/ic/ - Artwork/Critique

Beast and men warred for centuries, vying for territory and resources. Both aimed to exterminate the other. Battle after battle, the numbers on both sides dwindled, and they attempted peace. Eventually, humans co-existed with the beasts and vice versa. Beasts benefited from human technology, while humans found beast strength and their natural abilities useful.

Beastlings are children of a beast father (minotaurs, wolves, any non-human) and a human mother. However, the church finds the very act of humans mating with beasts blasphemous—a taint to the image of god. Some cities and kingdoms agree, posting bounties for beasts and beastlings alike and burning all the human "heretics" who was found or suspected of mating with the beasts. However, some kingdoms both welcome beasts and human alike, deeming co-existing paves a path for a better, brighter future.

Jiyo is a lupine beastling—canine beastmen father and human mother. He and his parents lived in an outskirts outside the walls of a kingdom that protected both beast and humans. From a warring kingdom with an opposite belief, villagers raided the outskirts, burning their home in the process. Jiyo survived huddling underneath the bodies of his dead friends and family.

He crawled out of the bloodied pile and stared at his burning home one last time. Jiyo scurried away and never looked back. He just ran as much as he could until his legs gave out. He now found himself in a forest beach, where he hunts crabs and fishes just like his father taught him. He lives and camps in a cove near the beach's cliffside.