The Hungering Chests were the brainchild of Associate Research Priest Alonse Drois of the House of Life. Although his initial intentions were noble, in trying to bring life to inanimate objects to improve on their original design, he fell prey to a particularly nasty Hungering Chest who bit his head off while he was trying to retrieve a bag of crocammit teeth he had placed inside for safekeeping.
Ironically, this event made the popularity of Hungering Chests skyrocket and it's now a staple of every successful Maestro's vault.