sahagin (based on the Final Fantasy "homage" to the sahuagin), a kuudere amphibious MG. She is wearing an ugly school swimsuit because it is well-known that the Japanese people have an uncomfortable fixation on such things.
See Also
Gallery
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AD&D Monster Card
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The Sea Devils cover
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