Sahagin

Sahagin


From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.




Sahagins are mythical creatures popularized by fantasy role playing games and video games. They are based on old Eastern European legends of hags, also referred to as sea hags. These were creatures similar to the greek siren which appeared to sailors as beautiful women. However, as the sailors neared them they revealed their true form, that of an ugly old woman, and eventually led them to their doom.
They appeared in early versions of many role playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons and were subsequently incorporated into many RPG video game series in the late eighties, chief amongst these being their appearance in the Final Fantasy series.
In the original Final Fantasy game a monster called seahag was based upon them, that appeared as a sort of fish-man (similar in appearance to Hollywood's creature of the black lagoon). It is common in video games to have many variations of the same basic enemy, such as several different types of imps or goblins. A variation of the hag enemy was called the Sand Hag, however the name was too long to fit in to the space provided and was abbreviated to "Sahag". Because of the success of the Final Fantasy games many aspects of the games were copied over to other series. By Final Fantasy IV the name had been restored to the original "Sea Hag" and "Sand Hag" but retained their fish-man appearance. However by this time the Sahag enemy had already appeared in numerous other rpg series. Even in these other games they usually kept the mer-man like appearance, staying more true to their FF counterparts than the original european legend. Over time the name was lengthened to Sahagin. The suffix of "gin" may have been added to allude to the creature's monstrous tendencies since a jinn or "gin" is a type of Arabic demon.
Through this odd process of borrowing ideas and re-naming, what was once a form of eastern europe sea-witch has become a type of fish man that is staple of modern rpg's. It is one of the few modern monsters that has originated from videogames and spread elsewhere in popular fantasy culture.
Although their names are similar, they should not be confused with the sahuagin which appears in dungeons & dragons. The sahuagin is depicted as a sort of malevolent mer-folk where as the sahagin is always depicted as a anthropomorphic creature of a more amphibious nature.