Wailskulk Demon

"They came with the dusk, you think it's just the wind at first, but then the sound starts. It's a cry that doesn't seem to end, burrowing into your ears, into your chest. All we could do was run. Even now, I hear them sometimes, that awful cry, and I wonder if it's just a memory or if they're still hunting me..."

— A veteran adventurer, about their meeting of an unkindness

 

Flitting, Floating

  They are shadows in shadows, flitting between the cracks in the world, where light does not dare venture. Wailskulks are small, winged demons, their shapes barely more substantial than the silhouettes they inhabit. They move in fits and starts, jerky motions that mimic the half-remembered horrors of dreams. If seen, which is rare and rarely fortunate, their forms are almost whimsical at first glance: bat-like wings too large for their wiry frames, oversized heads with hollow eyes that gleam like trapped starlight, and mouths that stretch impossibly wide.   It is the sound they make that unravels minds. The first note is like a whisper you almost recognize, curling around the edges of memory. Then it crescendos into a wail that claws at your thoughts and shakes loose the foundation of your being. The scream of a Wailskulk is not merely a wound, it is a weapon. It echoes with the grief of forgotten things and the panic of impending doom. Soldiers have broken ranks at the sound. Wizards have fled mid-incantation, their carefully memorized words spilling into the void.  

Cunning Screeching

  They are not clever, not in the way mortals measure cleverness. But they are cunning. Wailskuls gather in places where despair festers: battlefield ruins, abandoned asylums, or the burnt-out shells of homes that once held laughter. They are drawn to pain and amplify it, feeding on the chaos their cries provoke. Individually, a Wailskulk is an annoyance, a pest that might unnerve a village or send a weak-hearted merchant running. In numbers, they are a plague. An unkindness of Wailskulks - for what other word could suffice? - has brought down entire caravans, reducing proud bands of adventurers to trembling wrecks unable to hold a torch steady, let alone swing a blade.   Some say they are born from the signs of broken oaths. Others claim they are the remnants of dreams torn apart by nightmares too strong to forget. Scholars of the infernal realms debate their origins, but none doubt their effectiveness as tools of chaos.   When one hears a Wailskulk's cry, the wise cover their ears and flee. The foolhardy attempt to fight, and the Wailskulk, cruelly gleeful, lets them try. It knows that courage falters, and even the strongest will eventually fall to its mournful, bone-deep song.