Bato nanm cause unease when others see the ship sailing the seas from afar.

Their ships are able to sail in spite of having been sunk, though the damage is never repaired and often becomes worse over time.

Every weapon on board, whether the ship's weaponry or personal weaponry, is imbued with msawhat and entropy, causing it to be rimed with these powers. Any missile launched from the ship will explode with entropic energy that eats away at its target for about 15 seconds of extra damage. Melee attacks are corrupting; any pirate, slaver, or raider killed by one will become part of the ship, even if they were never part of the ship.

Anyone who spends more than an hour on the ship is at risks being consumed and becoming part of the ship as well, but those who were not violent in life become food for the ship's souls. When individual souls on the ship grow in strength, they grow in form, becoming more solid. The more solid souls seek flesh to eat. All of them eat soul and resonance.

Each individual has one special power of their own created randomly at the time of death.

The ship's collective soul can make the whole ship disappear into a maesltrom when an hour before dawn. They never sail during the day. They reappear within a few miles of the maelstrom, rising from a similar whirlpool, the next sunset.

It is much rarer for non-oceanic vessels to become bato nanm, but there are rare skyships, spaceships, voidships, sandships, etc.

To create a bato nanm, one must corrupt an entire ship's crew and then sink it. If the whole crew is not corrupted, the ritual will fail. Most msawhat users will try to get them all at once (31+), but some try to slowly but surely corrupt them one at a time. Others who are part of a crew may attempt to corrupt everyone as a ship sinks.

To control a bato nanm is similarly difficult; a very powerful necromancer, however, can control the ship by taking the helm and using a special ritual. To summon a bato nanm, it must be night, and the summoner must either have part of the ship or a special nautical ritual of incredible msawhat power (31).

To capture the power of a bato nanm, a necromancer must not just have part of the ship, but a very important part--masthead, main sail, helm, something major and large. It still requires incredible power to draw from (at least 19 for basic powers, 31 for full strength).

A medium may channel an individual soul from the bato nanm, but there is great risk that more souls will enter and capture the medium.