Inklings

Inklings are the face of Splatoon: bright-eyed teenagers with tentacles for hair who can, at will, collapse into a squid and swim through ink of their own color. According to the Sunken Scrolls, they evolved from ordinary squid over the twelve thousand years after the seas rose and drowned the human world. Somewhere in that span they climbed onto the shrinking land, stood upright, and started worrying about shoes.

Biology

An Inkling has two forms. In kid form they walk, talk, and shoot ink from an arsenal of weapons. In squid form they become a small, fast shape that can slip through grates, hide in ink, and climb painted walls. Swimming in their own ink refills their tank and heals them; being drenched in an opponent's ink splats them, after which they respawn at their team's spawn point. Water is fatal. It is the series' longest-running irony that a species born of the ocean cannot go back into it.

Inklings gain full control of their transformation at around fourteen, which is exactly when they are allowed into the Turf War lobby. Inkopolis is a city of teenagers for a reason: fourteen is when a squid becomes a person.

Culture

Inkling culture is a fashion culture. Gear brands, ability chunks, and the ideal of "freshness" dominate daily life, and the Squid Sisters' sign-off, "Stay fresh!", is practically a religious instruction. Music matters nearly as much; idol groups host the news, run the Splatfests, and, on occasion, end wars.

Beneath the cheer is a short memory. The Great Turf War, fought a century ago against the Octarians, is a museum curiosity to most Inklings, and almost nobody in Inkopolis knows the Octarians still exist. That forgetfulness is treated by the games as both a flaw and a kind of grace: the Inklings turned their war into a sport and stopped hating the other side, mostly by forgetting to.

In the story

Every player-character agent in Splatoon 1, 2, and 3 is an Inkling by default (Octolings became playable after the Octo Expansion), and the cast of shopkeepers, idols, and soldiers is overwhelmingly Inkling. They are also the species Commander Tartar judged unworthy of humanity's legacy, and the species Mr. Grizz wanted to overwrite with fur. Both villains lost to a kid with a Splattershot.

Fans render the Inkling battle cry as "Woomy!" or "Ngyes!", transcriptions of the noises they make in game, and the words have become shorthand for the species itself.