Choir of Glass Cantor

Tier 2 Ranged

Choir of Glass Cantor

Tier 2 Ranged

*"Your shard is in pain. It wishes to sing. Why do you stop it?"* — Cantor Velis, before the engagement at the third waystation.

Motives & Tactics: ## Description A Cantor of the Choir wears layered grey-and-violet robes, the throat unwrapped to expose a complex pattern of resonance-conductive tattoos along the carotid line. They carry a small carved tuning fork of clear glass at the belt, and a longer hollow-staff of resonance-coded wood at the back — the staff is both melee weapon and singing-amplifier. Their hair is shaved at the temples in a pattern that marks how many shards they have personally released. ## Motives Release griefglass. Recruit carriers who will release more. Suppress factions — the Hollow Circus, the Pale Accord, the Luminous Archive — who treat shards as anything other than prisoners waiting to be freed. ## Tactics A Cantor opens at range with a sung pitch that resonates with the largest shard in the encounter — most often a shard in the party's possession. The shard responds, painfully, before the Cantor closes for staff work. Cantors prefer to disable rather than kill, because corpses cannot be recruited. They withdraw when their tuning fork is broken — without it, they cannot identify shards reliably enough to operate.

Difficulty: 13 | Thresholds: 8/16 | HP: 6 | Stress: 5

ATK: 3 | Sung Pitch: Far | 1d10+3 mag

Features

Identify the Shard - Passive: On the first round of any encounter, the Cantor automatically identifies the largest griefglass shard within Far range — its rough pitch, its approximate age, and which PC (if any) is carrying it. The GM gains 1 Fear when this passive reveals a hymn-note shard.

Sung Pitch - Action: The Cantor sings at a target within Far range. Attack at +3; on a hit, 1d10+3 magic damage. If the target is carrying a griefglass shard, the shard resonates: the target takes an additional 1d6 magic damage and the Cantor regains 2 HP from the released resonance.

Shatter-Sing - Action: Mark 2 Stress. The Cantor focuses on a specific griefglass shard within Close range — in a wall, in a pocket, in a PC's possession. The shard must succeed on its threshold roll (treat as DC 14) or shatter, releasing whatever it contained in a 10-foot burst. The effect of the release is GM's choice: a fragment of trapped grief manifests, a spell-like effect from the imprisoned moment fires, or — for a hymn-note shard — a single note of the Unfinished Hymn is sounded aloud, with whatever campaign consequences that entails.

Staff Engagement - Action: In melee range, the Cantor switches to staff work. Attack at +3; on a hit, 1d10+2 physical damage. Staff attacks do not gain the resonance bonus of Sung Pitch.

Tuning Fork Vulnerability - Passive: The Cantor's glass tuning fork hangs at the belt. A PC may make a called attack against the fork (Agility roll, DC 14). If the fork breaks, the Cantor immediately loses the Identify the Shard and Shatter-Sing features for the rest of the scene, and the Sung Pitch attack loses the shard-resonance bonus.