Alright, you've convinced me to convert the feylike silkie.
Good!
I'll save you some time:
The Silkie
Created by Tom Moldvay
FREQUENCY: Uncommon
NO. APPEARING: 1-8
ARMOR CLASS: 5
MOVE: 30”
HIT DICE: 6
% IN LAIR: 10%
TREASURE TYPE: W (no map)
NO. OF ATTACKS: 2
DAMAGE/ATTACK: 2-8
SPECIAL ATTACKS: Pack attack
SPECIAL DEFENSES: Silver, or + 1 weapon to be hit
MAGIC RESISTANCE: Standard
INTELLIGENCE: High +
ALIGNMENT: Chaotic Good
SIZE: L
PSIONIC ABILITY: Nil
The Silkie are a race of wereseals. In their non-animal form, they appear as black-haired, gray-eyed Half Elves and have all typical Half-Elf abilities. Silkie Half Elves usually fight with flint spears, daggers, double-headed axes, or polished stone hammers. On land, Silkie warriors wear multi-layered, sharkskin armor and use sharkskin shields (AC4).
Silkie seals are usually distinguishable from normal seals by their large size. Silkie seals have one ramming attack for 2-8. When fighting enemies who are in small to medium-sized boats, Silkie often try to ram the boat en masse, overturning it, then drowning their victims by force of numbers. Silkie often travel with 2-12 seals (AC6, Move 24”, HD2, ram attack 1-6). They may summon 1-10 dolphins, provided the dolphins are no further than ½ mile away (1-10 turns away swimming at normal speed).
Silkie are allied to dolphins and Aquatic Elves in their war against Sahuagin and Sharks. Good will exists between the Silkie and the non-aquatic races of Elves and Half Elves (except the Drow). Silkie are tolerant toward Tritons, Locathah, Mermen, and any Human to whom they are related. Silkie are antipathetic toward Ixitxachitl or any other evil sea race, and Neutral toward all other races. Silkie do sometimes feud with fishermen, particularly if the fishermen also hunt seal pelts, net Aquatic Elves, or over-fish an area to near depletion.
All Silkie are descended from Angus MacOdrum. In the legendary past, Angus, a high-level Magic-User and Fighter, led an Aquatic Elven army to victory against a Sahuagin incursion. Angus married 12 Aquatic Elven sisters; from these unions came the Silkie race (Silkie enemies claim this legend is an invention, and that Angus was merely an overly proud magician whom the gods cursed and who passed this curse on to his descendants). Clan MacOdrum encompasses Silkies, Humans, and Aquatic Elves in approximately 50%-25%-25% ratio. The MacOdrum of MacOdrum is always a Silkie, who takes the name Angus upon mounting the Clan throne.
An occasional Silkie family builds a sea cave lair but most (90%) Silkie live in Land Under Wave. Land Under Wave is composed of several unnamed cities built completely under water. The cities are separated by hundreds of miles but are linked into one by a magical teleportation mass-transit system. Each city is kept by by a magical bubble dome. The same magic maintains a constant supply of fresh air and the artificial sun which powers the city and provides light, heat, and allows for weather control. It is usually the climate of early summer or late spring in Land Under Wave. Fruits and vegetables grow all year round (the only meat Silkies eat is that which they catch while as seals).
Land Under Wave is a wonder. Buildings are made of multicolored, polished marble, heavily ornamented with gold, silver, and jewels. The architectural style is light and airy. All buildings are interconnected by passages under the sea floor. More than half the land area is taken up by intricate formal gardens with flowing brooks and fountains. Land Under Wave would be a paradise were it not for one fact: All servants are captured Humans.
The Silkie roam isolated rock skenies and beaches at night to dance under the moonlight Whenever they manage to find an unguarded Human baby or child, they will steal that child, replacing it with a soulless changeling. Human MacOdrums are never taken, as they are kin, but all other Humans are fair game.
The captured child is raised in Land Under Wave. The captivity is far from harsh. The child attends Silkie schools and is adopted into Silkie families. Still, the child is a captive, and must serve a full fifty (Human) years from the time the child learns its jobs until the time of release. Even so, captivity is looked upon as a blessing. Time flows differently in Land Under Wave and the period of fifty-year service ages the Human servant but a decade.
Furthermore, the Silkie are natural Magic-Users and teach their servants many useful spells, besides rewarding them handsomely with gold and jewels upon release. Many captives choose to remain in Land Under Wave rather than return to the surface world.
Land Under Wave is filled with magic. The elder Silkie all settle down to a life of elegant leisure intermingled with magical research. Only the younger Silkie venture out of Land Under Wave to mingle with other races and dance beneath the moon.
Unlike other lycanthropes, Silkie can only change into seals by donning a magical seal skin. Any individual who captures a Silkie seal skin can force that Silkie to do his bidding. A controlled Silkie cannot lie to its master and will perform any reasonable service or promise any reasonable ransom for the return of his seal skin (without which he cannot dive deep enough to reach Land Under Wave). As long as the captor continues to act honorably, the Silkie will faithfully fulfill its part of the bargain. Any dishonorable or treacherous act on the captor’s part frees the Silkie from obligation.
Silkies, in human form, may cast the following spells:
Friends,
Mending,
Unseen Servant,
Read Magic,
Forget,
Fools Gold,
Gust of Wind, and
Lightning Bolt. All spells are cast as a sixth-level Magic-User.
A captive Silkie is under magical geas not to use its spells against its captor. The geas holds only so long as the captor’s actions remain honorable with respect to the Silkie. The elder Silkie have much more powerful spells, particularly sea magic and weather magic, but they venture out of Land Under Wave only on extreme occasions and are encountered very rarely.
Originally appeared in Dragon Magazine #41 (“Dragon’s Bestiary - The Silkie” by Tom Moldvay, Sept 1980).