Kraken

"Where are we right now, Captain?" I asked, peering through my personal spyglass.
"Nowhere near anything solid. About three more days sail until we can sight the northern continent," he answered confidently. "Why do you ask?"
"Because I could swear I see a sandbar off the port bow, maybe a half-kilometer out," I replied with a frown. Looking concerned, he issued orders to a couple sailors who scrambled up to check on the man in the crow's nest before pulling his own spyglass from a coat pocket. Sighting where I indicated, he paused, then cursed.
"Full sails, take us thirty degrees starboard!" he bellowed, pocketing his instrument again as he swiftly strode down to the lower deck. "All hands at the ready! Prepare for combat, cutlasses and axes!"
"What is it?" I asked breathlessly, trying to keep up as he strode to the cabins and began strapping weapons on.
"A kraken, unless I'm mistaken. Once it realizes we're turning away at speed instead of investigating, it'll likely catch us up quickly enough." I wanted to scoff at his words, but his tone and expression were grim and fearful. "I'll need you to stay here in the cabins until this is over," he told me seriously.
Those who have never seen a kraken dismiss them as fanciful tales meant to make weeks-long voyages sound more exciting. Those who have survived a kraken attack or come upon the resulting wreckage don't speak of the creatures if they can help it, hoping they won't draw one to themselves via superstition.
Appearing in recorded sizes from two to forty meters in length, it would be easy to dismiss them as simple-minded leviathans, but the truth is more terrifying: Kraken are highly intelligent self-aware beings, tyrants of the lightless depths that occasionally rise to the surface to remind the sunlight world of their dominion over the waters of the world. Their favorite game on the surface is to pose as a sandbar or shipwreck in unlikely places on major shipping lanes, devouring and destroying the first vessel to investigate. Vessels who choose to sail on are usually attacked anyway, possibly in anger over not playing into the trap as expected.
Smaller kraken are seen far more often than their elders; likely theories hold that the surface bears fewer predators capable of threatening the younger members of the species than the depths do. Based on corpses which have washed up on shore, some of the predators in the deep may be their own kin.

Magic of the Seas

Enhancing their already-intimidating presence and physical abilities, Kraken are able to use magic, though it is of no methods or disciplines surface races can recognize. Combining patterning of their skin pigments with undulations of their arms and tentacles, the one magic known for certain from the race is their ability to create illusions.

Basic Information

Anatomy

Kraken are cephalopods with elongated bodies. They are mainly soft-bodied but have an internal skeleton in the form of a rod-like gladius or pen, made of chitin. A ring of large eyes encircles the main body, while a varying number of arms and tentacles extend from the lower body in a ring. At the center of the ring of limbs is a chitinous beak, which can deliver snapping bites of crushing force. Worse, behind the beak is a circular maw with three layers of toothed rings of muscle.
The longer tentacles extend half-again as long as the main body, their undersides filled with powerful suction cups, each of which bears a curved claw at its center. The arms, roughly two-thirds of the body's main length in size, are denser than the tentacles, bearing no outer organs but boasting greater ability to deliver crushing force on anything in their grasp.
The surface of a kraken's form is able to shift colors in a wild and mesmerizing number of ways, over which the creatures appear to have conscious control.

Additional Information

Geographic Origin and Distribution

Any deep ocean might hold at least one of the deep-sea tyrants.

Perception and Sensory Capabilities

The kraken captured in 241 MT (see Historical Figures) is stated to have very few reservations about going on at length about the superiority of the species' senses. If derived accounts are accurate (and if it wasn't exaggerating), a kraken's entire body functions as a sensory organ which detects even the smallest vibrations and changes in the water around it for kilometers. Its ring of eyes provide sight even in the crushing depths of the ocean where light is nearly nonexistent. Supposedly, a kraken can smell variations in the composition of seawater from kilometers.
All of these claims do seem to be upheld by survivors' accounts of kraken being able to tell when a nearby ship isn't taking the bait for one of their usual traps.

Civilization and Culture

Naming Traditions

Kraken names cannot be reproduced in verbal languages in their entirety. The telepathic race includes purely-idealogical concepts as part of its individual designations; attempting to state them out loud would require dissertations worthy of the highest academia.

Historical Figures

Since kraken' own version of history is unknown, the only known historical figures of note are those who have seen fit to hold conversations with sailors who could repeat the accounts.
In 241 MT, the first known account of a successfully-captured kraken is recorded as having taken place after a deliberate effort of several Talese ships under direct orders from Los Ciagnac. Reportedly thirty meters long in the main body, it surprised the would-be researchers by beginning to speak to them telepathically upon being hoisted out of the water between the four ships who survived the operation. It is from third-hand accounts of this event that most detailed knowledge of kraken is derived and theorized.
Its name was recorded as being unpronounceable by verbal efforts, including impressions of unrecognized places and particular emotions as part of its structure. It held a conversation with the capturing crews and researchers for several days before the authority figures onsite determined its views were clearly antithetical to anything relatable to the surface races; Most of the conversation included casual implications of obvious superiority to the tiny creatures keeping it hoisted out of the water and offers to let them become lifetime servants in one of its underwater strongholds. It was then slain and dissected.

Interspecies Relations and Assumptions

Kraken view themselves as masters of the seas, and all who would tread in their domain as food and servants. Only after being physically overcome will a kraken deign to view another creature as deserving of being spoken to, let alone approaching the status of an equal.

Lifespan

Unknown; Claimed as measured in millennia

Average Length

Dependant on age