"Do not mistake them for the simple drowned. A drowned man is a tragedy. A hollower is a blasphemy. It is a man's vessel, his very bones, hollowed out and re-rigged to serve a new, and terrible, captain." —From a lecture by a sea-scholar
The Hollow are the most direct and horrifying manifestation of the Elder Fathom's will. They are not creatures born, but souls remade. When a mortal drowns in waters heavily saturated with the Fathom's influence, their soul is not released, but captured. The Fathom, a void entity incapable of true creation, uses the drowned vessel as a canvas, applying its own unknowable, alien logic to the established form. The result is a corruption, a twisting of familiar anatomy into something deeply wrong.
The process of this transformation is not instantaneous. It is a gradual descent into monstrosity, a "gradient" that scholars have classified into several terrifying stages.
This is the form of a newly claimed soul, often seen in the first few days or weeks after a ship is lost. At a distance, they can be mistaken for a simple drowned sailor. The horror is in the details.
Alien Proportions: Their limbs are subtly, unnaturally elongated. Fingers and toes are too long, their joints seeming to bend with a fluid grace that is impossible for a living being. Their movements are slow, silent, and perfectly synchronized with the current, as if they are a part of the water itself.
Appearance: Their skin is the color of wet parchment, and their eyes are wide, placid, and filmed over with a pale, phosphorescent sheen. They are utterly silent, their expressions devoid of all emotion save for a profound, unnerving peace. The horror of the Echo is its familiarity, the ghost of the person they once were, now moving with a purpose that is not their own.
"Though their forms are monstrous, their voices carry a haunting melody, a siren song that speaks of belonging and oblivion in equal measure." - Elven scholar's notes on the Keening
After a longer period of servitude, the Fathom's influence begins to physically remake the vessel, often through a form of parasitic, symbiotic growth.
Alien Proportions: The skeletal structure begins to warp. The ribcage might expand, fusing into a solid, cage-like structure. The spine elongates, giving them a stooped, predatory posture.
Appearance: Strange, phosphorescent, coral-like growths begin to sprout from their bodies, particularly from the skull and spine. These are not mere decorations; they are new, alien sensory organs, pulsing with a soft, cold light. The growths often encrust the face, obscuring the original features and creating a new, monstrous visage. It is at this stage that they may begin to emit the first, faint, incoherent whispers of the Fathom's song.
This is the true monster, the form most often seen in the legends of sailors. The original humanoid shape is almost entirely gone, a distant, horrifying memory, its proportions a fundamental violation of natural law.
Anatomy: The body is now a grotesque fusion of vertebrate and invertebrate anatomy. The limbs are impossibly long and multi-jointed, ending in sharp, chitinous claws. The body is often hunched and insect-like.
Appearance: The head is a horrifying centerpiece: the original human skull, now hollowed out and almost entirely encased in a crown of jagged, dark coral. From the empty sockets and the shattered jaw emerges a bloom of pale, writhing sensory tentacles, like the bloom of a deep-sea anemone. They have no eyes, but they see. They have no mouth, but they scream the Fathom's song into the minds of their victims.
The oldest and most powerful of the Keening are rarely seen. They are the stuff of madmen's dreams. It is believed that after centuries of service, the Fathom's influence causes them to lose their individuality entirely.
Anatomy: They cease to be singular creatures. They fuse together, their bodies and the coral growths merging into a vast, colonial organism—a living, thinking reef of bone, coral, and captured souls.
Appearance: A "Choir" is a terrifying, beautiful sight: a great, phosphorescent, coral-like structure on the sea floor, built from the fused skeletons of a thousand drowned sailors. It is a single, vast consciousness that does not hunt, but acts as a colossal psychic broadcaster, a living amplifier that focuses the Fathom's song and projects it for leagues, luring new ships and new souls into its cold, loving embrace.
For those that retain a sliver of the self, see U'lythia