Rusalka question

[Nighthawk1337]

Hi forum,

Wondering about the Rusalka from Frostburn p.150.

Is there anyway for them to leave their pool? If they had an item or a spell to not worry about breathing or something.

I mean there is also their Water Symbiosis (Su) ability says if they leave their radius they start to drown, but doesn't water breathing stop that?

 

[Celebrim]

It's been a while since I read Frostburn, but the folk lore origins of the Rusalka is a ghost or malicious spirit, often of someone that has drowned. So I expect the intention of the monster is it to 'haunt' the pool. So to me at least, the question is missing the point and is treating them as a rational creature with basically human motivations and limitations. The Rusalka wouldn't want to leave their pool. It would not act as a basically rational actor. It wouldn't be looking for some out from its fate. It's a hungry scary agent of anti-life. It embodies the simultaneously nurturing, necessary and dangerous nature of water. It doesn't think like a person. It doesn't act like a person. It can't be reasoned with. It can't be bargained with. It doesn't get tired. And it will never ever stop.

Tracking back further into history, there is a suggestion in the iconography of the drowning one being tied up, in the once a year happiness of the Rusalka that blesses the community, and in the fact that it only takes the young and beautiful, that the Rusalka is associated with an annual human sacrifice (by drowning) to propitiate the water spirits and ensure a bountiful harvest.

Presumably the Rusalka is actually drowning in the air, so water breathing would be of no help.

 

[Nighthawk1337]

Thanks for the help Celebrim, you mentioned some stuff I didn't even know about!! Cheers.