By Leif Roar Moldskred (leifm@stud.ntnu.no)
The draug was said to be strong as several men and awfully fond of hard liquor. More importantly however, the Draug was a bad omen.
If you heard the draug moving about in the boathouse, it was a sure sign of storms and rough seas. If he was seen aboard a boat that boat would be shipwrecked. If you saw a draug rowing in half a boat, you knew you were "feig" -- soon about to die.
The draug described below are quite a way removed from the folklore basis. It is not so much the draug presented as a character concept as it is a character concept presented as a draug.
Have you ever looked at the stars and wanted to know what is out there? I'm not talking about the intellectual curiosity of the kind "I wonder if there are intelligent life out there" or "What would it be like to travel into a black hole?" I'm talking about a wish, almost a need, to see, smell, taste and feel it with your hands -- even if it's just a barren lump of ice and ammonia circling an old star. The wish to truly know what is out there. To look at the stars and really, really want to know -- even though you know you never can. No, especially when you know you never can!
And have you, at other times, hurried home under the cold, alien stars -- scared by the dark and silent unknown above you? Looking at the ground, wanting to get inside, get something between you and this waste otherness. Wanting nothing more than get in, close the blinds and shut out the universe. Safe and warm inside the thin shell of a house that separates you from the sight of the nightsky as Lovecraft must have seen it: cold, uncaring and so very, very alien.
If you have felt like this at times, then you know something about what it is to be a draug. Created as they are from dreams of other shores and awe for the sea's greatness, but also from the fear of the great unknown and the fear of the sea's rage and power.
The draug is not pretty to look at, to say the least. Water-bloated skin that is always wet and cold to the touch, large black eyes and a huge mouth filled with hundreds of small, razorsharp teeth like in the jaws of a shark. Their hair and beard is tangled with seaweed and they smell of brackish water and decay.
Their skin tends to itch when it gets dry so they tend to dress in thick no-nonsense clothing of wool and the thick rain-wear that is commonly used by fishermen -- not to keep dry but to stay wet. Their pockets are often wriggling with fish and other things that the draug saves for a midnight snack.
The draug is a creature of the sea and he harbours a love and devotion to it that nearly rivals that of the Garou's love to Gaia, but still manages to stop just short of worship. "The sea is a playful mistress, but a demanding wife" is a common expression among them.
They see themselves as a sort of go-between between the humans and the sea's role as a hider of secrets -- servant to both the sea and the humans. They consider themselves to have been given the task of "helping the sea to guard her secrets. Both them from the humans, and the humans from them."
What this means is that they interfere with humans that are trying to learn something, either helping them or hindering them. Seelie-like draugs do this by more or less subtle manipulations, gently railroading those marine-biologists into another path of questions, placing a couple of gold coins from the wreck where those diving kids will spot them. Unseelie-like draugs tends to adopt sabotage and violence, often with an sickening ironic twist. (Like tearing the mouth-piece out of the mouth of the scientist that was looking for that "truly extraordinarily rare fish", before stuffing said fish down his throat and popping the compressed air patron in his diving suit.)
Also, all Draugs -- seelie-like as well as unseelie-like, are suckers for secrets. They claim that they only seek out secrets so that they can "know which ones to steer the humans towards," but the fact is that they quite simply love the thrill of discovery and especially to be the first to discover something. If you want to lure a draug with you on a quest, just "happen to mention" that unexplored cave you will be passing by, or that mountain-lake that no-one has ever dived in. You could probably charge him for the trip, let him do most of the work and still have him thank you in the end.
"All humans seek knowledge, the truth. You understand, we all have this romantic notion that knowledge is worth something absolute. That the world becomes richer if we know if this kind of fish eats that kind of fish, or if this shipwreck is a french galleon or a dutch galleon.
"Well, I'll tell you a secret: The truth is worth something, because since it is there it makes you want to learn it. The wish to know is more real than the knowledge itself. Just like the Dreaming is more real than reality, you understand. No? I said it was difficult to explain.
"But what it boils down to is this: remember when you were a kid and finally wound up your courage to explore that old, abandoned ghost-house you were always afraid of? And remember how disappointed you were when it turned out that it was just 'another stupid old house?' It would have been so much better not to have gone in there because then you could have imagined all kinds of great stuff about it.
"You understand, what we try to do is to keep people from being disappointed like that. We try to make them learn just enough so that they will want to learn even more than before but leaving just enough questions hanging around that they never get that disappointed "was that all?" feeling. You understand, truth isn't all that true, so to speak, and if you learn it in the wrong way you might get a wrong truth and not want to know more."
Draugs spend a lot of time underwater, often for weeks at a time, only interrupted by meals. Not surprisingly all of them are excellent swimmers. They eat little else but fish and other food from the sea (there is a persistent rumour, however, that unseelie-like draug also feast on human flesh) and are able to survive on sea-water. They prefer fresh-water, though, or even more spirits of all kinds. Most draugs catch all of their food themselves.
In recent years; draugs have slowly started to adopt another role in addition to the self-appointed "guardians of secrets." Pollution of the seas are starting to become a large problem, and the draugs can no longer ignore it. There are rumours that some of the unseelie-like draugs are working together with garou from Scotland in fighting polluters. Most draugs are likely to prefer more subtle means though.
Sea-drifter: A draug can not be drowned by sea-water. A draug can spend as much time under the sea as he wants without ill effects (although he would have to surface to eat or drink anything). Note that this birthright only extends to the sea. He can still be drowned by other liquids or in lakes, bath-tubs or puddles -- even salt-water lakes.
"It was a few days left of the shift when I was woken by a scream. Henrik was standing in his bed looking completly horrified. I turned on the lights and that seemed to calm him.
"'What?' I asked. It took him some time to collect himself; then he sat back down and said somewhat embarrassed that he had had a nightmare; some sort of monster had been sleeping in my bed. 'Go back to sleep' I told him, and turned off the light.
"The next morning I tried to get him to write a letter to his girl but he laughed it away and said he was going home in a couple of days anyway so there was no need. 'I have a bad feeling about this dive,' I said, 'You really ought to write that letter.' He told me to shut up and not give him the shivers so I let the matter drop.
"He threw up in his helmet during the dive, had to emergency surface. They didn't get him into the decompression chamber fast enough and he died a few hours later.
"I quit the same day, and got this job shortly after."
Sigmund Hovstad, keeper of Utskjær light-house.
A mortal (mages and other supernaturals on the storyteller's whim) who sees a draug is "feig," and will die shortly after, usually within the month. This, of course, is only true when the mortal sees the draug-side of the fae. If a non-enchanted mortal happened to spot the draug walking down high-street; he would just see another normal human.
This isn't an effect of seeing the draug, however. Seeing the draug is rather an effect of being "feig" and people who are not about to die will not see the draug. But this will not somehow magically hide the draug from people who are not about to die. Rather, Fate keeps people who are not "feig" from being enchanted around the draug, or it keeps them from looking at the draug if they are.
In general, this will force the storyteller to retrospectively assign "feigness" from time to time. But this isn't necessarily a bad thing; as this frailty should have a feel of "Fate's fickle play," much like the celtic death-geas or the divinations about death in the sagas.
In other words - a draug-player can use this frailty as a way to kill mortals. Whatever made the Draug decide to show himself to the human would just be the way Fate let things unfold. So think twice about the player before allowing a Draug character.
Many draugs do not realise the true state of affairs, and believe that they can decide if humans are to live or die.
There are two exceptions to this frailty: people within freeholds can see the draug no matter if they are "feig" or not (thus the draugs' habit of approaching freeholds in storms when there is little chance of catching an enchanted human out of doors.) and if a ship is about to be shipwrecked the entire crew can see the draug -- even if they will survive the shipwreck.
Also, on the storyteller's whim; "feig" people might see the draug as what he really is, even if they are not enchanted.
Note to the storytellers. This frailty is a tragic streak in the Draug -- do use it as such. Let accidents unfold through strange, twisted courses of actions where mortal friends and loved ones end up seeing the Draug. Give them an reputations as bad omens, storm crows and jinxes. Even their best friends should be a little hesitant when the draug shows up at their door.
"I like them. They have a certain quality to them. But I don't trust them."
Nocker: Bloody nonsense-talking, spaced out, "oh, ain't I mysterious" Sluagh wannabees with inferior taste in clothes.
Pooka: Oh-oh-oh - don't go near them! They're bad luck!
Redcap: Yeah, I met one once - You think I look ugly?
"We are too similar to the redcaps in some respects to be entirely comfortable."
Satyr: Great drinkers, but as for partying -- forget it! These guys are practically married to the sea and they don't dare to cheat on their wife.
Sidhe: They discomfort me -- they know too much and talk too little.
Sluagh: We are too different to be family and too alike to be friends.
"Relatives of a kind; the deep sea isn't the only keeper of secrets."
Troll: Honourable, most of them. They often know much that can be of use. Their knowledge often comes with it's own price though. Still, I'll ask them before the Sluagh seven days of the week.