Drowned Dead

The drowned dead are a nastier kind of drowner. Like drowners, they look like corpses dragged up from the bottom of a pond, blue or green, dripping slime and reeking of rot. In the first game they were said to be irredeemable criminals who ended their lives in the waters of Lake Vizima, and they kept their malice after death. They usually show up in groups among regular drowners.

Like other drowners they come out on the banks of ponds, lakes and rivers, most often at night, and they fight as a group and poison their prey. They shrug off bleeding, blinding, poison, stuns and the Axii sign.

In The Witcher 3 they turn up in Velen, Novigrad, the Skellige Isles and the Kaer Morhen valley. They join the fight in Forefathers’ Eve and in Contract: Muire D’yaeblen on Ard Skellig. They also appear along the way in The Sunstone, Hidden Messages of the Nilfgaardian Kind, Contract: The Apiarian Phantom and Rose on a Red Field.

Across the games

In The Witcher, the drowned dead appear in several acts. In Act I, The Monster of the Lake starts after Geralt kills a drowned dead feeding by the lake in the Outskirts. He takes its head to the Royal Huntsman for 200 orens and 1,000 XP, which also opens a deal to sell him more monster trophies. In Act II, Siegfried in the Temple Quarter pays for ten drowned dead tongues, provided the Bestiary has an entry on them.

In Act IV, at Murky Waters, Geralt kills drowners at a naiad’s bathing spots to lure out their leader, Zephyr, a drowned dead who was once a thief. Zephyr has the naiad’s necklace, and returning it earns a red ribbon among other rewards.

The Monster of the Lake (Act I, secondary quest)
The Drowned Dead Contract (Act II, monster contract)
Old Habits Die Hard (Act IV, secondary quest)

Combat strategy

Treat drowned dead like a tougher drowner pack. They try to surround you and come at you from several sides, so keep moving and fight from the edge of the group. Since they shrug off bleeding, poison, stuns and Axii, those tricks are wasted here. Rely on clean sword work, fire and good dodging.

If you can, pull them away from the water. More of them tend to come up from the shallows while you fight by the bank.

Coat your silver sword with Necrophage Oil.
Use Igni to burn them and keep the pack at a distance.
Don’t bother with Axii. They resist it.
Keep Quen up so a hit from behind doesn’t stagger you into the rest of the group.
Fight with your back to dry land so new drowners can’t sneak up from the water.