Drowned

The drowned lost their lives in the watery deep. The evidence of their gasping death always saturates their clothing and flesh, and fills the air around them.

Many drowned came to their current circumstances when their ships went down at sea with all hands. Others, more ancient, first arose when their island homes sank beneath the waves ages ago, drowning all.

A drowned stands between 5½ and 6½ feet tall and weighs between 120 and 210 pounds.

The drowned speak Common and Abyssal.

A drowned slams its foes with sodden limbs, but more worrisome is its terrible drowning aura.

A drowned normally attacks using its Power Attack feat, taking a −5 penalty on its attack rolls and gaining a +5 bonus on damage rolls.

Drowning Aura (Su): A drowned gives off a 30-footradius emanation of suffocating drowning, imbuing its surroundings with a watery glint and deadly threat for creatures that breathe. All breathing creatures within 30 feet of a drowned are treated as if beneath water in terms of being able to breathe. The drowning aura accelerates the process of drowning.

Normally, a creature can hold its breath for a number of rounds equal to twice its Constitution score before it begins to drown. Within the drowning aura, a creature can only hold its breath if it makes a DC 10 Constitution check every round. Each round, the DC increases by 1. When the character finally fails its Constitution check, it begins to drown. In the first round, it falls unconscious (0 hit points). In the following round, it drops to −1 hit points and is dying. In the third round, if still in the drowning aura, it drowns.

Unholy Toughness (Ex): A drowned gains a bonus to its hit points equal to its Charisma modifier × its Hit Dice.

Skills: A drowned has a +8 racial bonus on any Swim check to perform some special action or avoid a hazard. It can always choose to take 10 on a Swim check, even if distracted or endangered. It can use the run action while swimming, provided it swims in a straight line.

Zarash Bay holds one of Khorvaire’s largest ship graveyards, and the drowned occasionally rise from the depths to trouble the citizens of Zarash’ak, the City of Stilts, to the north. The drowned are also known to haunt Lantern Keep, a ruined stronghold in the fetid swamp west of the bay. Ships lost in the Straits of Shargon and Kraken Bay have also led to troubling encounters with drowned in southern Breland and Darguun. The frontier city of Stormreach on the northern tip of Xen’drik has also faced the hungry wrath of a drowned crew.