Past | Childhood

King used to be called by another nickname, "Laughter". He was a cheerful child who had a natural knack for making people laugh, especially his mother, Brisk Summer Breeze. She raised him alone in a cottage by the sea, and did all she could to provide him with a comfortable and carefree life. However, fate had other plans for the two of them, and Brisk Summer Breeze lived up to her name as she suddenly passed away one summer night. Luckily for Laughter, his mother was well loved in the nearby village, and it wasn't long for a local craftsman named Agostino to agree to step in to raise Laughter in her place, taking him in as his apprentice.

Past | Apprenticeship

Agostino was a gruff man with strict, hard-lived values, but beneath it all he had a softspot for his new apprentice's silly antics and humour. While he was stern about Laughter paying attention to the woodcrafting lessons he was teaching him and expected him to get his work done on time, he would never stop him from entertaining him with jokes, songs, and games he would play with their wares. He was especially amused by the shows he'd put one for him with the marrionettes they had crafted. As Laughter grew older and more skilled with his puppeteering, his master encouraged him to go out to the town square to share his shows with the public. He claimed it would "drum up business' by showing off their products, but in actuality he knew Laughter had more love and skill in entertaining than he did in woodcrafting, and wanted to encourage it. And he was right, as over time Laughter soon became loved by the locals and always drew a crowd whenever he put on a show. Even some interesting spectators...

Past | The Court

Laughter drew the attention of the ruler of his county, the Contessa, who was so charmed by his performance that she offered him the position as her personal court jester. Laughter was thrilled at the opportunity, thinking this is what he was born to do, but his excitement was soon dashed when Agostino staunchly disapproved of the news. He was wary of this Contessa, as many people of the village were in hushed whispers. There were troubling rumours, and clear abuse of her power happening frequently, such as the high taxation on the already struggling town, and frequent missing persons. Still, Laughter did not heed his advice to stay clear of this noble, and left his master to join her court. For years Laughter was content in the life he was living, becoming very close to The Contessa he was serving and feeling as if they had a good enough rapport that he could talk to her about anything. So when Agostino was beginning to show increasing signs of mistrust of nobility to the point of secretly joining a resistence group, Laughter thought he could keep the peace by trying to use his position of influence to try to talk some 'sense' into both his former and current master. This backfired horribly, drawing suspision onto himself from His Lady that he served so dutifully. This led to him being set up in a ruse, used as a pawn to unknowingly lead her forces back to Agostino's resistence group. He was meant to die with the rest of them when their base was assaulted in an explosion of magic attacks. However, he just managed to escape, but not without the scars, both mentally and physically, to show for this contesssa's betrayal.

Present Day | The Smirkus

After spending time hiding in the streets of various cities trying to gather his wits and scrape by without drawing attention to himself, the now "King" began to plot and plan what to do next. He wanted revenge, he wanted to make her pay and make her feel ten times the hell he was put through. But he knows well enough that charging in now would be nothing short of a death sentence. Instead, he's put his attention into surviving. To do this he returned to his true love, entertaining the masses, and joined a crumbling circus as their clown. His act has a variety of elements: jokes, dancing, music, stunts, and most importantly, puppeteering with his last surviving marionette, Thimbleweed. When a nobleman by the name of Godfrey Archibald Hollingsworth III bought the circus to try to reinvigorate it, King was anything but pleased. Although he's stayed on, he watches "the lord" with a careful eye, having no trust for his kind. Despite this, he often joins in with the various, increasingly strange tasks his new boss sends him and his colleagues on, mostly because he finds the trouble they get into entertaining.

• He doesn't take off his mask unless he needs to, and never around other people. He'll even sleep in it if he needs to.
• He's horrible at showing vulnerabilty and often uses Thimbleweed to express his more gentle, genuine feelings towards others. However, if called on it he would reply "it's a fictional character I play, he isn't real" as if they're stupid for thinking otherwise. He also hides behind his own 'persona' of the jester, too scared to let others close enough to know the real him fully.
• He can play accordian, flute, and tambourine. He can also sing, but refuses to unless it's in a silly voice and purposefully bad (such as when he's in character as Thimbleweed)
• He can cast spells through music but prefers instead to cast through the art of puppeetering, using Thimbleweed as his focus.
• He's very rude and has an insult for everyone, sometimes playfully, sometimes in earnest, good luck guessing which it is. He's also very deceitful and gets a kick out of giving false information or pulling pranks just to mess with people.