Chainrasp

"Dont you know, that's the sound of men working on the chain, gang~"

– Sam Cooke, Chain Gang

"Prison is a second by second assault on the soul, a day to day degradation of the self, an oppressive steel & brick umbrella that transforms seconds into hours and hours into days."

– Mumia Abu-Jamal

Chainrasps are the rank-and-file troop choice of the Nighthaunt, being described as the most "base and pathetic" kind of spirit they employ (presumably only outranking the Spirit Hosts, on account of not being fractured). Their crime in life was just that - crime. They were prisoners that died whilst being bound in chains, begging other deities for forgiveness as they passed instead of Papa Bones. In death, they lug around these same chains, manacles, and iron balls with them, in a very Christmas Carol way. As previously stated, Chainrasps are very much lesser spirits, being held together solely by Nagash's will and their own spite towards the living. And frankly, why wouldn't they be? It's never specified what their crime was, only that they died in chains. For all we know, we could be staring at a tide of desperate parents who stole food for their starving families! The pure bitterness they emanate is so potent that it induces a sort of spiritual frostbite in any area they inhabit for too long, sapping away the energy of their opponents.

In keeping with the prisoner aesthetic, their unit leaders are called Dreadwardens. They exist to exacerbate the already unbearable burden felt by the Chainrasps. They do this by bearing comically large candelabras that casts a light that the Chainrasps - in their ghostly blindness - believe to be the light at the end of the tunnel. Ironically, this light only even further binds them to their fates. In essence, they are doomed to spend eternity groping for freedom that will never come. Prisoners in life, and prisoners in death, too.