Loq

Loq (pronounced /loʊk/) is a powerful glamourist who has gotten together an army he plans to use to strike back against the sky people to put an end to their oppression of the earth people—or at least to make them suffer for it. Using his magical abilities, Loq has transformed himself into something part human and part bear, with a human head and torso but ursine limbs.

Loq's fight against the sky nations is one on which he does not embark alone. To his physical and magical power Loq adds a rough but effective charisma, and he has recruited—and continues to recruit—legions of symphatizers to aid him in his cause. He uses his glamouric abilities to give them part-beast forms like his own, though with variations: one of his followers might have a lizard's head and tail, another a bird's wings and feet, another fox ears and a body covered in red fur. This transformed cohort, now about nine thousand strong, has become known as the Wild Army. The fact that he has so many followers, combined with his ursine parts, has led to Loq's sometimes being nicknamed the "Bear Lord".

Description

Even before his transformation, Loq was a large and muscular man, about 1.95 meters tall and with a mass of 108 kilograms (with very little body fat). The change he made in himself more than doubled his mass, with a corresponding increase in his linear dimensions, so that he is now 2.44 meters tall and masses 230 kilograms. His torso remains much like it was originally, a muscular human torso with little body hair, but his arms and legs have been replaced by oversized dark-brown-furred bear limbs. Despite these new legs, he is able to stand and walk bipedally as easily as before, and while he can run on all fours for extra speed he rarely does so. With his bestial parts, Loq has occasionally been mistaken for some sort of bear tzanta (though of course a real tzanta would typically only have one replaced limb, not all four). Those more familiar with him know that he is no such thing.

His nonprehensile forepaws, however, leave him with no manipulating members, a limitation he gets around by the simple expedient of keeping around some percipiated servants who do any necessary manipulation for him. Under Loq's complete control, these individuals act as extensions of his own body with no ability to act on their own, and he even refers to them as his "hands". The hands are drawn from prisoners Loq has taken, almost always sky people. Loq usually keeps four hands with him at a time, though he may interchange them for other captives; a particular hand may serve for only a few days, or for years, with the longer tenures being more likely. A former hand will not be left physically damaged by his service, though the experience of having been for so long totally subject to another's commands and unable to do anything of one's own volition may leave psychological scars. This is often a moot matter, however, as hands who have served for any length of time, particularly during sensitive matters, are never simply granted their freedom, lest they act on any secrets they have learned during their time as Loq's appendages. While Loq doesn't kill his former hands outright (though they may be slain in battle or otherwise die in his service), most of them are neutralized in ways that some might consider worse. He may leave a former hand in permanent stasis, or transform them to some beast or plant or other harmless form— transforming a former hand dartically into a swarm of insects or rats or other small animals that he then scatters is one favorite technique (which he also uses on other enemies). He may also employ an ally or a tool to wreak some effect his own powers cannot do, such as petrifaction; using one hand to wield a talisman to dispose of another appeals to him.

Loq's head is still fully human, unaffected by his transformation except to have increased in size. He has a broad mouth, a large chin, and a heavy brow. His light brown hair he wears in a wild mane; his face he keeps cleanshaven. Loq usually wears nothing more than a breechclout, bracers, and a gold headband. His hands wear nothing at all; the position of a hand of Loq is intentionally a demeaning one.

History

Loq was born with the name Aniker in the village of Seowa in the earth nation of Haina. While he always had some interest in magic, he had no opportunity to pursue it as a youth, and instead he turned toward physical pursuits, excelling in sports and in learning the skills of a warrior. His life turned in another direction when in his teenage years a slaver party from Cast arrived, not at his village, but at a neighboring town, abducting many of its people to impress into slavery. A friend of Aniker's named Kenina was among the missing. At the time, Aniker didn't know what had struck the town; he hadn't been present for the event, and had only heard about it later. But he was curious, and started asking questions, and doing some investigating. And while he was unable to find any details, he heard some tales about the people from the sky who occasionally came down and stole people away.

Always eager to know more about the world, Loq pursued these rumors wherever he could find them. He traveled the world as a mercenary and as a player of various sports, using these excuses as a pretext to go where he wanted to go to best pursue his own interests. The more he learned about the sky people, and the more he came into contact with those whose lives they had impacted, the more he despised them. At length, when he had the resources to do so, he began to pursue his early interests in elemental magic. Though in Haina the learning of magic was barred to all but those of the proper class, this was not the case everywhere; outside his homeland, Loq had little trouble finding teachers, and proved a quick study.

All the questions he asked, however, provided attention, and eventually, probably due to a quisling about the earth people, word of Loq's investigations reached some among the sky people. One day as he traveled between towns in Worrowai, Loq was set upon by a party from Themestia and brought as a slave to their land on the wolks above. The intent may have been to eliminate him as a potential threat; the effect was to further solidify his opposition to the sky nations. Through strength and guile Loq contrived to escape his captors and return to the earth nations, and when he did he made it his mission to fight against the sky people in any way he could. After some concentrated study to further improve his by then already significant skill in glamoury, Loq used his powers on himself to transform himself into a form he saw as symbolically tied to the earth (in that bears are natural animal of the surface), and used his powers of persuasion and personality to win others to his cause. He took on a new name, Loq, for the new persona he was forging. For almost fifteen years now, he has been gathering his Wild Army, building his powers, and striking back at the sky people whenever he can.

Goals and personality

For all his charisma, Loq is notoriously moody, his emotions swinging wildly and without apparent provocation. Whatever his current mood, he is always loyal and faithful to his proven friends and allies. To others, however, especially his enemies, his attitude may vary. At times it seems he's content to try to teach the sky people the error of their ways and aspire to get the sky people and the earth people to live in peace; at other times he seems bent on the utter destruction of the sky nations. However foul his mood, he rarely kills in cold blood, though he may mete out other fates little more desireable. Becoming a hand of Loq, in particular, is an end not to be envied. In his better tempers, Loq can be genial, self-deprecating, and full of laughter, but he can change in a moment to saturnine dourness or to vociferous anger.

Whatever his current mood, Loq is constant in his opposition to the sky people. He is somewhat blinkered in his view of them, lumping all the sky people together as one monolithic evil force and making no distinction between oppressive slave states such as Cast and relatively benign sky nations such as Ñanama or Fierona. Despite his somewhat distorted view of the sky people, however, there's no doubt that Loq has done some good for the earth people he champions, and has saved many from slavery or other ills. He is not satisfied with that, however, and will not rest until the threat the sky people pose is utterly ended, a goal he is unlikely to ever be able to fully meet.

Relations

Loq and his army roam the earth nations of Arianiga, rarely settling down in any one place for longer than a few weeks. While he has gained allies in some leaders of the earth nations and other earth people sympathetic to his cause, his closest relationships are with his fellows in the Wild Army. Some of those nearest to him among his recruits are Mochauk, the Rabbit, and Yeyna.

A lusty man, Loq has formed no long-term relationships with women but has fathered numerous children in the areas he's passed through (his legs may be ursine, but his genitalia remain human). For the most part, he leaves these children with their mothers and doesn't seek out any close relationship with them. Some of his older children, however, have sought to join the Wild Army and been welcomed into its ranks. One in particular, a girl who calls herself Witeem, seems to see herself as her father's heir apparent, though there's no indication that Loq himself shares this view.

Of course, Loq's fight against the sky nations has won him his share of enemies. Cast, especially, still sees him as a danger that needs to be dealt with, though their efforts so far have come to naught. One slaver company, the Golden Kingdom, has come to see Loq as something of a personal nemesis (an unrequited sentiment, as his animosity toward them is no different from that he feels to any other sky people). But Loq has some enemies among the earth people as well. The bitterest is Noron Taq, whose mercantile dealings with the sky people he feels Loq threatens, and who would give a good deal to see the freedom fighter gotten out of the way.