Nobles of the Waning Court - The beauty of ripe fruit blended with the dread within autumn’s long shadows, every noble of the waning court is a vision to behold. Black, pupilless eyes dominate their fine-boned faces while sharp teeth lurk behind plush lips. The faeries’ ears are pointed like an elf’s, but slightly shorter. This is due to the antelope-like horns spiraling from their temples, the base of which are riddled with red-stained honeycombs. Waning court nobles wear their hair long, often braided with bones and sticks, and is a color of fall leaves. Their skin tone can best be described as bloodless. Commonly, these fey wear leathers cured of eldritch animals, cloaks made from a nightmare or displacer beast pelts, black iron plates, and amber adornments with petrified insects within. Most find their mien more savage than aristocratic. Stray direflies are their constant companions, always buzzing cryptic prophecies as they crawl about. Bearing rusty great-axes and a terrifying...

Nobles of the Waning Court - The beauty of ripe fruit blended with the dread within autumn’s long shadows, every noble of the waning court is a vision to behold. Black, pupilless eyes dominate their fine-boned faces while sharp teeth lurk behind plush lips. The faeries’ ears are pointed like an elf’s, but slightly shorter. This is due to the antelope-like horns spiraling from their temples, the base of which are riddled with red-stained honeycombs. Waning court nobles wear their hair long, often braided with bones and sticks, and is a color of fall leaves. Their skin tone can best be described as bloodless. Commonly, these fey wear leathers cured of eldritch animals, cloaks made from a nightmare or displacer beast pelts, black iron plates, and amber adornments with petrified insects within. Most find their mien more savage than aristocratic. Stray direflies are their constant companions, always buzzing cryptic prophecies as they crawl about. Trained at the feet of the Heir of Crisp,...

Nobles of the Waning Court - The beauty of ripe fruit blended with the dread within autumn’s long shadows, every noble of the waning court is a vision to behold. Black, pupilless eyes dominate their fine-boned faces while sharp teeth lurk behind plush lips. The faeries’ ears are pointed like an elf’s, but slightly shorter. This is due to the antelope-like horns spiraling from their temples, the base of which are riddled with red-stained honeycombs. Waning court nobles wear their hair long, often braided with bones and sticks, and is a color of fall leaves. Their skin tone can best be described as bloodless. Commonly, these fey wear leathers cured of eldritch animals, cloaks made from a nightmare or displacer beast pelts, black iron plates, and amber adornments with petrified insects within. Most find their mien more savage than aristocratic. Stray direflies are their constant companions, always buzzing cryptic prophecies as they crawl about. This horned fey hefts a lance crafted fro...

Larger than a horse the giant direfly resembles an amalgamation of a fly and hornet, clad in blood-red chitin with jaundice light seeping from its abdomen. Beneath stunted mandibles is a lipless, human-like mouth complete with corroded teeth. From between two eye-clusters juts a chitin horn, not unlike that of a greater beetle. Though, the shape of this protrusion is not uniform among the species. Arcane Alteration. Even in the feywild, giant direflies are not a naturally occurring species. Specialized hive crofters breed these beasts from direfly swarms , selecting the largest insect from among the hive and saturating it with foul magic. This mystical enhancement steadily enlarges the direfy, as does a diet rich in humanoid flesh. At the same time, the crofter trains the monstrosity to be either a guard animal similar or serve as a flying mount for the waning nobility. Those insects rode by waning house knights and the like bear custom-made saddles and livery into battle; some eve...

Nobles of the Waning Court - The beauty of ripe fruit blended with the dread within autumn’s long shadows, every noble of the waning court is a vision to behold. Black, pupilless eyes dominate their fine-boned faces while sharp teeth lurk behind plush lips. The faeries’ ears are pointed like an elf’s, but slightly shorter. This is due to the antelope-like horns spiraling from their temples, the base of which are riddled with red-stained honeycombs. Waning court nobles wear their hair long, often braided with bones and sticks, and is a color of fall leaves. Their skin tone can best be described as bloodless. Commonly, these fey wear leathers cured of eldritch animals, cloaks made from a nightmare or displacer beast pelts, black iron plates, and amber adornments with petrified insects within. Most find their mien more savage than aristocratic. Stray direflies are their constant companions, always buzzing cryptic prophecies as they crawl about. The robed fey forwent armor and sacrific...

"Now, I know what you be thinking. Why is a ghost wandering about hunting other malevolent spirits? We restless folk ain't like a race, guild or nothing. Not all of us are evil neither. See, among my people, there were folks called fossors. They were somewhere between gravedigger and priest. It was our duty to prepare bones for burial, make sure the right rites were done. That way they'd not rise to menace the living. I was in charge of one of our catacombs. Hell, I don't even remember what ruin its buried under now. Doesn't matter. Let's just say I screwed up and screwed up bad. Hungry dead came storming out of those catacombs and devoured the grand city above it. I managed to stop it. Weren't easy. The folks that survived didn't care neither. Bound me still living in an iron box, craved curses all over it, and then they moved on to far away lands. Can't say that I blame them. Save, I didn't come back full of darkness and hate like most...

"They saw it took the lives of nearly fifty men to bring the warrior woman down. After the first thirty, she fought on the hill of corpses and just kept adding too it. They finally got her though but didn't kill her. Not right off, anyway. You'd think such a hero would have her names sung in ballads. That be the problem of being on the losing side, the victors control what bards sing, eh? Hell, they wiped her name from history, that they did, in the years following her execution. Though, execution ain't the right word for it. The generals had her spread out among the branches of a dead tree on that battlefield, her guts like holiday tinsel. Their priests kept her alive, though. Crows flocked to the dying woman, feasted on her for days. Every time she thought she'd slip off into oblivion those damn clerics healed her just enough to hang on. Until the enemy's host finished sacking the land, razing the keep and marched off to the next front. Then they let th...

"Imagine being the last man alive in a city done in by the plague? No matter what you tried there weren't nothing you could do to stop it even though each of those souls relied on you to save their lives. That's what drove Saw Bones mad. Save, only 'bout half the town had shuffled off their mortal coils. The rest were sick with the plague, though, and the doctor knew where weren't no way he could stop it. But he knew how he could stop their agony. So, the doctor went from house to house administering the sort of medicine where the patient goes to sleep and don’t' wake up. He used all the 'remedy' on those that were still strong enough to fight back. For the frail, he slit their throats with his scalpel. Said it were a mercy, he did. Once that was done Saw Bones tried to rest. To his dismay he didn't get the plague, but oh was he sick with guilt. He decided to move on and spread his cure. The plague ravaged the kingdom far and wide back then. H...

"Some folks think the Fisher be one of those triton folks, others that he be blue o' skinned cause he drowned. It's hard to tell with an apparition sometimes. Especially one with sodden flesh hanging from coral-mired bones. The only thing for sure is this fella's looking to catch living souls, not fish. Legend goes that he loved another fella, a lighthouse keeper, and they met in secret where water meets the land. Unfortunate thing was that the lightkeeper loved drink just as much as the fisherman. Perhaps more so. One day the wickie took a header and smashed on the rocks. Drowned there, poor sod. The Fisher wailed when he found his lover's corpse. Folks drawn to the sound, though, figured they'd stumbled on a murder instead of an accident. Figure they didn't fancy the dalliance the two enjoyed. They ended up chaining the fisherman to a sea-side rock at low tide and set the wickie's corpse in front of him. Poor bastard got to watch crabs and gulls ...

“This tragedy starts as they usually do, with greed and tyranny. There once was a dwarf king, don’t recall his name, don’t matter. What matters was the fella held a cold, cruel heart beneath a bearded braided with gems and golden torques. He had a hole in his soul he tried to fill with treasure and never could. One day, he got it in his mind that he needed a weapon grander than any other. So, this foolish king went and had the greatest dwarf smith of the era trussed up and brought to his castle. The king demanded this fellow make a hammer that could strike open the very earth so he could prove he as more powerful than the stout folks’ very gods. Course, the smith refused. The king brought in the man’s family, bound in chains, and laid his demand again. When the smith still refused he had the man’s youngest child tossed into the forge and made his ‘request’ again. This time the smith relented and the tyrant locked him in a great forge room with the decree that if the smith tried to...

"Some say Gutter Rat has always haunted this beleaguered city. It used to be a halfling shire, you know, before humans decided they needed the nearby river to mill their grain and the fields nearby to grow it. Sure, you can find the wee folk around still, dodging around your boots. Hell, most of them ain't even all that angry that this used to be their land. Gutter Rat though, his anger never cools. The dead are like that. Never heard of the little terror attacking one of its kin, though. Now, humans? It lets their blood run in the streets freely. Gutter Rat tends to target those that abuse and ridicule halflings. Though, I guess it's ended enough folks that ain't. Quick as hell, its hands made out of blades shears the soul away before you realize the bundle o' rags ain't no beggar child. If'n you ain't fast enough to hit it, the Gutter Rat just slices you again. I guess that's why most folks don't hunt the haunt. Those that do don'...