Drowner

Drowners are necrophages that look like corpses pulled from the bottom of a pond: sickly blue or green skin, slime oozing from every pore, gills and fins. Folk belief says they rise from people who drowned in shallow water, such as travelers who stumbled into a bog or children who swam too far out. Whatever their origin, they are simple creatures with about as much intelligence as a pike, and they feed mostly on scraps and carcasses.

That doesn’t make them harmless. Drowners lurk near shores, swamps and rivers and ambush lone travelers with fast swipes, usually in groups. They shrug off poison, which makes sense given where they live, and mind-affecting magic such as Axii doesn’t work on them. Lore places them in one family with vodniks and mucknixers, and The Witcher 3 adds a tougher variant, the drowned dead.

In The Witcher 3 you meet them almost immediately. In White Orchard they guard the cart in Precious Cargo and can ambush you along the river during Twisted Firestarter. They crowd the marshes of Velen, including Crookback Bog during Ladies of the Wood, lurk in the Novigrad sewers in Count Reuven’s Treasure, and swarm the shores of Skellige in quests like Possession, Black Pearl and The Last Wish. They often show up alongside water hags.

Across the games

In The Witcher, drowners are some of the most common foes, showing up from Act I to Act IV. In Act I, in the Outskirts, Geralt clears them from the riverbank at night for the merchant Haren Brogg in Strangers in the Night, and the Church of the Eternal Fire pays 100 orens for three drowner brains, as long as the Bestiary has an entry on drowners.

In Act II, Leuvaarden pays 400 orens to clear the drowners raiding the harbor, and Vaska sends Geralt to empty the clay pits in the swamp, paying with a Sephirah instead of the promised 50 orens. In Act IV, Geralt hunts drowners around Murky Waters to draw out their leader and win back a naiad’s necklace.

Strangers in the Night (Act I, main quest)
The Drowner Contract (Act I, monster contract)
Safe Haven (Act II, secondary quest)
Clay Pits (Act II, main quest)
Old Habits Die Hard (Act IV, secondary quest)

Combat strategy

Drowners are a good place to learn the combat system. Necrophage oil on your silver sword speeds things up, and Igni is your best Sign: once a drowner is burning, a few strikes finish it. Aard is the other great tool, because a knocked-down drowner can be killed with a single blow. The real danger is getting surrounded, so keep moving and pick them off one at a time. At night near water, expect more of them to crawl out than you first see.

Use necrophage oil on your silver sword.
Cast Igni into the group, or throw Dragon’s Dream or Dancing Star to set several on fire at once.
Use Aard to knock them down, then finish the downed ones right away.
Don’t spam fast attacks into a pack; drowners counter well, so strike and step back.
Fight with water at your back as little as possible, since fresh drowners keep emerging from it.
Underwater only the crossbow works. Finish water objectives quickly and get back on land to fight.