Bestiary of the Tenebrous Depths: Wicked Chanter

If you look close enough, you can see the dirty prints of thin fingers all around the margins of this paper, as if someone fiddled with it curiously, turning it this way and that. "Note: this article of the Bestiary is the least definitive of all, and cries out for development. It has been recorded as told by a few unlucky souls who survived their encounter with the Wicked Chanter. The Chanter is the newest of the known Great Nightmares. There are no testaments of meeting her from the distant centuries, as has been confirmed by the dragon Xelliren himself. We are almost certain that previously the Chanter lived in an isolated part of the dungeon, and a passage leading from her section of the caves to the main labyrinth had been blocked by a rubble for a long time. Then someone – presumably another party of heroes summoned by Xelliren – cleared the rubble, unwittingly setting the monster free. We still don't know what the Chanter looks like, but we know well the sound. Her appearance is always announced by singing, vague echoes from deep in the tunnels. They forfeit their lives who follow the sound, hearing in it the cry of a friend. It is safe to say that the Chanter is always accompanied by a large pack of various monsters, who would not, under natural circumstances, gather together or act in concert. They protect the Chanter, hunt for her, and attack with vicious force any who enter their territory. But at times they also suddenly spare their victims, without any apparent system or logic. The motives of their unpredictable mistress are entirely unknown. She may simply be mad, like many other creatures of the Tenebrous Depths. It is hard to say whether singing is her way of luring her victims to their doom, or a means by which the Chanter controls her pack of monsters. We may have a chance to find out in the nearest future. – Tonight our expedition's scouts heard her tender voice in a distant corridor, singing a children's lullaby. The Chanter is near." An ancient drawing decorates the back of the page: a drop of blood, smeared in the shape of a crooked flower and a sun.