Sometimes a drowned man returns as a monster, to haunt the living. Such creature is called a drowner and resembles a corpse dredged from the bottom of a pond. Skinny and humped, with its huge head, slightly protruding belly and concave chest, the drowner became a creature that is half-scary, half grotesque. Its eyes are round and fishlike, granting it a rather dumb expression. It also has wide palms and membranes between its fingers as well as a fin. A Drowner lives underwater and is awkward when on dry land… It is sickly blue or green in color, with slime and sludge oozing out of every pore and the acrid stench of rot wafting off of it. That is why drowners – along with their more dangerous cousins: vodniks, mucknixers and drowned dead – arise from the bodies of those who drown in shallow water: lost travelers falling into bogs, children who swim too far from the shore or, in the case of vodniks, inebriated peasants who stumble off narrow swamp trails.

Drowners are predominantly pack creatures by nature, usually hunting in groups of three or greater. Once they have spotted a prey, they will burrow into the ground. This is a sure warning sign that they’re preparing an ambush and will try to leap at a prey from beneath the ground. One should always watch for disturbances at its feet when in a swamp. Individually drowners are not much of a threat, but
they can become quite dangerous when attacking in pack. Aside from their numbers, their attacks are quite fast and can have surprising range as they usually do leaping jump-strikes; above all else, one should never let itself get surrounded by them. Drowners react to the deaths of their fellows by screaming in pain. This show of mourning leaves them defenseless for several seconds. As they are already dead, drowners do not fear poisons, and even a large loss of blood makes no impression on them.