Sea Serpents

Sea Dragons, merfolk, and tritons may say otherwise, but the Sea Serpent sits atop the throne as king of the oceans. They may not be intelligent, and other than some innate resilience and the occasional fluke they have no magical aptitude to speak of, but considering they basically go where they want and eat just about everything, yeah.

— Jasper Cameron, Leader of the Bronze Ravens

Basic Information

Anatomy

The most unique feature of sea serpents would have to be their jaw and tooth structure. They have a pharyngeal jaw, which has led some to believe that they are related to Moray Eels. However, unlike the moray, which has teeth on both sets of jaws, only the inner jaw of a sea serpent has teeth. The outer jaw consists of a hardened bone ridge that is used for crushing.

Genetics and Reproduction

Turns out the king of the oceans should rightly be called a queen, at least according to our research.

Little is known about the mating habits of sea serpents. I will attempt to summarize what we do know, but keep in mind that most research is done via scrying, as close observation usually results in the researcher being eaten.
We start with the obvious. Sea serpents lay eggs... well, sort of. They hatch from eggs. Said eggs are stored in the tail end of the sea serpent matriarch (more on that later). Actually, without getting to confusing we will just talk about the life stages of sea serpents. But yes, like many sea creatures they hatch from eggs.

Growth Rate & Stages

• Egg: Once every 7 years, in the waters of Serpents Bay, the eggs of sea serpents hatch. All of them. Estimates are hard based on the nature of the hatching but a single spawning is estimated to be somewhere in the tens of millions.
• Fingerling: So named because when they hatch baby sea serpents are roughly the size of a finger. And hungry. After using their bony head ridge to pierce out of their shell they eat the egg. Then they start eating anything that they can in their surroundings while swimming towards "open water." It is theorized that this happens because the death of the mother (who is coiled around herself and the eggs in a massive cone with her head at the top) releases a chemical into the water, driving the young away, similar to how killing a shark can drive off other sharks for miles around. So yes, covering roughly 1 square mile at the bottom of Serpents Bay, once every 7 years, a Sea Serpent matriarch coils up and dies, shortly thereafter, millions of tiny sea serpents emerge, eating their way through their mother and each other to start their journey out of Serpents Bay to the Spawning Sea and eventually to the worlds oceans. The name is somewhat misleading as towards the end of the fingerling stage sea serpents are around 3 feet long.
• Juvenile: Having survived the fingerling stage at somewhere between a 1:10 and 1:100 ratio the young sea serpents continue to move out of Serpent's Bay passing under The Ruby Bridge. This is perhaps the second most dangerous part of their journey. Not only are the defending themselves from each other, and attempting to eat any of their smaller siblings or other aquatic creatures that they come across, they must also contend with a threat from above. As I am sure you are aware, being an intelligent reader and obvious fan of biology as you are reading this, The Ruby Bridge is famous not just for its existence, but also for the crystalline Jaccast, a legendary pack predator in their own right. Starting at around 3 feet, by the time they reach "adult" status and exit The Spawning Sea out into the worlds oceans, they are closer to 30 feet in length and more than capable of swallowing a man whole.
• Adult: Quite curiously, all adults that have been successfully examined appear to be male. They slowly grow larger and larger as they move inexorably towards The Edge of the Map. "Full size" is somewhat debated, but is largely considered to be somewhere between 300 and 500 feet.
• Matriarch: We now move from observed fact into the realm of conjecture. We know that once every 7 years 3 things happen that concern sea serpents . And, with the help of sea dragons and some merfolk tribes we also know that they happen as near to simultaneous as things in nature separated by so much distance can. First, a number of the oldest and largest sea serpents (some reports say as little 100, others put the number closer to a thousand) enter the oceans at The Edge of the World. Second. Somewhere along said border a new sea serpent Matriarch emerges and starts her journey through most of the worlds oceans on her way back to Serpents Bay. Third, the current Matriarch dies coiled in on itself in Serpents Bay shortly to be consumed by its millions of hatching spawn. What we dont know is what happens to the sea serpents that enter The Edge of the World that produces a Matriarch. Do they fight? Are they merged by the strange magics that permeate the area? Is the new matriarch from the previous group to enter, or do they stay in the chaotic waters longer? Due to the nature of the waters that comprise the Edge of the World, we will likely never know these answers. What we do know is that the sea serpent that emerges has its length measured in miles, is female, and traverses all known oceans (albeit in an ever changing order) over the next 7 years on her way back to Serpents Bay. 

Additional Information

Average Intelligence

Smarter than most fish, dumber than sea dragons

Scientific Name

Enchelycore gigantus

Lifespan

Matriarchs rumored to be around 1,000 years old

Average Length

Males: 300-500ft Matriarch: several Miles