In the ash-choked valleys beneath the Black Crag Mountains, the goblins of the Carrion Wing tribe feared only one thing more than fire: silence. For where silence ruled, the crows no longer spoke — and without the crows, death came unseen.
Among them was a crooked, hollow-eyed goblin named Skritch.
Born during a blood moon eclipse, Skritch entered the world clutching a dead raven feather in his tiny clawed fist. The tribe’s elders called him cursed and tried to cast him into the swamp. But before they could, a murder of crows descended from the sky, pecking out the eyes of two shamans and scattering the tribe in panic. The message was clear.
The crows had claimed the child.
Skritch grew up among bone totems, smoke fires, and whispering wings. He rarely spoke to other goblins, preferring instead the company of the black-feathered flock that followed him everywhere. The crows brought him secrets: where enemies marched, where corpses rotted beneath the mud, where forgotten spirits lingered in ruins older than memory.
As years passed, Skritch learned the forbidden rites of the Crow Shamans — an ancient goblin tradition older than kings and empires. He painted his skin with ash and crow blood, wore necklaces of polished beaks, and carried a staff crowned with a living raven skull whose eyes glowed blue at night.
The tribe began to fear him.
They said he could steal memories with a glance. That he spoke to the dead through the throats of birds. That every crow in the valley shared a single soul, and Skritch was its prophet.
But the truth was worse.
Deep within the mountains slept the Hollow King, a forgotten spirit of famine and decay. The crows were not merely messengers; they were its watchers. And Skritch, chosen since birth, was destined to become the bridge between the living world and the endless black sky where the Hollow King dreamed.
On the longest night of winter, Skritch climbed the ancient gallows hill overlooking the tribe’s camp. Thousands of crows gathered above him, blotting out the moon. The wind carried their screams across the valley like a storm of knives.
The goblins watched in terror as Skritch raised his bone staff and began the Rite of Unfeathering.
One by one, the crows fell from the sky — dead at his feet.
And then they rose again.
Not as birds.
But as shadows with wings.