The slums of Doaden’s cities are teeming with orphans and unclaimed children, uncouth and cynical beyond their years. Hardened by life’s cruelties, these street urchins are both pitied and feared by those who tread their alleys. Yet beneath their hardened exteriors, they remain children, innocent and deserving of protection. In a just world, their plight might stir compassion; in the Empire, it is met with indifference.
Not so in the cities of Doaden, accounts from the folk of the slums to the guards have fallen upon deaf ears - tales of children, walking the silent streets at night alone, unresponsive to all cries, as if enthralled by some unsoundable song, drawing them into the sewers below…
Whispers spread of children wandering the streets at night, their eyes vacant and movements shambling, as though swayed by an eerie, unearthly tune. Calls from fearful citizens or the city watch have yielded naught but silence from the powers that be. All that remains are chilling accounts of the young vanishing into the dark, swallowed by the labyrinthine sewers below, never to return…
