Drowners

Introduction: Drowners are often considered to be a plague on sailors, especially those just starting out who don't know any better. Drowners focus on human prey, tricking someone into grabbing the "hand" that extends from their head and pulling them under. Once a Drowner has effectively caught it's prey in the water they often enjoy messing around, making the death slow and agonizing by either crushing all the bones in the body with their powerful teeth and jaws, or slowly letting their victims die to their poisons while they try desperately to escape back to their boat or land. A Drowner can came in many sizes, though the hand is always the same. Some larger Drowners have been known to cut to the chase and tip a boat that gets to close. Drowners are often hunted with an almost religious fervor for the threat they pose to sailors as well as those that are actually drowning.

Lifespan and Development: A Drowner is born live after an entire arc of being carried by it's mother. During this time the mother will try and gather as much food as possible to care from the growing child. This usually means a mother will start to take risks she usually wouldn't. These include but are not limited to, stealing the prey of other Drowners, trying to hunt dangerous humans such as hunters or experienced sailors, coming close to land to try and attack animals, killing anything within her radius, and much more. When the new Drowner is born the mother will burrow into the sea or lake floor (they come in both ocean and fresh water variants) and she stays there anywhere from 30-100 trials feeding herself and her child with the food she has begun to stock pile. The mother is usually able to inject nutrition into her child the same way one might inject poison, however since some poison also goes along with it a mother will only give small doses until the child builds up a resistance. This is why most if not all Drowners can survive powerful and lethal doses of many toxins.

A child will stay with its mother up to 20 arcs just learning how hunt and survive on its own. Once the child has been sufficiently trained it disappears in the middle of the night, never to be seen by the mother again. Most Drowners (besides pregnant females) will die in their first 3 arcs of living on their own, often getting snagged by hunters or larger aquatic predators. If they survive these 3 arcs then most Drowners will survive to their maximum life span as Drowners don't usually attack each other unless there's prey stealing going on.

A Drowner can live anywhere from 100-200 arcs, often breeding at 70 arc of age. With a life span like that one might believe the population would be high, however a Drowner will only ever breed once in their life and only 30% of all offspring survive, easily putting the Drowners on the list of endangered animals.

Diet: Drowners eat humans, Biqaj, Sev'ryn and the mortal races, although typically they prefer to eat humans and eat whenever they can catch one. Drowners have extremely efficient bodily energy use, allowing them to store more energy then the average creature. This comes in handy because the can go anywhere from trials to seasons without feeding depending on how bad things get. If the situation truly gets out of hand they will start to attack other aquatic creatures, rely on what strength they have to survive a fight. Some might even try to crawl up onto land. Both these endeavors usually don't end well.

Temperament: All Drowners are of a sour and highly aggressive temperament. They don't necessarily have territories, but they won't tolerate others stealing their prey. Meaning that Drowners do not get along with Siren Lights. If a Drowner comes across a pack of Siren Lights their first response is to try and kill them, their second response is to try and steal whatever prey they have, their third response is to eat the Siren Lights themselves simply out of spite. Any other creatures found eating humans will often suffer the wrath of the Drowner. However if a creature does kill the Drowner, they'll often die themselves thanks to the toxins the Drowner's body produces.

Abilities: Highly venomous, highly poison resistant, powerful teeth and jaws, deception.

Weaknesses: Like Siren Lights knowing to ignore them is a good way to avoid these beasts. Besides that they have terrible eye sight, making them easier to avoid if you do get in a fight with one. An easy way to tell if it's a Drowner is to look and see if the hand is moving or not. If it isn't then it's most likely a Drowner trying to lure you in. However some Drowners have learned to wave the hand back and fourth, meaning you should usually check to see if any other hands or body parts come up. Drowners also have large, squishy, fatty bodies which are good for storing energy but are terrible for combat. Whack it with a sharp metal stick enough and it won't last for long. Though you might not either.

Creator: Nightshade