The Smiler

"Ever heard the story of the Smiler?" That's how it always began like a ritual. My father would always start the same. He would always tell that story the same. "Ever heard the story of the Smiler? The one with the teeth that nash, The one with eyes that seek, The one with arms that claw." He liked that. The curiosity on my face. I think he actually got some joy out of that story. "The Smiler comes in night or day, In rain or sun, In comes through storm or weathers fair." My father wanted to tell of the monsters, The Gnolls. "It breaks the wall, It breaks the chains, It breaks the armies And always it smiles." I knew horror then, My mother dying, He wanted something simpler for me, A monster, The Smiler. "It eats the flesh, It eats the brain, It eats the soul and then... ... then... it eats the hope, all with a smile on its face." The Smiler, The beast has cropped up throughout the millennia and now, We managed to drive it off. The people it had torn them to pieces. The 9th division were gone, Took less than 6 minutes for the whole division. We drove it off. I stood against it. I could swear as it fled... It winked at me and... Smiled.

The Smiler is a creature usually presumed to be an overgrown gnoll. It has been recorded in a number of military reports, a couple of written histories.  There has only been one verified report.  The Titan Ionvor the blademaster hunted it wanting to destroy it once and for all. he took an army into Scramesh and a number of bards as well as his personal coterie. He died there in single combat, Shirker Kelvian the poet recorded the battle and is one of the 80 survivors of the 13,000 that headed into the dark.

It exists throughout the world it's spread hard to notice. In most places it is used as just a story to scare children.

There have been a couple. The only prevelant one is that the smiler is not a gnoll but a deamon called a yenngho. This deamon being a natural tyrant that dominates weaker foolish creatures.

It is always just a story to scare children, for it to be any more would to be admit an ancient bestial evil still roams the lands.

In appears in the 500 stories to scare children by Jillian Heal, The Spooks in the sands as a hunting presence by G. D. Kover and also in the story of the blades end and other adapted works following the life and times of Ionvor.

There are... disturbing painting and shrines in the dark which depict it. The only other notible work is in the cathedral of fallen souls where a great stained glass window shows it hefting Ionvar's broken body skywards in a dark victory.