ECOLOGY

Environment any
Organization solitary or crew (1 draug plus 6–11 brine zombies and 1–4 mummies of the deep, 2–8 lacedons, or 2–8 skeletons)
Treasure standard

The draug is the vengeful spirit of a ship’s captain who died at sea, thus being denied a proper burial. If an entire ship sinks at sea with the loss of all hands, the ship itself and its entire crew may return as ghostly wanderers. The captain usually rises as a draug and his crew rises as brine zombies (see that entry). A draug looks as it did in life, wearing the same clothes and bearing the same possessions it held at the moment of death. The arrival of a draug is often taken as a death portent, for even if it does not attack, some dire circumstance is likely to befall the witness. A draug often acts as a death token, rising out of the sea and staring at or pointing a bony finger at a sailor fated to drown.

Draugs are jealous of the living and try to bring death and misfortune to them at every opportunity. They have been known to suddenly appear in a sea mist and climb aboard the ships of the living. A draug’s favored form of attack is with its cutlass, though if disarmed it uses its claws to attempt to grapple an opponent, leaping back into the waves in an effort to drown the unfortunate victim.