History

Backstory

King was a quiet child who liked animals more than people. Whatever war between humans and monsters was erupting around him, he could always count on watching the local wildlife, whether it be a fish swimming down a river or a squirrel gathering nuts for the winter, to provide a momentary escape and remind him that life doesn’t revolve around that conflict. He looked up to the Zoomancer Role as a result, naively believing that he could use it to leave civilisation behind and join the peaceful world of animals.

As he grew up however, King found this childhood dream to be simply unrealistic, seeing again and again how society’s conflicts leave negative impacts on the innocent world around them. His distaste for humanity and monsterdom grew into spite, eager more than ever to enter the Role and protect the animal kingdom from the distasteful battles they were surrounded by. He trained himself vigorously to have enough strength, stamina and skill to be able to keep up with animals and protect them from any civilised threat that may endanger them.

Once he finally became a zoomancer and began his first pilgrimage, young King found himself struggling to achieve results. To his frustration, in spite of all his observations and studying, he found himself unable to gain the trust of animals, even when saving them from poachers and the like. Years of failure persisted until King had the revelation that, despite his distaste of his fellow man, he too was human and that naturally, animals would see him as unfavourably as he did. Re-evaluating his outlook, King began contemplating human nature just as much as the nature of the animals he studied. Eventually, he opened his eyes to the bigger picture, that all animals fight and humans and monsters were no different, and his resentment was overcome with compassion for all living things. Brightening up like this has led him to find he’s actually quite fond of other people, who’d have known?

With this new zen attitude, King became a more empathetic human being and was able to start succeeding in his Bonds. Amidst all the turmoil within himself, his first charge took him six years to complete. Despite the dissuasion of his peers, he next sought to Bond with an aquatic animal, out of desire to deepen his limited understanding of the world as well. Even with his improved skills, it took a full ten years to achieve his Bond with squids, which included a lot of stamina training to increase the amount of time he could spend underwater. His eventual success was met with substantial praise and notoriety for a time, leading to his recruitment into the SSS, which he happily agreed to in hopes of preservation of peace and balance in the world’s ecosystem (as well as the chance to see wildlife in the monster half of the world).

Due to his work with the SSS, he was no longer able to focus entirely on his zoomancy pilgrimages, often finding himself called away from his studies to partake in missions. On the flipside though, he would often disappear from the SSS’ ranks for months on end, fully engrossed in what he considers his real purpose in life. It probably hasn’t made him very popular with his superiors, but what are they gonna do? Tell him not to play his Role? It can’t be denied that he gets results, having mastered another two Bonds in the 14 years since joining, most recently with the mighty rhinoceros.

Ongoing

King was selected as a member of Captain Rezo's squadron on a peacekeeping mission, accompanying tradesman Marko Ytalli and his apprentices to an exchange with a goblin settlement across the Meridia. King spent much of the journey quietly observing the new recruits in the squad and loudly fawning over Ytalli's ostrich.

Upon reaching the third day's checkpoint, the party is sabotaged by a number of undead goblins, controlled by a mysterious bloody slime which, after its defeat at the hands of Rezo alongisde Novelle, King notes as being concocted from squid ink. Being alerted to the fire that has engulfed the miasma outside, King rushed out in an attempt to rescue Alisya and her team. As the fire is extinguished, King instead finds the unconscious Akadii and brings her back for interrogation.

During a night watch alongside Val, another slime creature infiltrates the waypoint. King battles the creature using his Squid Spirit as Val is sent to alert the others. Though he finds his attacks largely ineffective against the creature, King analyses it for information to relay to the other combatants upon their arrival.

After the group failed to subdue the beast, it escaped with Ytalli's apprentice Liliana. King joined Moe, Kaspella, Alisya and Val in giving chase in order to rescue their kidnapped charge. Despite securing the assistance of a goblin guard troop, the team failed to hunt down the creature and its master in time, instead finding Liliana subjected to genetic experimentation.

Relationships