Philippine Big Boar

Gallus was born a commoner. His wife, Queen Hostesia, is the direct descendant of Eustocles of the Zubisthene Council, the king who cut ties with Deorvinci one hundred years ago. Gallus was drawn to the story of Eustocles long before he ever met Hostesia, fascinated by the idea of a ruler who chose mystical insight over faith-based dogma, and it was this admiration that shaped much of who he became.

Their meeting was not romantic in any conventional sense. Twenty-three years ago, Queen Hostesia was patrolling the border between Rocsarte and Theolis, checking for bandit activity and Bithos Cult movements, when a group of nimble and deadly assassins ambushed her patrol, killing all of her guards. The assassins were dressed as Theolis mages a deliberate framing. Gallus, passing through as a stranger, immediately intercepted and killed them all.

When he examined one of the bodies afterward, he found the order: issued by the first king, directing the assassins to disguise themselves as Theolis mages and kill the queen. Hostesia explained to him that the first king had been dethroned two years prior, found guilty of corruption and exiled and had since taken his son with him into service as a Deorvinci official. That exile had apparently done nothing to blunt his ambitions.

Gallus and Hostesia bonded over the aftermath. He liked to paint. She liked the way he saw things.

There is a moment that defined his character clearly. In a tavern, a visiting male scholar from another kingdom was loudly criticizing Deorvinci and other institutions, declaring that God was not real. Gallus listened. Then he asked the scholar, calmly and without hostility, whether he was truly happy or simply spending his life trying to prove something to a world that wasn't listening. He told him that if he was going to criticize institutions, he ought to make sure he was actually living like a real human being, because a man who rejects God while being just as joyless and rigid as the institutions he opposes has not actually freed himself of anything.

Then Gallus asked if he was married. When the scholar said no, Gallus told him he knew a place with many decent women and suggested he find himself several girlfriends. Hostesia, surprised, mentioned that the women in the place Gallus was referring to wanted men so badly the scholar might be kidnapped. Gallus laughed and said a man that serious needed to be drowned in women.

Eight years after meeting Hostesia, Gallus became the new King of Rocsarte. Together they had two children: Sordanor, the eldest princess, and Phileo.

In the years that followed, Sordanor, Phileo, the royal scholar Simion, and a commoner village girl named Bethel became close friends. What none of them knew was that three spies, sent by Deorvinci Royal Prince Adax, had been searching the region for records of the mysterious figure known as B. A young Simion, unaware of who they were, unwittingly identified them, and the spies reported their findings to Prince Adax, who was traveling with the exiled first king.

When the first king recognized the second king's children among the group, he began quietly plotting to destroy the village entirely — eliminating any possible record and everyone connected to it. Bethel and her grandfather died in the burning. Phileo, Sordanor, and Simion were not present when it happened.

Prince Adax, enraged by what had been done, murdered the first king immediately after.