[Beastfolk] Taksaka

Taksaka

history,

Very little is known of Taksaka's parentage by the public: What little he knows, he refuses to share with near anyone. He knows that his father was a Terran, a Beastfolk who's heritage even he doesn't know. His mother was a Dragon, or at least a Beastfolk with Dragon heritage. He is rather convinced she was a full blooded Dragon, but his memory of the time is admittedly sparse. His parents were a rare couple who genuinely loved each other: Which was only "rare", because his Mother was a borderline sociopath. She cared very little for anything: Tak sometimes wonders if she even had the capacity to feel emotion. She care for her father enough to bear him a child, though.

Unfortunately, Tak's father died a few years after he was born of disease. His mother had always been distant, but the infant Tak only truly ever felt alone after this. While his father lived, his mother had tried to show the same care and love to Tak that she did to his father, and that his father did to Tak. But it was always strained: Forced. Maybe his father never know, but an infant can sense when it's mother doesn't love it. After the death of Tak's father, his mother only grow more cold and neglectful, as if all care she had for him had withered away with his father's body.

Finally, probably annoyed by his constant stares or tired of feeding him, his mother took the young boy, barely a few years old, and dropped him in the midst of a village of Beastfolk near the outskirts of Ba'dagar, never to see him again. If Tak had been unlucky, that's probably where his story would have ended. Fortunately, the village wasn't made of complete assholes, and though none of the families adopted the young boy as their own, they gave him shelter and protection, and worked to take care of him collectively. He was literally raised by a village.

Probably Tak's greatest regret is that he grew to be unfortunately similar to what he remembered his mother being like: Distant, cold, and detached. He felt gratitude and respect for the villagers who raised him to no gain of their own, but to them he always seemed harsh and cold. He struggled through most of his teenage life in expressing emotion, but to very little avail. In the end, the village began to grow distant from him, believing that what he wanted was space. It wasn't, but he didn't begrudge them their decisions, and it wasn't long before he left without so much as a word.

Tak travelled around the lands owned by Ba'dagar, without purpose. To describe all of the people he met and the things he did would take more than a novel to write, so we'll skip over most of it. The important thing is what he gained from his travels: Perspective, and purpose. An admiration for the people he came across boiled inside of him, feeding an earnest desire to help others, frustrated by his inability to connect with those around him. In the end, he realized the simplest course of action was simply to act on his desire to help others, and leave all that silly explaining himself stuff to those more eloquent than him. He gained a bit of a reputation travelling about, and due to his lack of socializing, most of those he encountered walked away without knowing his name. Due to his rather noticeable dragon heritage features, even mundane encounters became something to be talked about, and he became known simply as Greyskin during this time. The name has stuck to him like glue ever since.

However, the years of travelling about helping whomever he came across, slaying the occasional bandit or providing whatever menial labor was required, he became frustrated back his own lack of impact. He traveled to the center of Ba'Dagar; Fortunately or unfortunately while it was in the midst of a crisis. For unknown reasons, hordes of Phantasms were plaguing the city, exploiting it's natural defenses against it, as they could traverse such things just as easily as the Beastfolk who inhabited the city. Tak took an active part in defending the city against several such attacks, making a name for himself as an effective, if cold, commander. The attacks culminated in the Beastfolk launching a pre-emptive attack against a nearby underground hovel of goblins, ogres and beasts enslaved by them. Although Taksaka was not initially in charge of the assault, the man who was perished in the battle, caught unaware by the sheer volume of goblins and ogres that had managed to hide so close to the City itself. Taksaka managed to organize the shattered battalion of Beastfolk into a workable force and route the Goblins and Ogres, a force that massively outnumbered their own, but not without significant losses to their own forces. 

While many labelled the mission an overall failure, most of the survivors spoke highly of the Greyskin Beastfolk that had managed to secure a victory against harsh odds. Although Taksaka had meant to leave the city shortly after and continue his wanderings, he was stopped by an eldery Beastfolk and his entourage; Specifically, the at-the-time current representative of their people. He discouraged Taksaka from continuing his life of solitude, and insisted he stay in the city. After some convincing, namely bribing, Taksaka relented, "for a little while."

The former representative seemed to have made Taksaka a form of pet project, finding him a curious oddity and a lost soul. Taksaka thought the old man was more irritating than could be expressed with words, but did not mind the attention nearly as much as let on. Before he knew it, he was the mans pupil of sorts, learning from him about the Beastfolk people; Who they were, how they lived, all the things he had wanted to know about the people he shared blood and land with but had never been able to ask them, or experience for himself. And he saw the difference the Representative made to the people, what he did and how one person could effect the lives of so many people. And he resolved to do the same himself.

When he told the elderly representative of his desire to be Representative after him, the aged man laughed in his face for a good ten minutes. Then he realized Taksaka had not in fact suddenly grown a sense of humor and was quite serious. Although amused, he began to teach Taksaka how to do his job, but reminded him that it was not a position succeeded through nomination: Teaching him how to be a good representative was one thing, but getting him the job was something he would have to earn himself. 

His opportunity to earn himself a name came when the Goblins returned.

It was an almost exact repeat of the scenario many years prior, when Taksaka had first arrived: Goblins attacked en masse, almost daily. They navigated the cracks surrounding Ba'Dagar and scaled it's slopes as if guided, in a manner unbefitting of their kind. Taksaka oversaw the defense of the City as the attacks continued, leading a small force outside the city as the attacks began to threaten the lands surrounding the city. Once again, Taksaka found a hovel buried beneath the earth near the city, filled to the brim with Goblins, Ogres, and assorted beasts bound to their will. Using a combination of scare tactics and espionage, he nearly routed the Phantasms without so much as a drop of blood spilled, before they suddenly turned and closed in around his forces, confirming his suspicions that something else was manipulating the Goblins. Ready for their tactics this time, casualties were much less severe, and in the end the goblins were routed nonetheless, fleeing into the wilderness. Taksaka lead a hunting party to exterminate all that he could find so that they would not threaten the outlying lands, then returned to Ba'dagar.

It was there that he found that the Representative he had called one of his only friends in life was basically about to kick the bucket, dying of illness. He refused to speak to anyone but Taksaka as he lay dying, admitting to the half dragon at the end of his life that he had been investigating a traitor in their midst; One among the Reprentative's inner circle was a Pact Mage. He believed he, or whatever creature he was bound to, controlled the Goblins and was responsible for the attacks. Taksaka began to track down the traitor, but only managed to find him days the former Representative passed away. He exposed the traitor for what he was, and when he refused to renounce his pact, executed him. 

With the Death of the Representative, the position became suddenly vacant, and Taksaka vied for the spot against several others. He leveraged his repeated defense of the city, and exposure of the traitor in their midst against his foes, and few wished to directly defy him now that he was seen as the inheritor of the former Representative's last wishes. What few did oppose him were bested; Usually in bouts of skill or strength, as per some of the more proud customs of their people. In the end, "Ol' Greyskin" stood unopposed as the Representative of the Beastfolk.

That was roughly nine years ago, and he remains their representative to this day. And that's wear the story begins, yo.

[b]One Last God Kubera[/b], Kasak [i]Taksaka[/i]