D&D and derivatives have a lot of merfolk races: merfolk, merrow, adaro, ceratioidi, Cecilia, deep merfolk, etc. Do we really need all these different races? So I got an idea inspired by reading about the merfolk in another game Changeling: The Dreaming.
Instead of all these races being different, they are actually the same. Bear with me for a moment. Merfolk children would start out as having legs, like the tritons or aquatic elves. When they reach young adulthood or whatever, they undergo a right of passage ceremony. They find some mystical creche or something, and enter it where they will merge with another sea creature that becomes their lower half. Merging with a bony fish would result in the standard merfolk, a shark in adaro, an octopus in Cecilia, etc.
Since there are stereotypes associated with the animal aspect, this results in the merfolk being segregated a la high school cliques. Since land lubbers wouldn't know how merfolk come to be, they would mistakenly think all these different lower halves were different races. Thus providing the fluff you read in the bestiaries.
Fishmen, those with permanent legs, are a whole other deal. Even so, I wouldn't mind letting merfolk temporarily replace their tail with legs for forays on land a la Splash or The Little Mermaid.
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