Relish Chanter

Relish Chanter was the sister of Tiny Chanter, captain of the Unreasoning Vengeance. Although the Chanter family appeared to have Tarthenal or Jaghut blood in their family line, Relish was more reasonably proportioned than her almost bestial brothers and had feminine curves.

Tiny and the other Chanter brothers were determined keep promises to their Ma and Da to protect Relish's virtue. They were happy to see her visit female prostitutes as that meant she was still a virgin.

Relish had flowing black silken hair and a round face with blushed cheeks, obsidian eyes, and raven feathered lashes. She had a full bosom, round belly, and broad hips.

Poet Avas Didion Flicker described her as a "most charmingly witless woman."

In The Lees of Laughter's End

Relish was on board the Chanter ship that pursued Captain Sater and her crew of ex-Chanter garrison renegades on board the stolen Suncurl. She and her kin sought the return of the Toll's City treasury as well as bloody revenge. They caught sight of the Suncurl just as its shaken and savaged crew finished dealing with the dual threats of a murderous lich and six demonic statues.

In The Wurms of Blearmouth

The Unreasoning Vengeance clashed with the Suncurl in a terrific battle during a rainstorm. The already damaged Suncurl wrecked on a reef near Spendrugle and Relish and the remaining Chanters pursued the few survivors into town. Her brother Tiny was ready to kill everyone in Spendrugle in order to sate his vengeance. The Chanters planned to begin their murder spree at the King's Heel tavern, but were convinced to sit down for a meal by proprietor Feloovil Generous. Relish took the opportunity to visit the brothel upstairs and so wasn't present when the tavern was attacked by Red, the D'ivers lizard cat. She missed a wild melee in which Flea and Lesser Chanter and many tavern regulars were killed before Tiny beheaded Witch Hurl. The Chanter brothers left Relish behind when they made their way to Wurms Keep to murder the town's lord. But by the time the disoriented Chanters arrived at the keep, Relish was already there waiting for them. Once inside, Scant Chanter spied the deadly demonic cookies baked by the necromancer Bauchelain. The Chanters excitedly descended upon the treats, but it was not revealed which Chanters may have eaten them and perished.

In Crack'd Pot Trail

Relish, Tiny, Flea, and Midge Chanter joined a caravan travelling along the Cracked Pot Trail in order to pursue Bauchelain and Korbal Broach. When the caravan ran out of food and started killing and butchering their fellow travelers, Relish happily participated. She suggested the group of artists chosen to be sacrificed for the caravan's meals should tell stories to determine who had the right to live another day.

Relish had her eye on the poet Avas Didion Flicker, casting wanton glances his way, and engaging him in savage lovemaking one night when her brothers were asleep. Flicker's fellow artists Brash Phluster and Calap Roud witnessed the event and threatened to tell Tiny. But Flicker turned the tables. For his next story he told a tale of how Calap had seduced Relish, and before Calap could deny it he was murdered by an enraged Tiny. Relish later admitted to Flicker that she felt trapped by her brothers and often thought of killing them to escape. Flicker offered a skeptical Relish the promise that he would find a way to release her. On the final night of the pilgrimage Flicker convinced the Chanters that Calap had impregnated their sister. He also described a future in which the child would learn of its father's death at its uncles hands and seek bloody vengeance. Realizing they had failed to protect their sister and fearful of a kin-slaying vow the three agreed to release Relish from their control.

As the pilgrim caravan came to the end of the Great Dry, Flicker told a story to the already agitated group of Nehemothanai and Chanters that hinted that their necromancer quarry were the true passengers in the Dantoc's carriage. Tiny and his brothers attacked and the carriage went out of control, dragging them over a three hundred foot cliff. Flea and Midge appeared to die on the rocks below, but Tiny's body was not found.

In The Fiends of Nightmaria

Relish Chanter was one of the ultimate survivors of the dire events of Crack'd Pot Trail who had arrived safely at the city of Farrog (as also had Tiny Chanter and the twins, Flea Chanter and Midge Chanter). Relish did not remain long in Farrog, however, and she apparently left Farrog with Avas Didion Flicker. Where they went and how long they remained together was not reported. Although it was widely assumed that Relish had been more than willing to run off with Flicker, her brothers, especially Tiny, preferred to think that Relish had been "kidnapped" and forced to go with Flicker against her will.

Quotes

"When they're snoring you can drop rocks on their heads and still they won't wake. I know. I've done it. Big rocks. And when they wake up with knobs and bruises, I just tell them they all knocked heads together last night, and so they get mad at each other and that's that."

―Relish Chanter, on her brothers

Speculations

Since the fact that Flicker, near the end of his life (when he theoretically wrote the long ago history of what had happened to the caravan of travellers that became the story, Crack'd Pot Trail), mentioned that he then had many wives, one could wonder if one of those wives was, in fact, Relish Chanter.

Notes and references

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