Blackfins
Blackfins are the black-and-white hunting whales of the outer water of the Tidebound Reaches and the outer isles of the Tidelace. They hunt in family pods, take seals, porpoises, and sharks, and fear nothing in the coastal sea. A Thaluren run that meets a pod gives it water, turning aside until it has passed, and a Gnome pilot gives it sea-room.
Appearance
A blackfin is longer than most fishing boats, a thick, smooth, powerful body that is glossy black above and white below, with a white patch behind each eye, a grey saddle behind the back fin, and white sweeping up onto the flanks. The fin on its back stands straight up from the water, in an old male as tall as a man, and it is this fin, rising and cutting through the water in a line of others, that names them. Its flippers are broad and rounded, its teeth large and interlocking. A pod surfaces together with explosive breaths that carry a long way, and calls underwater in whistles, clicks, and screams that the Thaluren can hear from far off.
Habitat and Range
They range along the outer coastal water, the current roads, and the open sea beyond, following their prey. They come close inshore along the outer isles when seals are pupping, and to the estuary mouths when the runs and the young are moving and the sharks gather.
Behaviour and Temperament
Blackfins live their whole lives in the same family pods, led by old females. They hunt together with great cunning: herding fish into balls, washing seals off rocks with a wave made by swimming together, and wearing down larger prey in turns. They are curious about boats and swimmers, and have been known to follow a boat for hours. They do not hunt people as a rule, but a lone swimmer in their water has been taken.
Life Cycle
A female bears a single calf after a long carrying, every few years, and the calf stays with her pod for life. Blackfins may live as long as a Human, and the oldest females outlive their breeding years by decades.
Uses and Dangers
They are not hunted; no coastal people has the means or the wish. They take seals and sharks, which the fishers do not mourn. They are dangerous to anyone alone in the outer water and to small boats that blunder among a hunting pod.
Lore and Belief
The Thaluren honour the blackfin pods for keeping their own lines, the old mothers leading the same families along the same water for generations, and say that a pod is a run-line that never comes home because it never left. They give them water as they would give it to an assembly passing. Gnome pilots say a pod in a sound means bad weather coming off the Unrun Sea, and they move their craft inshore.
Coastal Humans tell of the lone swimmer taken off the outer isles and of the pod that circled a wreck for three days; wreckers on those coasts will not work a ship the blackfins have claimed.