Super otter
This is a primitive aquatic mammal, probably closely related to whatever carnivorous mammal first returned to life in the sea. It may also be a real sea serpent that does not exist any more; the last definite sighting was in 1848, so it may have been driven into extinction, possibly through competition with the Long-necked (see below). It has a flat, elongated head, small eyes, a slenderneck of medium length, and a long tail that ends in a point. Its spine is so flexible that it can form six or seven bends visible when the animal is on the surface. It has webbed feet with definite toes, making it the least specialized of sea serpents. It has no fins or other appendages on its back; its skin is rough or wrinkled, a light or grayish brown in color. It lives only in Arctic (generally Scandinavian) waters, and Heuvelmans makes the point that melting ice makes polar waters the least salty in the world, making it easier for a land animal to adapt itself to life in the sea. Remember, this is where the polar bear lives.
Many-humped
This long, serpentine creature is thought to be a form of primitive <whale. Its head is oval-shaped, blunt, and flat on top, with a broad snout that makes it look like a hornless ox. Its neck is slender and of medium length, and a small triangular fin has sometimes been seen on the shoulders. Its most distinctive feature, however, is the row of regular humps all along the back. The manyhumped serpent has a pair of flippers up front, while its tail is double-lobed like other whales'. Its skin is generally smooth, though sometimes rough. The top is dark brown to black in hue, while the lower portion is pure white. This coloration is favored as camouflage by sea creatures that hang around the continental shelf, and sure enough, that is where the reports of the Many-humped come from. Sometimes this sea serpent also has a white stripe or two on the side of the neck.
It has been suggested that the famed humps are hydrostatic organs, or sacs of skin that can be inflated with air at will. They can serve both as a reserve supply of air for long dives, and - as they are right on the spine - to provide stability for the creature when it swims on the surface. It can hit a top speed of 35-40 knots. Nearly all reports come from the eastern coast of North America, with a particular emphasis on New England. It generally stays in warm water, which in northern areas means the Gulf Stream, but does venture into the cooler waters during the summer. It has the same average length noted for sea serpents in general, but may reach a maximum of 115'. It can do 2-12 points of damage with its bite, does not attack with its tail, and has a swimming speed of 30, but otherwise has the same stats as the common whale (12 HD).
Many-finned
This is another primitive whale, one whose back is protected by an armor of bony plates, giving it a faint resemblance to a lobster. The armored back has a saw-toothed crest along the spine, and it also has up to a dozen projections to either side, like the side spikes of an ankylosaur. The animal is so burdened with armor that it must roll on one side to turn. When it rolls, the projections are visible, and mistaken for fins. The armor gives the creature's back AC 3.
The head is rounded, rather like a calf, with small but prominent eyes placed high on the head (like a hippo). The Manyfinned serpent's mouth is wide, with its nostrils clearly visible to the muzzle's front and surrounded by hairs. It has a short, slender neck. There are flippers to the front, and it has a flattened, threelobed tail that is only slightly spread and that increases the resemblance to a lobster. Its skin is smooth, like tanned leather, colored brown with dirty yellow patches that can give it a general impression of being greenish gray. It is generally reported in shallow coraline or rocky waters, and creatures that live there usually have this speckled coloration.
The Many-finned can reach to a hundred feet long, but generally does not get over 70'. It lives in tropical waters all over the world, with the most famous series of sightings made by the French Navy in Along Bay off the Vietnamese coast. This may be the reason why French scientists are, as a group, less skeptical about sea serpents than their counterparts in other countries. It has the same attack as the Many-humped, has a swimming speed of 12, and otherwise has the stats of the common whale.
Merhorse
This creature is built like a slender-bodied plesiosaur, but appears to be a form of enormous sea lion. It gets its name from an impressive horselike mane of reddish hair on its neck. Since most aquatic mammals have almost no hair, it has been suggested that these "hairs" are really respiratory organs in the form of filaments, absorbing air from the water and enabling the beast to remain under longer. (Some frogs are known to have this arrangement.) The Merhorse's head is horselike, but also quite wide, giving it a diamond-shaped (and snakelike) appearance when viewed directly from the front. Its forward-facing eyes are huge, demonstrating that it hunts in the darker depths of the sea. The eyes are black, though they may seem red or green when light strikes them directly. The mouth is wide, edged with thick, light-colored lips, and surrounded by bristles. The face is very hairy, possibly giving the thing a moustache.
The medium to long neck supports the mane. Some observers report a jagged crest on the back, but this is probably just tufts of hair sticking together. The Merhorse has a pair of front flippers, with rear flippers that have either joined together in a vertical plane to form a false tail, or have disappeared entirely and been replaced by a two-lobed tail with a jagged rear edge. It has smooth, shiny skin like a sea lion, which may be covered with short fur. The whole animal, aside from the mane, is uniformly dark brown, steel gray, or black. Merhorses reported in warm water are a mahogany color. It apparently lives on large fish and squid, as tales from such disparate locations as Scandinavia and the South Pacific tell of enmity between sea serpents and squids. Except for the Indian Ocean and the polar regions, it has been reported all over the world.
Long-necked
This creature is about the size of the Merhorse, and some people mistakenly assume they are different sexes of the same species. However, the differences are too great for that. For example, aside from a few whiskers on the muzzle and a hairy crest making a short ridge along the spine, no hairs are visible on the Long-necked sea serpent. Its neck is also far more slender than that of the Merhorse, and is quite long. Though it may look like a plesiosaur, it, too, is a giant form of sea lion. Its eyes are too small to be seen unless the observer is very close, and a pair of short hornlike tubes project from the top of the head. These are probably breathing tubes, erectable at will, enabling the creature to take air while remaining virtually invisible at the surface. If extended while below the surface, these tubes let the Long-necked exhale under water without blinding itself with the stream of bubbles.
The Long-necked has a very small round head, with a tapering muzzle like a seal's, often compared to the head of a horse, giraffe, or camel. Its neck is cylindrical and is flexible enough to bend in any direction or to stick out of the water perpendicularly. As mentioned before, it has no mane, but a fold in its skin behind the head seems to form a sort of collar. It has a thick, fat body with visible rolls of fat that can form from 1-3 humps as the animal bends its body while swimming. It has four seallike flippers, and its tail is either nonexistent or a mere stump. The skin looks smooth when wet, but rough and wrinkled when dry or when viewed up close. Coloration on top is dark brown, with gray, black, or whitish mottling; the underside is a much lighter, dirty yellow hue.
The Long-necked is just as fast as the Merhorse, and, except for the fact that its bite only does 1-8 points of damage, its stats are the same. It has been reported in all but the coldest waters, and it seems to prefer cool waters in summer and the tropics in winter.
Super eel
This is just what it sounds like: an enormous eel. There may be more than one species, as some have blunt heads, some pointed; some are reddish, some are blue or blackish-brown on top and white underneath, while still others are speckled (the speckled ones seem confined to the Mediterranean). Most seem built on the order of a greatly enlarged conger or moray eel. They are all different from the other "sea serpents" Heuvelmans describes due to the fact that we know they exist.
In 1930, the Danish oceanographer and biologist Dr. Anton Bruun was conducting a marine survey in the South Atlantic; one which included trawling the depths to see what lived down there. Among the specimens he brought back up was an elver (an eel larvae) six feet long. Normal elvers are only a few inches long at most, yet they can grow into 6' eels. Extrapolating from this, Dr. Bruun calculated that this elver might grow into an eel anywhere from 108-180' in length! A more conservative approach, assuming a slower growth rate, still suggests an eel 50' in length. To top this off, he brought the eel larvae up in the exact vicinity of one of the most famous sea serpent sightings of all time: that of the S.S. Daedalus in 1848. The drawings and descriptions of this creature are far more like an eel than anything else: an interesting coincidence, at the very least. The last I heard, Bruun's specimen was still preserved in alcohol at the Charlottenlund Marine Biological Laboratory, on the very outskirts of Copenhagen.
For AD&D® game purposes, the super eel should be treated as a giant eel, but one 50, 108, or 180' in length. Its swimming speed should be reduced to 8 and 7 for the last two versions, while the HD for the three specimens would be boosted to 9, 13, and 18, respectively. THAC0 for them is 11, 7, and 5. XP value is 975, 3,000, and 10,000 for the largest! Damage/Attack is 4-16, 3-18, and 5-20, while AC and all other stats are the same.
