Hræsvelgr was young and fresh-faced when she emerged from the Cursed Tree, eager to spill living blood, to spread suffering, but she was left wanting. The confines of reality outside of the Underworld were stifling, unable to express her true creativity with such limitations. But there was one thing that this place offers that the Underworld did not; a true fear of death. Death meant nothing in the Underworld, but here, it was everything. Souls in the Underworld already lost everything they held dear; they had nothing left, but here in the Kawani lands Hræsvelgr found that these beings had things they would
fight for. They had spirit and hope, love and joy, all emotions that Hræsvelgr had never seen before. She hated them. She wanted to
crush them. She wished to taint this world with evil until it was consumed by it, and where would their hope be then?
Determined to make her mark on the living world, she has since become something of a legend, a story whispered amongst those with pure souls that fills their hearts with fear.
Don't go into the woods, they say.
The Corpse Swallower lurks there. The very land rots in her presence, the stench of death follows her. If you find even the crickets have stopped singing, run as fast as you can, or she'll get you. Some details may have been exaggerated or romanticized, but those who are foolish enough to try and find the Corpse Swallower are never heard from again. She has claimed her territory in the forest, and decorates the trees with blood and rotted corpses, the peeled skins of her victims, leaving no question that this area has been spoken for: Trespassers beware.
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