You will have to forgive me; I just moved 300 miles this past weekend from Pittsburgh, PA to Long Island, NY. I am now within five miles of the Atlantic Ocean, but I must admit, having written about the horrors of aquatic life for the past 3 months, I’m no longer as thrilled as I used to be. Anyway, onward and inward!

This group of arthropods is so large it is often treated as a subphylum and it contains a wealth of popular edible species—no looks of disgust here when you chow down on lobster, shrimp, and crabs! There are 50,000 species in this close-knit assembly of exoskeleton-wearing animals. They are distinguished from other arthropods by having two-part limbs and for having a nauplius larval stage (characterized by antennae and an additional singular eye on the head).

More than ten million tons of crustaceans are taken for human consumption every year, but there’s a lot more to these critters than just eatin’.

Branchiopoda

This class of crustaceans consists of very tiny shrimp-like creatures, including the fairy shrimp (sea monkeys), tadpole shrimp, water fleas, the triops, and clam shrimp. Although not normally used for human consumption, they are greatly hunted by other sea, land, and air animals. Also, both triops and the fairy shrimp are grown as “pets” and science experiments. They are resilient and therefore ideal for testing toxicity in samples.

Remipedia

These blind crustaceans exist in almost every ocean basin, especially where there is saline groundwater. They are tiny—at most an inch and a half—and have a head attached to an elongated segmented trunk. They have fangs that secret some substance, but it is unknown if it is a digestive juice or toxin. The species that still exist are often found in caves.

Cephalocarida

Also known as horseshoe shrimp, they are tiny (max 4 mm), wormlike, with large heads and no eyes. They are generally found in mud in intertidal zones, up to 1500 feet deep. The mouth has a large upper lip and mandibles.

Ostracoda

Also called seed shrimp, these tiny creatures are known for being a part of the zooplankton fed on by any other creatures. Their other two attributes of note is that they are bioluminescent, glowing blue along he shores during a swarming, and they have two (two!) male organs that correspond with the 2 female organs of the lady.

How to use them: Voracious monsters! Laboratory experiments gone awry! An interesting adventure can begin with children’s sea monkey aquariums getting irradiated and producing giant hungry creatures. Or the attack of the blood-sucking triops in a university lab. It’s a modern-day horror trope anyone can use. For sword & sorcery adventures, these are all awesome monsters to include in any adventure near lakes or brackish water, even in the coldest conditions. In an enlarged or moblike status, these critters would make great monsters to spring on characters. The remipedia can be used in cavelike settings and the cephalocarida in muddy tidal pools underfoot. As armor-plated worms with fangs, a swarm could cause a major amount of damage to human flesh, regardless of size.

Maxillopoda

Eh, barnacles! Well, and other critters, but the barnacles are the most famous. With the exception of barnacles, most of these species are tiny, but some can be seen with the naked eye, like fish lice and tongue worms. Barnacles are not appreciated by most civilizations, as they will attach themselves to manmade structures to the object’s detriment. Some barnacles, like the goose barnacle, are used as delicacies in Spanish and Portuguese cooking.

Other critters in this class of crustaceans include the copepods, which are important sources of food for small fish, whales, seabirds, and krill. They are used as food in marine aquariums and have been found to control mosquitoes in disease-infested countries. However, there is a problem since these crustaceans are technically non-kosher, and Jewish groups feel they should not be in the water supplies.

How to use them: Although a good barnacle stew could be useful in a game session, I have firsthand experience with how damaging they are, having fallen off a jetty and slid down the side of a barnacle-encrusted rock with shorts on. Figure these things cause a wound of damage when some sexy bare-thighed warrior takes a skid. Make sure to get saltwater in the wound too.

According to research, the barnacles also probably have the longest penis to body ratio in the animal kingdom. Being sessile creatures, they really have to stretch (which is why they are also self-satisfying). In terms of attributes for future monsters, this is actually a useful monster effect. Give a dormant or sessile monster an incredibly long, versatile, appendage for battling the characters and then let the PCs learn that this is actually a sexual organ they’re up against.

Malacostraca

This is the most commonly known crustaceans, including lobsters and crabs. Some orders are not known for more than being a part of the food chain, such as the diminutive leptostraca, the amphipods, or the bathynellaceans that live in groundwater. Others have found fame and fortune in the food industry, entertainment, and religion. These will be the ones more focused on.

Stomatopods

Mantis shrimp are neither mantis nor shrimp, but have the physical appearance of both. They can grow up to 15 inches long in extreme cases and come in a variety of colors, including neon. They were called “sea locusts” by the ancient Assyrians and are more modernly called “thumb splitters” due to their vicious weapons: powerful claws that can spear, stun, and dismember prey. These creatures have been known to bust an aquarium wall with their claw. The stomatopods are divided into spearers (dart-like claws) and smashers (blunt force trauma), but bother are capable of such speed that they create cavitation, or a collapsing bubble, in the water. This produces incredible forces, such as sonoluminescence and instant high temperatures ranging upwards of several thousand Kelvins in a single blow. The mantis shrimp also have the most complex eyesight of the animal kingdom and the more brightly colored the animal, the more highly defined the eyesight. Even their behavior is copelex: these long-lived species have ritualized fightin, can signal to their comrades using fluorescent patterns on their bodies, and can learn and remember things like neighbors. They will remain monogamous with the same partner for 20 years. They even take care of their eggs.

How to use them: Well, clearly they are not from Earth. With that amount of power they’d be a formidable enemy in any size larger than a dog. A large one in the water could probably take down a submarine with the cavitation power. Despite their obvious alien backgrounds, they are also edible. The mantis shrimp is eaten boiled as a sushi topping, and consumed in a variety of ways in South Vietnam. They are called “pissing shrimp” in Cantonese cooking and is a common food item along the Mediterranean, in the Philippines, and in Hawaii.

Krill

What’s cool about krill is that they are possibly the largest biomass on the planet, roughly twice that of humans at 500,000,000 tonnes. Over half of this is eaten every year by squid, whales, penguins, fish, and seals. Commercial fishing pulls in another 150,000 to 200,000 tonnes every year in Japan and along the Southern Oceans, and is used for aquaculture and aquarium feed, bait, or in pharmaceuticals. In Japan and Russia, krill makes up a portion of the food industry.

How to use them: Being such a massive part of the food chain it would be a great dastardly plot to have a super-villain wipe out the krill supply, thus endangering a majority of aquatic animals throughout the world. Certainly it would be worth a ransom in the billions of dollars, and may even be paid by the world’s governments.

Shrimp and Prawns

Their larvae are a popular food source among other marine creatures and only a tiny proportion survives to adulthood. Prawns are of huge importance in the fishing and aquaculture industries throughout the world. Often the words “shrimp” and “prawns” are used interchangeably, and what one consumes as one may technically be the other. The most consumed crustacean is the Acetes prawn, but very little is purchased for fresh sales; most is dried, salted, and fermented into shrimp paste.

How to use them: They are a very common food item throughout the world, but there are some people who have an allergy to them and must be doubly careful not to consume any. An interesting adventure setting would have these creatures become a vector for a deadly toxin or allergic component that would wipe out a majority of the world’s population. Shrimp paste, anyone? For more traditional uses, the boating industry could be under siege by pirates starving the local people and creating a dip in the local economy by stealing shrimp/prawn from the boats and reselling them elsewhere at ridiculous price. I see a climatic fight waist-deep in shrimp carcasses….

Lobsters

Highly prized as seafood, lobster has become the “meal of the rich” and is symbolic of wealth and power in the modern era. In earlier times, however, the lobster was food for the poor indentured servants in Maine, Massachusetts, and the Canadian Maritimes, and was often sold as bait. In North America, the lobster did not gain popularity until the 19th century. They are capable of extreme ages and it has been suggested that barring injury or disease, they could live indefinitely. Many believe the methods of cooking or preparing lobster to be cruel.

How to use them: Lobster isn’t as well known in the medieval times that sword and sorcery bases itself on. In fact, it had to be poor folk that first decided to take a chance on something as ugly as a lobster. Still, for New England based horror games, the use of lobster as a way to feed the starving populace could be a way to slam home the idea that things are different for your players. Given that they are capable of living indefinitely, a cruel experimental process seeking immortality could produce a series of lobster-humanoid monsters before the mad scientist gets it right. And, of course, the next time one goes into a water adventure, it is a possibility to have the oldest wisest king of the sea look like a lobster, since they are known for their great size and longevity.

Hermit Crabs

More closely related to squat lobsters than true crabs, the hermit crabs are popular “throwaway” pets seen in aquariums and children’s fishbowls. They are used in marine aquariums as scavengers. In the wild they are social critters, forming colonies of up to 100 individuals. The crabs are known for swapping shells as they grow and competition for the perfect shell is fierce. Hermit crabs are known for putting sea anemones on their shells to scare off predators. A cousin to the hermit crab, the coconut crab can get to be 9 lbs, climbs trees, and have a pinch that won’t let go. They are also delicious and are hunted wherever they are found.

How to use them: The coconut crabs are the stuff of nightmares. Nine-pound mutant crabs climbing into trees and staring at you from above? Sic that one on a group of PCs, even if you don’t do anything more with it. Hermit crabs themselves are pretty interesting, with their shell-swapping and fighting. A series of giant hermit crabs just outgrowing their shells could destroy an entire village as they try on different cottages and fighting over the town square for the local shoppes.

Crabs

Crabs make up 20% of all marine crustaceans caught and consumed. They are eaten in a variety of dishes all over the world. The crab has often been depicted in ancient maritime art in both hemispheres. The constellation Cancer is depicted as a crab. King crabs are not closely related to true crabs, but these north seas species are also edible and fished commercially in large amounts every year.

How to use them: I’ve got nothing horrific or insane here, but crab-fishing has been a prominent food source for thousands of years and certainly any ranger or outdoorsy wanderer near the shore would know that hunting for crab is just a thing you do to survive. Towns and inns along the coasts will always serve crab over mutton and it should be a part of everyday life in those regions.

Crayfish

Freshwater lobster-like creatures, they are traditional foodstuff wherever they are prominent. The European crayfish has been consumed since the medieval era, gaining a Scandinavian festival for its popularity. They are also found throughout China, Nigeria, Australia, and North America, where they have become a legendary dish along the Mississippi. They are also kept as pets in aquariums, and are used as bait for attracting channel catfish, largemouth bass, pike, and muskellunge.

How to use them: Crayfish are relatively easy to fish for and a collection of six or seven can make a quick meal along streams and rivers. A crayfish festival along some neighborhood that the PCs are passing through might make for a fun diversion or be an interesting focus for the beginning of a more serious adventure. A supervillain may have an aquarium with brightly colored crayfish in them, to add a different flavor to the pets that evil keeps.

Next month: We’re stepping onto dry land for awhile, so it won’t be fish.