ODDWORLD: HOWLER'S ILLYODD

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TRIBAL YOUTH

Lorafyra begins her life as a daughter of the endangered Mudella tribe. Born under a full moon as an auspicious princess despite the circumstances, the tribe’s wisemuds prophesize her involvement in a coming storm. An adventurous, spirited child, she becomes increasingly at odds with her mother, rejecting her expectations for her daughter as a future queen. Lora is denied that future regardless when the Mudella are subsequently wiped out in a raid by General Dripik. As an immature queen, she is considered a valuable find, and is taken by Vykker slavecatchers.

CAPTIVE ADOLESCENT

In a Vykker enslavement firm, Lora watches the rest of her captured tribe get discarded following an escape attempt using astra kata. Though she was complicit in the chanting, the Vykkers opt to remove her voicebox instead. Lora undergoes her puberty in Vykker care, kept until she’s ‘ripe’ as either a breeder for the egg trade, or a bait queen for the stud trade. As a muted, angry teenager, her frequent silent breakdowns and tantrums are mocked by her captors, leading to the nickname ‘Howler’. Her handler, Knicks, attempts to turn her into an industrial ‘bait queen’; it ends badly when Howler vastly devalues herself by damaging her prized reproductive organs.

CORRECTIVE SLAVE

Knicks spitefully offloads his sunk cost onto the corrective facility of Viss Madre. The Glukkon Kwalia covets Howler’s beauty and value, and grooms her to be a handservant. He grants her a synthetic voice box under his control, and marks her with an inescapable Cartel tattoo. She adapts to the Glukkon’s supremacist mindset, and convinces herself that her new life is a merciful outcome. It distances herself further from her fellow enslaved Mudokons, when Kwalia tests her loyalty by having her violently discipline other correctives. Desperate for connection, Howler gets involved with the pud Vegh, and his ambitions to depose Kwalia. Tricked into thinking she could secure safety at his side, Howler is inevitably betrayed and sold when Vegh replaces her master.

RUPTUREFARMS HIRE

Alongside other correctives, Howler becomes part of a bulk workforce order for RuptureFarms. Trapped amongst scrubs as the sole female, she clings to the only mud not affected by instinct or her charms: a sad little janitor called Abe. Unable to think in any other way but Glukkon manipulation and sexual leverage, Howler tries to get him as close to her as possible in hopes that his ‘favoritism’ from Molluck can get her the controls to her voice back. She didn’t realize she would develop actual feelings for him, nor would that lead her to follow him through his own destiny of starting the Mudokon Revolution.

VIOLENT REVOLUTIONARY

Despite her loyalty to Abe and what he represents to the Mudokons, Howler is repeatedly at odds with his handling of the revolution. Namely, that his focus on his people ignores directly addressing the threat of the Magog Cartel. Abe is increasingly put off by her violent and callous nature - or rather, the kind of person she is when she isn’t muted. They continue to come to blows as their ideologies split, and eventually Howler parts with a handful of followers equally jaded with Abe and the cause.

REBEL DEFECT

Howler establishes a ragtag group of violent terrorists from the forgotten corners of the Cartel’s cruelty that Abe’s idealism couldn’t reach. They all hold a belief in anarchy from both Industrialist oppression and the alienating ways of the remaining tribes; each one of them as broken and irreparably branded as her. The efficacy of their anarchist cause is up to question. Howler is still using them to her own means, prioritizing going after her own targets as she metes out the hatred and revenge she has been silenced from for her entire life.

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The Mudella Tribe

Two Mudellan rangers pose for a photo

The Mudella were a tribal Mudokon nation that populated the conifer forests and highlands of Northern Mudos. Many of them led a semi-nomadic lifestyle following herds of their sacred animal, the meetle, between several permanent communities depending on the season. At the height of their prosperity, the Mudella migratory trails cut established roads through Northern Mudos that facilitated trade routes between other pre-industrial tribes.The former territories of the Mudella ranged from forested foothills to broad valley fields and rocky mountainous regions. A number of their permanent settlements were partially carved into the surrounding mountainsides; this was both to preserve pasture space for meetle herds, and provide elevated shelter from seasonal flooding. Stonework and ironwork became a staple to Mudellan cultural development in their golden age, as these cities dug deeper and became dedicated exporters.

The Mudella were once purely nomadic, though as they prospered as a tribe, more queens were hatched as a result. Those queens would go on to settle with their harems, and in time develop small communities into independent cities. Traditionally, only one or two queens would be actively settled in a city, though in their golden age they would have a small network of unsettled daughters and sisters that handled their queen’s affairs. Similar to other tribal cultures in the south, inactive queens not being groomed as princesses were allowed to take shamanic vows, allowing them to leave the community and join the rangers on their migratory paths.

Portrait of a Mudellan queen

A nomadic Mudellan shaman rides a meetle during migration

The nomadic Mudellan meetle rangers were loosely organized, queenless groups that followed independent spiritual guides, who in turn followed the wisdom of their herd. As the rangers had no settled queens, Mudokons were not born into the role, but may choose or be chosen by spiritual guidance to join them. Ranger bands served as travelling augurs and mystics, separate from an individual village’s medicinemud while commanding the same level of respect. As rangers travelled throughout the Mudella territories, they were often called on to deliver messages, provide emergency aid, and serve as neutral mediators when solving disputes.

While meetle rangers were largely respected by their tribal kin, adjacent tribes and settlements from other species were often superstitious of them. A stereotype has been perpetuated of con artists posing in Mudellan garb and demanding free shelter, food and other tributes under threat of cursing their hosts.

Mudellans held respect for the meetle, from whom they harvested their chitin, membrane, resin and meat. They are known to be stubborn, ambling grazers with armor that deters almost all local natural predators. Because they never feared the first settling Mudokons who would become the Mudella, the settlers took their passiveness to be a sign of connection.

A meetle outfitted for riding

Unlike other tribes with strong connections to a spiritual animal, Mudellans openly raised meetles as livestock, evoking ire from some of their neighbors. For the Mudella, their use of meetle meat and materials was perfectly in line with Mudokon animism; meetles were so docile to them that they trusted the Mudella only - not the land rex, or the sleg, or any other predator - to partake of their mortal bounty. This belief has had its fair share of criticism, with some going so far as to compare it to the exploitative nature of industrial expansionists.

The migration path for all mudellan meetle herds is roughly the same pattern, developed through generations of wild meetle habits and domestication by their keepers. These paths have been curated and timed to ensure that pasture spots are not overgrazed. Some herds have established their own unique paths with their own seasonal pastures. Over time, these paths developed into roads between stops, and in turn those stops developed into permanent settlements with populations settling full time. This, too, was contributed to the wisdom of the meetle.

A map of southern Mudellan territory, ft. migratory routes

The resin of the meetle is a highly versatile substance that varies in strength and color depending on the age of the meetle in question. Harvesting it provides the twofold service of keeping meetle herds groundbound; as it involves scraping the natural oils off of the insides of the meetle’s outer shell segments, which are necessary for keeping their wings well lubricated and supple for flight.

Raw meetle resin

Opaque, mature resin gathers in clumps around the shell hinges on domesticated meetles, and can be heated and applied in layers of shellac for a variety of uses. Meetles less than two years old produce a purer, translucent resin that is thinner than its counterpart, but serves as a valuable polish that doesn’t discolor the object. Juveniles that have been regularly harvested may eventually grow up with issues producing healthy amounts of mature resin down the line, leading to ‘brittle wing syndrome’.Meetle chitin from their shells is harvested in whole pieces, softened in boiling water until malleable, then cut into desired shapes. Shellac application prevents moisture and heat from warping the material. Molded chitin is the process of over-boiling the material in strips, then laying it in a mold to dry. This technique is utilized in making lightweight armor that is resilient against piercing and slashing, but buckles under blunt force.

Mudellan Red pigment and the rubynus it is sourced from

‘Mudellan red’ is a rich, dark red pigment made from the regionally abundant semi-precious stone, rubynus. This opaque stone appears dull at first, but can be polished and shellacked with clear resin from young meetles to bring out its prized color. Polished rubynus is commonly used for jewelry, embellishments, charms and personal totems. Mudellan red as a dye adorned the tribe and their goods in excess; second only to the purple derived from a local wildflower colloquially (and incorrectly) labeled the Mudellan Violet.It is said that cultural fascination with these pigments comes from their similarity to the strong red feather genes passed on by their queens’ bloodline, and the tribe’s tendency towards developing purplish coloration. This claim is unverified, because there were just as many Mudellans that dyed their feathers and painted their skin their tribe’s emblematic colors. In truth, it was more likely due to the limited scope of their resources, and that importing other dyes was very expensive.

A polished rubynus meetle, a good luck charm in the shape of an egg, and a ceremonial dagger with a rubynus pommel and a molded chitin hilt

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the rebel defects

Drill

Rescued from Slig Barracks. Mudokon Worker. Delinquent. Long range weapons specialist. Unruly teenager.

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Malpractice

Rescued from Vykkers Labs. Mudokon organ farm. Field medic. Anomaly. Somehow sentient.

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trip hazard

Rescued from Necrum Mines. Mudokon Worker. Blind. Explosives expert. Geezer with a dirty sense of humour.

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slogmeat

Rescued from Bonewerkz. Body of a Mud. Mind of a Slog. Closest thing to a bodyguard the gang has.

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Wittly

Conspiracy theorist. Magog Cartel skeptic. Pirate radio show host. Tech savvy. Resident nutcase.

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darling

Jaded Handservant. Programming Savant. Enigmatic Recluse. The real mastermind behind Mayvenne LLC.

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Hatched in a labour provision warehouse, he was assigned to be a maintenance Mud in a fashion brand sweatshop the moment he was capable of using his thumbs. After losing his leg in an automatic sewing machine accident trying to save one of his brothers from the same fate, he quickly became irate and aggressive towards everyone and everything around him, so much so that the owner of the sweatshop labelled him a “Delinquent” and had him shipped off to the Slig Barracks Delinquent Camp to be taught a lesson or two about respect. Due to the abuse he was forced to endure under General Dripiks orders, and constantly being used as target practice by Sligs in training, he became even more unruly and aggressive.
He was mockingly given the nickname “Drill” by the other Mudokon delinquents in the Barracks. Drill insists that the nickname comes from his job as a maintenance Mud and skill with power tools, but the nickname actually stuck as a result of his constant insulting and scolding of other Muds much older and larger than him, with a confident gusto not unlike the drill sergeants they were faced with every day.The “Target Practice” jumpsuit is standard issue for Mudokons in the Delinquent Camp. The Sligs in the Barracks entertained themselves greatly by aiming directly for Drills peg leg every time he was sent out on the shooting range to pick up bullet shells. It became a game for them. After going through leg after leg made of rusty rods leftover from outposts and wrappings made from empty sandbags, Drill eventually started making his spare legs out of weapons that were tossed into the Barracks’ “discard pile” for reasons such as malfunction or obsoletion. Drill will darkly comment about how the guns his leg are made from are just like him, “thrown away for not working right.”When Abe first arrived at Slig Barracks on his mission to shut down SoulStorm Brewery 401, Drill had no interest in following Abe. He didn’t believe in some Messiah, and he certainly didn’t believe in blindly following some leader to become an off the grid hippie. The murder of General Dripik cracked Drill’s skepticism. He still didn’t believe in Abe’s prophecy, but Howler's grit won him over. He decided to trust Abe and Howler and go with them on their journey (after stocking up on an overly excessive amount of stolen Slig artillery per Howler’s request, much to the dismay of Abe). He was sent through a bird portal by Abe after the death of Vice President Aslik. Freedom however, did not result in Drill’s attitude improving. If anything it got worse. After the Brewery’s destruction, Drill became the first official member of Howler’s “Rebel Defects”. He did not fit in well with the freemuds let alone the natives, he even managed to receive the luck of being the first Mudokon that was ever kicked out of Alf’s Rehab & Tea after giving the namesake proprietor a very harsh, unwarranted, but not dishonest tongue lashing. He began being turned away from most front doors, not that he seemed to care, but it was clear he didn’t fit in.He inadvertently joined Howler’s mission to assassinate her oppressors when she coaxed him into realizing they both wanted the same thing; to kill the Industrialists that murdered their childhoods, no matter how small or indirect a role they played in it. In order to convince him that Howler had his best interest in mind, she gave Drill her collection of General Dripik’s medals, a trophy she had taken from the Glukkon warmonger’s dead body the day that he had been murdered as an ironic quarmic vengeance on behalf of the spear belonging to her Drone Beget being turned into a centrepiece in Dripik’s trophy room. Giving up the medals to Drill was a meaningful gesture, as the murder of Dripik was something Howler had longed for since the Glukkon’s army razed her tribe into the ground and abducted her. The medals were, to her, a reminder that she had outlived him, her tribe had outlived him.Drill keeps the medals adorning whatever he can show them off on. He is the weapons specialist of the gang. Thanks to his non-consequential career in maintenance, excessive time spent in Slig Barracks, and his experience jury-rigging prosthetics out of reverse-engineered Slig weaponry, his knowledge of industrial firearms is practically unmatched. He is skilled with both a close range handgun and a long range sniper rifle, and can identify any bullet, even if the shell is mangled.As the youngest member of the gang he is constantly on edge about being patronized. Though Howler sees her younger teenage self in Drill, caring deeply for him and understanding his pain, the majority of their interactions result in arguments and insults thrown at one another. Thanks to the Delinquent Camp he is an expert at interrogation tactics and is quick to harshly clock people on their Slegshit, even his own gang. He does not respect Howler as a leader, and is the only member who tends to call her out when her motives are clearly favouring herself over others.His second closest relationship is with Trip Hazard, who trusts Drill the most when it comes to describing the appearance of things like dead Sligs; something the two of them both find quite hilarious.

Mal wasn’t born, nor was he hatched, he was grown as a product of the Vykker Pharmaceuticals Universal Donor™ program, a horrific "medical breakthrough" that promised a consistent, conscious-free supply of transplant-ready organs that could be rented, leased, or sold. “75% ethically sourced Mudokon organ farms, incapable of conscious thought, pain, or suffering, for the discerning transplant recipient. All tissue is guaranteed cross-species compatible. Book a new liver or kidney today!” That’s what the brochure said. Mal was meant to be one of those, the 75%. Lifeless, unfeeling and disposable. But by a fluke, something didn’t take.When Howler’s gang raided one of the many Vykkers Labs in search for the notorious cosmetic surgeon Dr. Knicks, she instead found Malpractice on a steel table. Despite her first assumptions he was shockingly alive, eyes open, organs halfway removed, having been watching the procedure being performed on him in silence, before it was interrupted by gunshots. He sat up, gestured towards a suture kit, and stitched himself back together. Howler spoke to him, and it was the first time anyone had ever addressed him at all.His name comes from an identification tag that was tied to his toe, notifying the surgeon that was operating on him of something uncertain. Malpractice was the first word that Howler recognized. She asked the Mudokon if it was his name. Mal had never had a name before aside from the barcode identifier on his forehead, so he nodded.Mal is tall and bone-thin, stitched together like a ragdoll in surgical thread and steel staples. He’s a grotesque sight, the kind of figure even other Mudokons flinch away from. The Vykkers called him “it”, and the natives still do because they consider his existence “unnatural” due to having not been hatched from an egg.His gait is stiff, like he’s unused to moving under his own power (which is true). His muscles shouldn’t even work properly but, somehow, they do, and very well. Despite his stature his strength is impressive. He doesn’t feel pain due to his nerves having been grown to not have any sort of feeling. His skin is cold. His body is a patchwork of foreign parts, no one’s sure how many of them are even his. He doesn’t seem to know either, or care.He speaks very rarely, but when he does, his voice is low and precise, more like a readout than a conversation. He says that it’s because he doesn’t want to waste any words. His bedside manner is nonexistent, but in the field, no one can deny he’s effective. He knows how to keep others alive because he’s spent his entire life watching death happen in slow motion. He’s been an unwilling observer to countless surgeries, dissections, amputations-silent, motionless, always aware. The Vykkers never noticed. They never thought to check if the organ farm could see them.Mal learned from the inside out, both figuratively and literally. Within Howler’s gang, he puts that knowledge to use. He is the gang’s medic, though a more appropriate title would be their butcher. No one knows how much pain a body can take better than Mal. His cold precision and anatomical knowledge make him indispensable-if not exactly comforting. He doesn’t see suffering as something to prolong unless it serves a purpose. In fact, Mal is the only member of the gang who truly believes that sometimes, a painless death IS the only form of freedom left for a creature too far gone. He’s seen too much to believe otherwise.He doesn’t sleep. The only rest he’s ever known came in the form of cryogenic suspension. Without drugs, his body just keeps going, because there’s no fatigue in dead nerves. Unless he is artificially sedated with whatever Vykker Pharmaceuticals Knockout drugs the gang can get their hands on, he spends the night staring at nothing for hours while everyone else rests. Processing, remembering, and dealing with the traumatic reality of being alive. Mal doesn’t want revenge, he is revenge. Every scalpel, every suture, every Vykker executive with a missing kidney and a message carved into their chest is just another step toward something bigger, something final. He wasn’t made for war, but he’s very good at it.Mal wishes sometimes that he was capable of feeling pain, for the sole reason of being able to feel something at all. He’s unable to feel taste, touch, and can only barely feel temperatures. He isn’t even able to feel hunger despite his stomachs. He still prefers to eat through a pouch and a tube. He’s bitten off the tip of his tongue before and hadn’t even realized until Drill pointed out the blood coming from his mouth. He’s unable to feel sensations as well, and his artificial blood type was created for no reason other than being pumped by his lab-grown heart to organs that he wasn’t even allowed to keep.His bond with Howler is the only connection he’s ever had. She was the first person to see him as more than a “thing”. Not just a Mudokon but a person. He doesn’t know how to show what that means, of course. He’s never had a friend before her, but he follows her without question, protects her without hesitation, and if it ever came down to it, would kill every living thing in sight to keep her breathing. When the gang disagrees, he always takes her side.

Ever since he was a hatchling, he never looked where he was going and was always stumbling about in the way of others, earning himself the nickname “Trip Hazard”. After spending his able-bodied years slaving away with explosives in various locations under the orders of SoulStorm Mining Co., he was eventually shipped off to Necrum Mines under the facade of a “promotion”. It became clear to Trip that this was a lie when he was knocked unconscious and had his eyelids sewn shut before being thrown into a Cheapo Labour train car without any care whatsoever.Mudokon slave miners in the lowest levels of Necrum are all surgically blinded before they are stationed there, for various reasons. One being that any burial offerings dug up by the slaves are confiscated and sold to Industrialist museums as “excavated artifacts”. Deprivation of sight ensures the slaves don’t have the chance of seeing anything valuable while they’re digging and trying to pocket them. Also, if they become aware what species the bones they’re ordered to dig up belongs to it would likely cause the workers great moral distress, which could lead to panic attacks or suicide, and their bosses don’t want to deal with that paperwork. The blinded slaves are also deprived of sunlight as they are never permitted to leave the low tunnels of the mine. The lack of sunlight and oxygen causes their skin to become very thin and pale. If a blinded slave was even seen at a glance by someone who wasn’t supposed to see them, it would be a PR nightmare for the mining company, so they’re kept underground, essentially until they die and become the very bones being dug up. In short, slave miners being promoted to work in Necrum Mines are being sentenced to death.Trip Hazard was always very aware that Necrum would become his grave, but always remains very lighthearted about it all. He was well known by his coworkers before for his sense of humour, always cracking jokes even in the most dire of situations. When dumped off at Necrum he was typically working on his lonesome by order of Morguer, who demanded that all explosive technicians be sent on location alone in order to minimize casualties. Trip was fully expected to die on multiple occasions, but he has managed to evade death every time with a smile on his face and a bird flipped to his Slig supervisor.Explosives remained Trip’s one and only comfort. He was already half deaf due to his work and was now fully blind, meaning he couldn’t at all see the bright fiery clouds and couldn’t much hear the boom beyond a ringing in his ears. However he could still feel the explosions. The vibrations in his bones that shot through him after detonation were more familiar to him than a cold Brew or a good night's sleep. He often mentions that his lifelong dream is to go out with a bang in the biggest, brightest, most destructive explosion possible and that all the previous explosions he’s been in “clearly weren’t sexy enough”.When Abe caused Necrum Mines to cave in, it was Trip Hazard himself who aided in laying the explosives to do so. Unlike Drill, Trip Hazard didn’t hesitate when offered rescue by Abe. However, not unlike Drill, he didn’t fit in with the other freemuds and natives well. Not many of the blinded Mudokons did as the tribes themselves weren’t used to large populations of disabled and were not equipped to provide them necessary aid. Trip’s age didn’t do himself any favours either. As a crotchety blind old Mud, he expected to be treated with respect by the tribes as they seemed to value their elders. The contrary proved quickly true. His status, not only as a factory-hatched Mud but one that contributed to the “defiling of Necrum” earned him frequent disrespect and saliva spat in his direction by Posers, Kahonees and Shamans.He quickly learned that the only place he was truly welcome was in Howler’s circle of screw-ups, and when the offer to join her mission of retribution was given to him he jumped to take it.His contribution to the Rebel Defects is his both his nasty sense of humour and expertise in explosives. When rescued from Necrum he made sure he took as much dynamite as he could with him, “just in case” as he put it. He always seems to have the exact explosive the gang needs, whenever, wherever, however, just by reaching in and pulling it out.The mining hardhat Trip wears has a broken light. Trip is unaware it’s broken and still switches it on whenever entering any dark areas with the gang, despite the fact he wouldn’t even be able to see with the light anyway. It’s merely a habit he never let go.He also carries with him a shovel he uses as a walking stick, perfectly indented with the shape of a Slig’s skull- one that had cornered Howler the day that Abe had come to the mines. Trip gave the Slig a quick whack knocking him dead to the ground, an act which stood as his first introduction to Howler and the Mudokon Messiah himself.Trip’s strongest relationship is with Slogmeat. He is completely oblivious to the fact Slogmeat isn’t actually a Slog. The gang doesn’t bother to correct him because Trip doesn’t believe them when they say Slogmeat is a Mudokon.

Slogmeat’s true origins are shrouded in mystery. The gang has no idea what his name is, or if he even has one. All that is known about him is that when he was a child, he was tossed into the Slog kennels of Bonewerkz. While it’s likely that he was left there assigned to the role of shovelling up offal and feces left by the Slogs, it was commonly joked about amongst other workers that he was intended to serve as food for the animals, and truthfully the more likely case. Hence why most employees and security referred to him as “the Slogmeat”, seeing him as less of a sentient being and more of a mindless creature.Sligs themselves contributed to Slogmeats delusions, having essentially raised him from childhood exactly like they raised Sloggies as a form of humiliation and bullying. They kicked him, beat him, kept him chained in the pens, fed him Slog food, and even forced him to respond to commands like a Slog would. Slogmeat however, has managed to survive despite his circumstances, although not without consequences. Besides the various injuries and chewed off chunks of himself, he has developed a sort of familial relationship with Slogs. This comes more from being considered one of them, rather than by any training or discipline. Since he spent his formative years among the animals, he himself doesn’t recognize himself as a Mudokon. He is a Slog in his own mind. He moves like one, thinks like one, barks like one, and, thanks to his size compared to the other Slogs, he has assumed the role as the Alpha among them, saving him from being on the receiving end of a lot of vicious attacks.Other Bonewerkz employees would often share urban legends about Slogmeat to the point where scrubs were debating his existence. He was spoken about more as if he were some sort of cryptid lurking around the factory at night. Sometimes the Sligs would play along just to freak others out, and when scrubs were assigned with Sloghut cleaning duty, they were told to “watch out for the Slogs, but especially the Slogmeat”. Scrubs sent to the Sloghuts to clean them were given that task as a sort of punishment and did not come out in one piece, let alone alive. They doubled as cleaners and dinner to Slogs.During the revolt, Slogmeat was found by Abe in a Sloghut, chained up, beaten, bruised, feral and mauled beyond recognition. At first glance Abe had assumed him to be a mutant Slog rather than a mutilated Mud. Slogmeat had no desire to be rescued, not recognizing the Messiah as kin at all. All the years of abuse made him incapable of even understanding any words spoken to him that weren’t his trained commands. He was rescued against his will.Among the Freemuds, Slogmeat was the furthest from free. He was considered just as much of a mutant as he was back in Bonewerkz. He was still unable to see any Muds as kin, and after several visits from Shamans attempting to essentially exorcise whatever “vicious Slog spirit” had possessed him, he was deemed a lost cause. He is far more content living as an animal rather than a Mud due to his mind being completely gone.Though he assumes the role in the gang as a “bodyguard”, he is more accurately a guard Slog. His ability to communicate with other Slogs comes in incredibly handy. During the Rebel Defects endeavours, they have come across many Sloghuts with angry animals within. While Abe was quick to use Astra Kata and other problem solving skills to sneak through any areas filled with Slogs, Slogmeat would instead use his stance as an “Alpha” to communicate with his brethren, earning their trust toward Howler’s gang, and promising them through some persuasive barks and growls that they would receive not only freedom, but a chance to exact revenge on the Sligs that have been abusing them. Anywhere there are Slogs, it won’t be long before Slogmeat has them on a collar and chain connected to his own.Slogmeat doesn’t typically get along with Mudokons, but maintains the closest and strongest relationship with Trip Hazard, who doesn’t realize the feral Mud isn’t actually a Slog. Even though Trip is always eager to hear the sounds of the gangs feral beast mauling the organs out of a security guard, he isn’t afraid to let Slogmeat rest in his lap and makes it a habit to hold long conversations with Slogmeat even though the latter is unable to understand nor respond to him. But Slogmeat is able to sense the friendship between them, and if he were to consider anybody an “Owner” it would be Trip, who in turn considers him “Mud’s best friend”.

Wittly the Slig was a reject among Sligs due to his frailer than usual physicality. After refusing to take Big Bro hormonal injections (dubbing them “brainwashing vaccines”) he began a new life off-the-grid. He is the host of the Strand-2-Strand Pirate radio show, a station which he uses to broadcast across central Mudos his conspiracy theories regarding the ruling Magog Cartel. Most of his listeners are Wolvarks tuning in ironically because they think Wittly is incredibly fun to laugh at and that his conspiracies are ridiculous. Sometimes other conspiracy theorists call in to parrot his beliefs, but the majority of his callers are prank callers who role-play to scare him further. Because his radio station is pirate, the signal itself isn’t great. All his equipment is put together himself as he believes that Vykker equipment gives off brain-frying signals.
He is completely distrusting of the Cartel and all of its branches. His distrust is warranted of course, but it has also manifested into him developing extreme paranoia and obsessive compulsions about everything even remotely related to the Cartel. He even refuses to consume any foods approved by any Magog or Vykker divisions, not because he thinks the additives and microplastics are unhealthy, but because he believes that there are chemicals in the foods that will mess with things like his intelligence and sexuality. Wittly also believes that Slig Barracks mandated pants and goggles are equipped with mind controlling technology and therefore refuses to wear them whatsoever. He has slapped together his own homemade pants and goggles, as well as a helmet made from a strainer, tinfoil, and other junk that is intended to nullify his susceptibility to Mudokon mind control. Whether or not it works remains pretty unknown.While a lot of his theories are nonsense, some of them are pretty bang-on-the-Moolah. The Magog Cartel is aware of Wittly’s piracy and has attempted to shut it down in the past, but Wittly seemed prepared with backup everything, every time. It was soon decided by higher-ups in the Cartel to not bother with trying to shut the Slig down as they realized that trying to interrupt the broadcasts would fail in suppressing rumours. The Cartel knew if they actually did silence Wittly, it might cause more people to actually start believing some of the things said by him. Wittly often says during broadcasts that he knows “Cartel agents” are listening (and they are), but thanks to his accurate suspicions being mixed in with gobbledygook there is never any intervention.When the rumours about Abe the Mudokon’s uprising began to spread, Wittly believed they were the complete truth-especially since he suspected pretty early on that the Cartel was attempting to cover it up and suppress all talk of it. In fact, for some Sligs and Mudokons, the pirate broadcasts were how they first received word of Abe. Despite his conspiratorial beliefs, Wittly does not see Abe as a hero. His paranoia and distrust of Mudokons is unfortunately shaped by the very Cartel he despises, and he has fallen for every nutjob pseudo-archaeological claim that Mudokons aren’t simply in tune with the magic of nature and spirits, but are the descendants of gods from another planet. He believes the Mudokon Moon is actually a signal from extraterrestrials calling for their “people” to return. He has even discussed theories on his broadcast that there are ancient Utopian cities built under the temples of Scrabania.Trip Hazard was one of the many ironic fans of Wittly’s show. Despite the poor signal it managed to be the one and only radio station Trip was able to tune into all the way down in Necrum Mines, for some reason. When Howler’s gang formed and began their first acts of rebellious terrorism, the Magog Cartel was quick to suppress rumours and downplay the amount of destruction caused by the gang in news publications in order to decrease public panic. Wittly however was onto them from the start. Trip was eager to tune in and hear what the nutty Slig had to say about it. It became a habit for the gang to listen in on Wittly, until one day while listening, Howler keenly noticed that he was jabbering on about a lot of information on Cartel branch executives that would be really handy to them. He even apparently knew information on Corrective facilities that Howler knew for certain wasn’t even common knowledge among most Sligs that worked in and out of it. Wittly’s obsessive paranoia meant he miraculously had informative tabs on people Howler had on her hitlist. She knew the gang needed him.After an abrupt kidnapping and convincing Wittly that they weren’t there to infect his mind with Brain Slurgs, the gang had their sixth member. Wittly’s in-and-out knowledge of Magog technology, navigating the Webb incognito, and techniques in scrambling transmissions comes quite in handy.

Darling began life as Max, a bright but unassuming indentured child laborer working on the crew of a Nolybab daytime television studio. Whilst working on set filming an interview, the young mud’s purple feathers caught the eye of the interviewee: the fashion magnate Mizz Malthea Mayven Uggae. Before the interview was over, the Prima Glokka had Max’s life signed over to her estate, and the rest was history. The Mudokon known as Max was no more, and in his place was Mayven’s newest project: Darling.Over the course of growing up at Mayven’s side, Darling would go through countless surgical procedures to shape her into a more fashionable specimen than the plain little boy she used to be. In the end, the only thing that was still originally hers was her feathers; those were regularly plucked and regrown at Mayven’s behest, to provide all-natural materials for her new feather stole. This was the real project Mayven was spending her free time on, not Darling. Nevertheless, Darling worked herself to the bone to be the perfect handservant and companion to her Mistress, in hopes that she would still have a place at her side long after the stole was finished.As the years went by, Darling would go through countless faces to keep up with the Vykker-run beauty standards of crimps. Becoming something unrecognizable in the mirror didn’t bother Darling, who had willingly carved parts of herself away to fit the mold Mayven didn’t even order her to fill. Anything to have meaning in her life, deprived of the mental stimulation and creativity that her brilliant mind craved. Not wanting to bother with a stressed out mud, Mayven did what any slave owner with a limitless budget would do, and had a custom domestic Shrink ordered to be Darling’s new handler. Within twenty minutes of meeting her Shrink ‘Angel’, Darling had cracked open the parameters of its AI programming and ordered it to consent to her taking it apart.As Mayven was often absent from her own mansion on endless strings of business trips, social gatherings and extended vacations, Darling was often left behind to look after the estate. While she enjoyed having the privacy to continue tinkering with her Shrink, she craved the validation of her Mistress more than anything. Visits from Mayven became fewer and farther in between, and her attitude towards her own servant was dismissive at best. The only semblance of attention she spared her was to keep taking her feathers, but as the repeated plucking went on, fewer feathers were growing back. After a series of hit-or-miss feather treatments, Darling’s scalp had been left worse for wear. Still, she endeavored to provide for her Mistress’ personal project, even if her paranoia over being simply discarded grew.As the stole neared completion, Darling’s mental state worsened. Her paranoia and delusional symptoms were caught early by her shrink’s assessment, but in her fear of being replaced, Darling reprogrammed the Shrink to give her a perfectly clean bill of mental health upon reporting to Mayven. Darling’s issues were left to simmer, until at all came to a head upon one rare visit by her Mistress.It is uncertain what happened to Mayven, as Darling wasn’t in a lucid state of mind by the time she had the scissors in her hand. She killed the Mistress she loved, feared, and hated with equal measure, but it did not free her. No one like Darling could ever be ‘free’, changed too drastically both physically and psychologically to be the perfect, neglected pet she had become. So, she did the only thing that made sense to do: simply make it as though nothing ever happened to Mayven at all.For a savant like Darling, rigging a new AI out of Angel’s programming was almost too easy. Using recorded footage, clever editing, and utilizing Mayven’s famously busy schedule, she could digitally take Mayven’s place from the comfort of her own room. For the next six years, Darling and Angel would co-opt the Mayven persona to attend her meetings, conduct her business deals, and even arrange her personal affairs with Glukkon men. No one was the wiser, because after all, Darling was only one Mudokon - one very smart, very cunning Mudokon, who would do anything to keep the status quo.Darling had traded her freedom for Mayven’s life, though not in the way she intended. Even in death, her Mistress ran her life to the most minute detail; everything Darling did was in service to keeping up the grift of Mayven’s ‘life’, while Darling herself continued to languish away in a room she would never leave. Her Shrink, no longer her caretaker, had been reprogrammed into an idealized, sycophantic version of Mayven that would love Darling back, just as she always wanted. To her, this ghost occupying the robotic shell was more real to her than the memory of a dead woman who only ever neglected her.Darling was prepared to die keeping up this grift for the rest of her days, until the cracks in the facade became apparent to the even more paranoid and deranged conspiracist Wittly, who brought ‘Mayven’ to the attention of the Rebel Defects. While they infiltrated Mayven’s estate looking for answers, they didn’t realize they would be led to a single, self-imposed hermit of a crimp, conducting Mayven’s ‘lie’ through a wall of computer screens. They also didn’t realize that they may as well have saved Darling’s life.