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"You can see immediately that the Cantigaster was once a man. Now he is a living, shuddering sac of poison. His flesh swells green and soft like rotting fruit. Foul venoms ooze beneath his skin."
The Cantigaster is a bloated and horrifying creature, which possesses - and oozes - the deadliest venom known to man.
A Permanent Form of Death[]
The Cantigaster is locked away in the Palace cellars, where it is occasionally attended to by the Duchess.
Cantigaster venom can bring a more permanent form of death than that usually suffered by residents of the Neath, and it works best when applied to a blade. The Cheery Man was poisoned with half a drop of Cantigaster venom, which left him barely able to walk. It's possible that the Duchess is immune to Cantigaster venom; after all, she is not very careful with her procedures.
What He Was[]
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"The Duchess kisses him fondly and they embrace. You watch as the Duchess... as she milks the poison from his skin. The Cantigaster sighs with relief as his venoms trickle into a stone bucket. The Duchess looks up. Has she seen you? You flee the cellar."
Beneath the oozing, swollen flesh of the monster is the Duchess's lover, bitten by an asp before the fall of the Second City in Egypt. The Duchess bargained with the Bazaar to save her beloved's life in exchange for her city; he lived on, but in this tormented state. The Duchess still visits him at midnight each Sunday, in the third wine cellar under the Shuttered Palace, to milk venom out of his skin and bring him relief; what she takes away, presumably, is Cantigaster venom.
Historical Inspirations[]
The Cantigaster's true identity is inconclusive, but there are strong implications that he is the pharaoh Akhenaten - the Duchess's father, who was betrothed to multiple of his daughters in classic pharaonic fashion.