Du-Bekar Dwarves - Stoneheart - The Grin Reaver

Nobody in Black Hollow remembered when the Grin Reaver first came to Gallows Hill, only that the hangings got quieter after he did. Men who’d cursed judges, spat on priests, and kicked holes through cell doors went meek as lambs the moment they saw that awful smile peaking beneath the hood. Folks said the Reaver had once been a man named Abel Voss, the town executioner who survived a rope snap that should’ve torn his head clean off during the fever winter of the Dark Age. They said something climbed back up from beneath the scaffold with him that night something old and hungry that wore his skin like a wet coat. Ever since then, whenever the moon turned thin and yellow over Black Hollow, prisoners would hear soft giggling outside their cells and smell damp earth like a grave freshly opened. Some swore the Reaver never blinked. Others whispered his mismatched eyes could see the exact moment a soul gave up hope. But the worst part the thing mothers warned their children about in trembling voices was that nobody he ever executed stayed buried long. A week later they’d be found wandering the woods barefoot and smiling.