Five Quatrian Tales of Terror
In honor of Hallowe’en, we’ve collected five of the spookiest legends of Ancient Quatria. Read on… if you dare!
The Whistler
A Quatrian walking alone at night who heard someone whistling an unrecognizable tune might consider plugging her ears and moving along more quickly. If she turned to find the source of the sound, she could end up facing The Whistler, an adult-sized baby with dead, opal-black eyes, an unsettling tune emerging from its pursed lips.
The Whistler wouldn’t do anything immediately other than cause a terrible fright. However, the creature’s tune would become lodged in the victim’s mind, eventually driving her mad. Those unfortunate enough to hear the victim whistling the tune could also fall victim to its insidious effect….
The Vernow
Those who offended Anthuor might be visited by The Vernow, a spectral skeleton who would appear behind its victims whenever they saw a reflection. A sure sign of a visitation by the Vernow: stumbling across a deer skeleton in the wild.
Only an offering of an old coat to ‘cover’ the Vernow and keep it warm would prevent its return and break the curse.
The Faces in the Walls
This story comes from shortly after the Pantarctican Diaspora. A family inherited a centuries-old home that had been “constructed” from living trees (a common practice in Quatrian architecture). One night, the children began to hear mysterious creaking and groaning from one of the rooms downstairs. Upon investigating the sounds the next morning, they were horrified to discover six twisted and tortured visages that had appeared in the wood overnight.
The father quickly called upon the local Woodweaver, who skillfully removed the faces and sanded the wood. The next morning, however, the awful visages reappeared. No matter how many times they tried to rid their home of these wretched faces, they would always return.
Finally, they decided to remove the wall, which consisted of digging up the roots of the trees in which the faces kept appearing. When they reached into the soil below the roots, they uncovered a shocking sight: six skeletons, arranged in a circle, holding hands as though they had been participating in some bizarre ritual.
The skeletons were removed and ritually cremated in the Temple, after which the family never saw the faces again.
Man-moth
Beware the Olteg, a Quatrian spirit said to take the shape of a smiling man wearing a tall hat. If he catches you walking alone, he’ll show you his one black tooth and lift his hat, revealing a pair of moth antennae. Grabbing you by the hair, he’ll take you into the sky and flutter away forever.
The Terror of Redgrove
A Waytender checking the paths to the South of the Tri-Cities came across a truly shocking scene when she entered the small village of Redgrove. A peaceful village of a few hundred souls, Redgrove was known in the region for its annual Elderflower Festival. This year, the Festival was not to be; to the Wayfinder’s great surprise, every single resident of the village had disappeared.
After checking all of the buildings, she noticed a flock of crows circling the town’s well. Making her way to the well, she shooed the birds away and peered inside. Screaming, she discovered that the well was full of bodies.
Over the course of the next week, officials from the Tri-Cities removed the corpses of every single resident of Redgrove from the well. Something had stuffed over three hundred people into the pit, most while still alive, cramming them in with such force that the bones of those on the bottom were shattered.
Once the bodies had been removed, the well was filled in and the village burned to the ground. The exact location of Redgrove was forgotten over the years, but some still whispered that travelers on the road south of the Tri-Cities should never stop to rest near a certain copse of elderberry trees….
