Selkie History
During the first, terrible moments of the Larsan Folly, few would argue that Bhujerba became the worst place on Ivalice. Like so many other cities, the floating island was wracked by the effects of mist and madness, and the malfunction of magicite. Bhujerba however suffered from a unique problem; two days after the onset of the cataclysm it plummeted from the sky. The impact with the ocean killed nearly half the city population outright, and the resulting shockwave carried through the ocean, causing a tidal wave that brought devestation to coastal cities and villages. As the island sank over the course of a week, survivors who had shaken off the effects of the Mist sought escape. Some tried to use no longer functioning airships as surface vessels; most of them sank, dooming their occupants. Most of the survivors, however, had no recourse but to retreat to the mines and hide in air pockets, there to await their deaths.
As they languished in the gradually flooding mines, there stepped forwards a saviour. A woman, who's name is recorded as Eleana Sellan, made an offer to the dieing people of Bhujerba. She offered them life; a new life, and one that would allow them to keep not only their lives, but their beloved city as well. The offer did not come without a price. In turn, she demanded that they swear fealty to he who granted Eleana the power to save them. Cuchulainn the purifier, as she told them, would grant them this salvation if only they would pledge their gratitude and worship solely to him. At first the bhujerbans remained reluctant and skeptical. Diminishing air supplies soon encouraged minds to change, however. First in handfuls, and then in droves, the survivors pledged their lives and afterlives to the service of Cuchulainn.
What transpired next is an event not entirely understood in history, though it is known that Eleana sacrficed her life in order to channel the power required to transform the people of Bhujerba. Over the course of days, much of it spent in fear and agony, their bodies changed in form and essence. They gave up a portion of their humanity, and in turn received the means to survive in their new environment, by taking on the forms of creatures that lived their. While they could still assume human form (albeit with subtle features that betrayed their nature, such as webbed fingers), they could change to become seals, sea lions, walruses, or otters.
Though they had not been given the ability to breath water itself, most could hold their breath long enough in either form to make great dives, and carry out lengthy work sessions under water. The new race, calling themselves Selkies, went straight to work on the Bhujerban ruins. They stripped buildings and crashed airships for materials to use in sealing the air pockets and bringing air down from the surface, to refill them and turn Bhujerba into a place they could live in once more. For nearly three years they toiled, and their pride in their accomplishments grew steadily every passing week.
While they worked, the Selkies came to realize that they were not alone in the ocean. There were others down there with them. Strangers could occasionally be seen, skulkin about in the reefs and shadows, coming only by the dim light of dusk or the midnight stars to gaze at their city from a distance. The visits eventually came to be almost nightly, before they stopped entirely, without explaination. The Selkies kept lookouts, and made forays into the surrounding ocean, but found nothing but sand and sharks and coral.
After nearly a month of quiet, in the middle of the night all hell broke loose. The Selkies were awoken by a cacophany of noise and tremors. A veritable army of fish-men, the Mer, had launched an all out surprise assault against their city. Mages blasted powerful spells at the surface of the rock, while their warriors assaulted the seals that kept the air inside and slaughtered any who dared fight back or so much as argue about the matter. The Selkies put up a brave resistance, and drew the battle out to last several days. The Mer forces proved superior, and with each day air pockets faced destruction, leaving the Selkies with less and less of their beloved city to cling to. In the final hours of the conflict they bellowed out to Cuchulainn, begging and demanding his retribution against the Mer, even resorting to the blood sacrifice of the few Mer warriors they had captured. It did not come, and the Selkies were forced to abandon their homes. The Mer allowed most of them to leave without a fuss; a few they kept to use as slave labour, finding some of the deepest portions of the magicite mines impossible to flood at the time.
The Selkies became a scattered race, washing up on islands and the shores of Ivalice in small groups. They built ocean-side hovels, and had no choice but to toil endlessly to earn a meager leaving from the ocean, as they clung to the rocks and shores where they had washed up. Many of them hardened their hearts against the Mer, fostering a quiet, enduring hatred against those who had cast them out from their city. Others stared up at the sky, wondering why Cuchulainn had abandoned them in their hour of need. In time, hatred and wonder coalesced into a belief. They had failed Cuchulainn, they reasoned. They had failed to worship, while they worked on their city. They had failed to offer him proper tribute, and so their city had been taken from them by the devils of the sea.
Today the Selkies live in their ocean-side hovels still. They are a race of outcasts, largely refusing to involve themselves in the interests of Ivalice as a whole. Their villages are organized into tribes, run by chiefs and shamans to Cuchulainn. Outsiders are regarded with deep suspicion and hunger, for the Selkies always calculate how they might appease the hunger of their dark deity, who is not content to take only the souls of those in his thrall. Most of the other races of Ivalice remain wary of the Selkies, in turn; especially sailors, who know the shapeshifters have a fondness for luring sailors to wreck their ships in treacherous waters. Still, not all of the Selkies live thus. Occasionally, one will reject the teachings of their elders, or at the very least give in to curiosity. Those who do usually leave their villages in secret, and travel wherever their whim might take them, to see what else their might be in the world; and maybe find some way to save their souls.
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