This is a follow-up to Nymphs and Humans: Preventing Anarchy and concerns one of the most dangerous species in the realm of fantasy: mermaids.
While surfing WB.SE I found this question and realized a war against merfolk would be very costly for medieval kingdoms in general. There aren't any real good options, any sane kingdom would want to avoid war with them. And thus lies my problem.
You see, the same magic bleeding into this world to create Nymphs has brought mermaids into the seas, which is a bit problematic; Nymphs can breathe water, are resistant enough to water pressure to walk around on the seafloor (but not in trenches, mind you, especially not the Mariana trench), are immune to hot and cold (they can swim through Arctic seas and hydrothermal vents without too much trouble, though the latter requires them to hold their breath 'cause its essentially underwater smoke and smoke kills people)....
Oh, and if the hungry mermaids decide the naive, peaceful Nymphs look delicious, they'll be enhanced by eating them. This is bad, really bad, because an enhanced mermaid is like the mermaids in H20: Just Add Water: unnaturally fast, capable of controlling, heating, and freezing water, and did I mention how dangerous the mermaids are naturally?
Regular mermaids are strong, strong enough to easily overpower a human being (so enhanced=gorilla-like strength) and have tough skin and scales, so they can punch and whack sharks without ripping their skin to shreds, not to mentions adaptations for diving deep underwater where the sperm whales go and the giant squid live (enhanced=immune to conventional medieval weaponry: arrows, swords, war hammers).
There are 30 million of these mermaids, they believe that they are superior to (and meant to rule) the sexist medieval kingdoms, they have access to more Nymphs than the humans do (because the sea contains more life, it also contains more residual life force, up to 50-80%, and the proportion of sea Nymphs to land Nymphs reflects that) and they can turn into beautiful women when they want to go on land.
My question is: How Can An Early Medieval Society Defend Themselves Against Nymph-Infused Merpeople? Underlying Question: Have I made it impossible? Do the mermaids need to be nerfed? Or can the humans somehow beat the odds?
Additional Information:
- Mermaid Motivation: The mermaids have seen the plight of medieval women and see medieval men as a threat to their freedom (potential subjugators) and inferior beings (since they A) can't see that women are equal to them and B) aren't that good at decision-making). They want the same things as women in general: regular sweets (trust me, I have sisters), jewelry, pretty things (especially clothing), and so on. They are peaceful, and also sensitive and reasonable to an extent: while women can be understanding, there are certain cases where that just isn't true, and mermaids are no exception. This means if the kings somehow manage good diplomacy, they might just get out of this.
- Educating the Nymphs is a good idea for my previous questions, not so much for this one. You see, Nymphs are spawned naturally anywhere with large amounts of built-up life force, so there's going to be lots of Nymphs born in the sea, out of the human's reach.
As always, I appreciate your input and feedback. If you choose to VTC or close-vote, please give me an explanation so I can improve this question and hopefully post better ones in the future. Thank you for your time.