Bone ship

Bone ship

(Creature)

Rare

CE

Gargantuan

Undead

Level

18

Alignment

LG	NG	CG
LN	N	CN
LE	NE	CE

Source: Bestiary 3, pg(s). 34–35

Type

Undead
(water)

CR

18

Environment

Any oceans

Alignment

LG	NG	CG
LN	N	CN
LE	NE	CE

Source: Bestiary 5, pg(s). 44

Ⅰ

Ⅱ

Bone ships are the cursed undead created by mass death at sea, or occasionally occurring from draugr ships that have sown enough death and destruction to grow more powerful.

Appearance

Bone ships are vast, multi-masted sailing ships created of the bones of dead sea creatures and sailors alike. Most are at least 100 feet long and rise at least two stories above the waterline. Whale bones, due to their vast size and strength, often serve as the core structural elements, while bones of dead sailors and smaller sea creatures form the other structures and decorations of a ship. Muscles and tendons serve as the ropes and other moving portions of the ship. Draugr-born bone ships often have a patchwork, asymmetrical design due to the incremental nature of their construction.

Abilities

Bone ships, being collective entities of the drowned sailors or draugr that originally created them, have a sort of hive mind that protects them from assaults that may work against other intelligent undead. The bone ship can animate the bodies of its component entities as sort of puppets that can attack its prey or defend it from attacks.

The horrifying wail of its dead crew is often enough to kill a sailor by itself. Bone ships are also able to trap other souls within them, provided that the individual drowned or was killed by the bone ship itself, adding them to the cursed crew.

Bone ships additionally possess all the normal functions of a large warship, being able to ram their foes, shoot bone shrapnel from their cannons, and overrun smaller vessels.

Ecology

While not every disaster at sea produces a bone ship, doomed sailors who invoke the names of certain dark gods can call the attention of these entities to the catastrophe, giving the deity the opportunity to raise the fallen crew as a bone ship. Some deities keep watch for such events in order to stretch their power to the seas of the Universe.

Evil deities will often make use of bone ships on planar seas as well. Charon's forces crew many bone ships that ply their dark trade up and down the River Styx or move his chosen between planes. Urgathoa, patron of the undead, occasionally sends her favored followers into the world on bone ships. Kelizandri, the elemental lord of water who holds sway over the drowned, also maintains a fleet of the creatures so that the souls can experience the moment of their drowning for all eternity.

Sufficiently powerful undead, or even mortals skillful enough to defeat a bone ship without destroying it, can commandeer the ship and sail it for their own purposes.