Drowned Earth

Ruin

The seas rose a hundred blocks. Only the rooftops remember the cities.

At a glance

Kind of world	Ruin
Serum in the arrival Box	2 ampoules
Native Serum stand-in	Brine Pearl
Quests	None

Screenshot comingdrowned-earth-arrival

The arrival Box on a small stone raft in grey-green water, the tops of drowned skyscrapers breaking the surface around it

What happens when you arrive

The Box comes up on a small raft of stone, and in every direction there is only grey-green water and, here and there, the top of a tower. This is the Overworld with the sea one hundred blocks higher. Only mountain peaks and the roofs of drowned skyscrapers break the surface; everything else is a sea over streets nobody walks. Far below, a window gives way and a column of bubbles rises. And somewhere out there, something pale and as long as a street is circling.

The rule: the sea rose a hundred blocks

There is almost no dry land. Everything worth having is on a rooftop or under the water, and the water is hunted.

Danger	What it does	How to deal with it
The Hollow Saint	A pale, eyeless sea serpent as long as a street, whose head opens like a flower of teeth. One is always patrolling within reach of you. It hunts anyone in a boat within 64 blocks or swimming in the top 8 blocks of water within 24. It comes up from below, smashes your boat to splinters (a chest boat spills its cargo), takes you in its jaws and drags you straight to the sea floor, holds you there a few seconds and lets go.	Carry an Emergency Buoy. Deal it 14 damage while it holds you and it lets go early. After a hold it ignores everyone for a minute.
The Drowned Crown	Where the Hollow Saint drops you, this waits: a mantle the size of a shed, one great goat-eyed eye and eight arms. It also appears near anyone who dives 40 blocks or more below the surface. Its gaze (out to 24 blocks) darkens and slows you and drags you toward it; it lashes with its arms; up close it grasps you and squeezes the air out; badly hurt, it squirts ink. A boss bar shows while it tracks you.	Watch for the lids drawing back (two seconds of humming) and break line of sight. Deal it 12 damage to break a grasp, or fire a buoy. It never leaves the water.
Hammerjaw	A heavy, blunt-headed fish. It backs off, shudders with its head on you (listen for the bubbles), then rams in a straight line and throws you back. About two hearts in iron armour.	Dodge the charge. After a ram, hit or miss, it drifts dazed: strike then.
Undertow Eel	Latches onto your legs and hauls you down, biting.	Hit it once and it lets go.
Inkmaw	Bursts a cloud of ink that blinds everyone nearby, jets away, then comes back to bite. Mostly a nuisance.	Keep calm and swim up.
Gleamjack	A silvery pike that darts in and steals what you're holding (a whole sword, or one ingot from a stack), then runs. It never bites.	It's frail: two sword blows. Kill it and it drops your item, undamaged. It never despawns while carrying loot.
The drowned	Walk out of the sea at night in place of zombies.	Keep away from the water's edge at dusk.

There are no phantoms here.

Screenshot comingdrowned-earth-saint

The Hollow Saint's ribbed pale back and dorsal fin cutting through the water toward a small boat

The Emergency Buoy

Your way out of any grip. Use it under water and it fires: you rocket straight up to the surface, out of the Hollow Saint's jaws or the Crown's arms, trailing bubbles and a strobing red light, and breach clear of the water. One use. It does nothing above water.

RTODLODG

➜

Emergency Buoy (Crafting Table)

Everything in it comes from home, so craft a few before you go. Buoys also turn up in rooftop chests, office barrels and tower vaults.

The drowned towers

Every tower runs from the old sea floor to above the new surface, and each is a different height.

Where	What you'll find
The roof	A chest left by the people who waited there for rescue: planks, sometimes a boat, dried kelp, cooked cod, torches, a fishing rod, now and then an Emergency Buoy, always 1 to 2 Brine Pearls, and a 12% chance of a Serum Ampoule. A log on a lectern.
The drowned floors	Barrels of office salvage: paper, iron nuggets, copper, Lead Ingots, prismarine shards, Brine Pearls, Emergency Buoys. Flood marks on the walls.
The lobby vault	At the very bottom, on the old street: a chest ringed by sea lanterns (look straight down a stairwell on a clear day for the green glow). It always holds a Serum Ampoule and 2 to 4 Brine Pearls, has a 35% chance of a Tidewalker Charm and a 40% chance of a buoy, plus diamonds, emeralds, gold, nautilus shells, Tesseract Ingots and sometimes a Heart of the Sea.

The Tidewalker Charm, worn in the charm slot, gives you Conduit Power while you're in water, in any world.

Screenshot comingdrowned-earth-vault

A sunken lobby vault at the bottom of a tower, a chest ringed by glowing sea lanterns in the murk

Why the world drowned (spoilers)

The people left their reasons behind: logs on the roofs, the Flood Office's bulletin by every vault, Halcyon memos on the drowned floors, a tenant board in each lobby, and on the sea floor the wreck of the survey ship Meridian, broken in half, with the captain's log in its wheelhouse. Halcyon Deepworks drilled the Sounding Bore through the sea floor into a sealed ocean under the crust. The casing failed, and for three years the Lower Sea came up through it until the water stood a hundred blocks higher. Something came up with it: the creature they first called the Sounder, and later the Hollow Saint.

What to bring home

Find	Where	Why it's worth it
Brine Pearl	Every roof chest, office barrels, vaults; slain Hollow Saints.	A coolant: it runs the Cryo Stabilizer without ice.
Tidewalker Charm	Tower vaults (35%).	Conduit Power in water, anywhere.
Drowned Concrete	The towers.	A weathered building block.
Vault treasure	Tower vaults.	Diamonds, emeralds, gold, a Heart of the Sea.

A slain Hollow Saint drops prismarine, prismarine crystals, Brine Pearls and sometimes a nautilus shell. It has 300 health.

Serum and getting home

• The arrival Box's cache holds 2 Serum Ampoules.
• Native stand-in: Brine Pearl. Right-click it into the Cryo Stabilizer and it runs without ice.
• Every tower vault holds a Serum Ampoule, and roof chests sometimes do too: the deep dive is also a way home.

Tips

• Bring buoys. Two or three. Without one, being dragged to the floor a hundred blocks down usually means drowning.
• Bring Water Breathing potions or a turtle shell, and Night Vision for the dark depths.
• Boats are what the Hollow Saint hunts best. It only goes for swimmers in the top 8 blocks of water, so if you can breathe, crossing deeper than that keeps you out of its reach (but deeper than 40 blocks draws the Crown).
• Dive down a tower's stairwell to reach its vault: it's the straightest way to the bottom.
• When something grabs you, hit it: one blow frees you from an eel, 12 damage from the Crown, 14 from the Saint.

Birds

Birds you can photograph for your bird log here. Open one to turn it round, watch it move and hear its call.

• Salvage Cormorant: common
• Saint's Albatross: rare

Everything this world adds

5 blocks and items (click to open)

Drowned Concrete

Brine Pearl

HSHollow Saint Spawn Egg

DCDrowned Crown Spawn Egg

Emergency Buoy

The traveler's tape

Every arrival Box has a chest by its door holding a cassette: the last traveler reading their journal of this world aloud. This is what they say. It gives a lot away.

Read the journal (spoilers)

The weathered Box came up on a raft of stone, and in every direction there is only grey water and, here and there, the top of a tower. The sea is a hundred blocks deeper than ours; I dived down a stairwell once and passed thirty floors of drowned offices before my breath ran out. The roofs that clear the water each have a chest left by whoever waited up there for rescue, and the barrels on the flooded floors hold what they could not carry. In some of those offices pearls have grown, cold as the deep, and the stabilizer takes one in place of ice. Build a boat if you can find wood, keep away from the drowned at dusk, and swim back to the Box with the Serum still in you when the water is enough. Look straight down a stairwell on a clear day and you may see a green glow at the very bottom: every tower kept a vault in its lobby, ringed with sea lanterns, and what the owners locked away down there is worth the dive. Bring air. I am not the only thing that swims here: something blunt and heavy rams, the eels pull you under until you strike them, the inky ones put out the light, and the bright little pike will take whatever is in your hand. Worst of all is what swims on top. A pale back as long as a street, ribbed like a cathedral, circling. The people here called it the Hollow Saint: it has no eyes, and its head opens like a flower of teeth. It broke my boat in two from underneath and took me to the bottom, held me there, and let me go. Something was waiting where it dropped me. A mantle like a shed, eight arms over the silt and one great eye with a goat's pupil; when the lids drew back the water went dark and heavy and pulled me toward it. I only came up because I pulled the cord on an emergency buoy: leather, orange dye, a gunpowder charge and a redstone torch for the strobe. Do not sail without one. The people left their reasons behind: logs on the roofs, the Flood Office's bulletins by the vaults, memos on the drowned floors, the water marks on the walls, and somewhere on the floor a survey ship lies broken in half. Read them and you will know what Halcyon Deepworks opened.