Embodiments of the slow decay wrought by time, ruin chanters are ancient fey who seek out broken and abandoned places to protect. They are given over to nostalgia and sorrow for glories long gone, and channel these emotions into melancholy songs of power.
A ruin chanter closely resembles a tall, spindly elf with weathered brown skin and long silvery hair. Its eyes are solid black, with no iris or pupils. Its clothes are tattered and faded, taken from the corpses of those who defile its domicile. Ruin chanters are selfish and consumed with melancholy, angrily retaliating against any who enter their ruins for any reason other than restoring the glories of the past.
Ruin chanters assume the worst of any beings who enter their domains, lashing out at them with their mystical songs and the debilitating power of time itself. They use their natural agility to great advantage and avoid revealing their powers of flight, using it mainly to glide over difficult terrain or trick creatures into following them onto unstable surfaces. However, creatures who truly wish to restore the ruins to their former glory can find a powerful (if unpredictable) ally in a ruin chanter.
Ruin chanters shun most other creatures, though they may occasionally visit ruin chanters from other nearby locales, usually to mate (a rare occurrence). The stony ruin elementals come into being solely through the ruin chanters’ power, and are the only company they truly enjoy. The powerful orichalcum dragons often seek out ruined sites to rebuild in their own image, and while ruin chanters often welcome them at first, many quickly find the dragons’ presence overbearing and grow to resent the subjects it attracts and turn against them. Constructs and undead native to the ruin chanter’s home are tolerated and treated as simply features of the site.
Ruin chanters have increased in numbers throughout Gladia since the fall of the Kingdom of Kown-Dam, with most ruins discovered so far bearing one as a resident. They typically adorn themselves in clothes taken from the sites, but construct eclectic attires combining common clothes with noble finery. They have been recorded on Munab as well, in those regions behind the Jet-Spear blockade that were evacuated by the stone giants.
Shores of Swords 