Draugr

Name	Draugr
Race	Undead
Type	Physical
Faction	Independent
Premiere	Desideratum: Blood Bonds
Relative(s)	None Applicable

In folklore the draugr or draug (Old Norse: draugr, plural draugar; modern Icelandic: draugur, Faroese: dreygur and Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian: draug) is an undead creature from Norse mythology, also called aptrganga or aptrgangr, literally “again-walker” (Icelandic: afturganga). In reality draugar live in or around their graves, often guarding treasure buried with them in their burial mound. They are animated corpses with a corporeal body, unlike ghosts, with similar physical abilities as in life. The draugar’s flesh is generally either hel-blár (“death-blue”) or nár-fölr (“corpse-pale”). Older literature makes clear distinctions between sea-draugar and land-draugar, but in essence, they are the same.

Draugar possess superhuman strength and carry the unmistakable stench of decay. They are generally massive, muscular undead, and have very angry dispositions. While they may resemble zombies, make no mistake, a draugr retains their memories, intellect, and fighting prowess from life. They guard their treasure hoards, attack and destroy the living, and personally torment those that wronged them in their lifetimes. Draugar have the ability to drain the life and willpower from their living victims leaving them as servants for the draugr that killed them. They are particularly weak against iron, as is the case with many supernatural creatures. Draugr lords have been encountered that could only be permanently slain by decapitation, cremation, and then having the ashes dumped into the sea.

Typically, draugr either remain in their tombs, coming out only at night, or, in the case of Sauvie Island, they remain in the water where they died until unset. The draugr that Absinthe Van Gothen fought at the docks were Vikings whose ship became wildly lost. Having angered some sea spirits, they were eventually crashed upon the rocks on an island that is now called Sauvie Island. They drowned, but their spirits, angry and also fearful of what Hel would do to them in Niflheim since they did not die in battle, remained in their bodies by sheer force of will. For many centuries, nightly, they rose up, yelling and screaming in the dark, and when Sauvie Island was founded, there were tales of the monsters roaming the docks and beaches in the late hours of the night, seeking victims. The docks near their grave were eventually abandoned for newer, updated ones. Yet, still, nightly, they roamed. When the cursed ghost ship, The Flying Dutchman, landed at Sauvie Island, Kendra Tallulah and Absinthe Van Gothen came to the island.

The pair was separated when a kraken attempted to consume them both. Unknown to either woman, draugr were out and angry that night, and fought the ghost pirates that were seeking to steal their treasure. Absinthe wound up in the middle of this undead civil war as she looked for her friend. Though the monster hunter slew some of the draugr, the rest returned to the ocean at sunrise, and have done as they always have, rising at night to yell in anger at their unfair deaths and to look for treasures to call their own.