chavaniac | Black Wolves Saga World Background

Black Wolves Saga is the story of the kingdom of Weblin, which is a vaguely European fantasy world. It mirrors medieval Europe in that it has a ruling monarchy, knighthood, and of course, plenty of intrigue, bloodshed, and scandal. However, the major distinction of the kingdom of Weblin is that it's populated by several races. There are the Huma (which are the humans), but there are several other races in the world called the Beast races that have animal characteristics. Most of the time, these races are human in appearance, save for the animal ears and tails that distinguish them. The ruling race of Weblin are the Kyasshi, the cat race, of which Mejojo is a member. Other races include wolves, lions, rabbits, dogs, and rats, and all of these races are able to shapeshift between a more human appearance and the animal one at will, though we only ever see the wolves and dogs do so.

While the long-term history of Weblin isn't terribly elaborated on, these races seemed to have lived in relative harmony until about a decade prior to the story, but these circumstances are tied heavily to the Garibaldi royal family, and to Mejojo himself.

Mejojo is one of two twin princes born to King Garibaldi VI and his concubine Elenora, with his twin brother being Auger. Mejojo and Auger were born into the castle, but they were hardly welcomed as heirs, since King Garibaldi had not only a wife at the time, but another son, Julian. While Mejojo and Auger could have lived a relatively peaceful life, they were unlucky enough to both be quite intelligent, shrewd children, for one, and for their mother to still be holding an unrequited love for King Garibaldi. It became clear early in their lives that they were more suited to the throne than the legitimate heir to the throne, and as such, King Garibaldi's wife Rayleigh started to plot against the two of them. Mejojo and Auger faced many assassination attempts from Rayleigh's hands, and though her involvement was rather well known, nothing was ever brought up against her out of fear of her position.

Their lives changed most drastically though when their mother not only committed suicide, but made her sons complicit in killing her, which hardened their hearts greatly and set their resolve not only to survive the political games around them, but to thrive. This spurned them into working against Rayleigh, and they eventually brought her assassination attempts to light, which led to her imprisonment, and subsequent suicide, at least on the surface. In reality, Mejojo and Auger had poisoned her in an ironic revenge for what they had suffered, and in the aftermath, Julian also lost his claim to the throne, putting Mejojo in line to inherit the title of king instead. Julian himself was a gentle, friendly boy who had nothing against his brothers, and in fact loved them, but Mejojo and Auger didn't return the sentiment. Once they were in the position to do so, they isolated and tortured Julian until they broke his mind completely, which also furthered their position in the royal succession.

When Mejojo turned 16, he was engaged to a young woman named Elvira, who was a noblewoman that had lived in the castle her whole life because of a rare condition. In the game's lore, this condition is treated as a sub-race of the Huma, called a Lobeira. The Lobeira are all Huma women, and they have an extremely weak-constitution, meaning that they tend to not live very long lives, since every disease can pose a serious threat to them. Mejojo and Elvira were on friendly terms, and the marriage to be was purely political, but Elvira was in love with another man. Arles Vogart was a distinguished Wolf knight of the royal family, and Elvira's true love. Because Mejojo and Elvira were friendly, she confessed her feelings for Arles to him, and Mejojo agreed to speak to his father about dissolving the engagement, which was not only allowed, but because of Arles's own standing because of his excellent character, the engagement between Elvira and Arles was allowed instead.

However, this was not what Mejojo had in mind. He had actually only accepted because he thought that his father wouldn't agree to dissolve the engagement, and while he truly didn't have feelings for Elvira, he didn't want someone else to have her either. He had decided to bide his time on what to do about this, letting the resentment sit within him.

Opportunity came not too long after Elvira's engagement to Arles, since Arles was the first person to come down with a disease that plagues Weblin in the timeline of the game, called Zodiva. For most races, Zodiva is extremely deadly, a plague ravaging the lands, but for wolves, it's much slower and leads to the eventual loss of their mental facilities. As Arles began to come down with the the disease, his behavior changed as he started to crave not only the flesh of the people around him, but of his fiancee especially. He had planned to leave the castle entirely, saving the people around him and Elvira, but she found out and confronted him, professing her love to him, and allowing him to eat her, because this is that kind of game. Arles did drink her blood, but Mejojo entered just as this was taking place. It seemed like Arles had killed Elvira, but in actuality, she was still alive, just heavily wounded.

Mejojo attacked Arles in a rage, but as Mejojo would have struck a fatal blow, Elvira stepped forward to protect Arles, and took the blow herself instead. Elvira died quickly, and Arles retaliated in his own rage by carving a wound into Mejojo's face, which is the scar he bears today. Arles escaped the castle, and from there, the complex political dealings of the following ten years began.

Mejojo began a very successful campaign that not only blamed Arles for going mad and killing Elvira, but also blamed the wolves for the spread of the new, deadly disease Zodiva. This began the Wolf Genocide Law, a directive made by King Garibaldi VI that allows the extermination of the Wolf people without consequence. Mejojo and Auger thrived in this time, and ten years later, the events of the game actually begin.

Mejojo and Auger are now both 26, and their father is extremely ill, on the verge of passing, though only Mejojo and Auger know this. Mejojo has essentially taken over running the country already, as their father is too ill to do too much of it. It's no small task, since not only is Zodiva spreading and killing the people of Weblin, but the wolves have banded together as well, and they go into villages to not only raze them, but to eat the people inside. The story actually focuses on someone quite separate from this strife, however. The heroine is Fiona Galland, a 16 year old Lobeira woman who has spent her life living in a tower to protect her health. Mejojo and Auger were the only people outside of her family that ever really interacted with her, since they would often come to visit, presumably so that she would be married to one of the twins later. Mejojo has been seeking her hand for years, but each time, her father, Earl Galland refuses.

As such, Auger sees opportunity as unrest in the countryside grows, and gives Mejojo the plan to bring Fiona to him. On the eve of Fiona's 16th birthday, Auger comes to Fiona's tower with many guards, arresting her on the grounds of being a witch. Fiona comes to the royal castle and finds that the villagers genuinely do blame the mysterious Lobeira kept in a tower for the spread of Zodiva and their hardship, all of which she had been wholly ignorant to. Of course, it's not true at all, but Mejojo and Auger take advantage of the suspicions of the people to force the Galland family into allowing Fiona to stay in the royal castle, since if nothing were officially done about the "witch," there likely would have been an uprising.

Of course, Fiona is hardly thrown in a dungeon, but is instead allowed to live in a lavish, charming garden which Julian incidentally happens to live in and tend as well, since that's where he had been kept and isolated himself. This is all a political move by Mejojo, since he even throws a ball in honor of Fiona's birthday the next day, since the reason always given for Mejojo's proposals was that Fiona would get sick in the castle, but shown a healthy, happy Fiona, her father would no longer have a reason to refuse. Mejojo is fixated on Fiona, after all, because she's Elvira's cousin, resembles her, and is also a Lobeira. To Mejojo, the lose of Elvira isn't so much the loss of his fiancee as a blow to his pride, so Fiona simply represents a chance to rebuild his pride.

As such, when Fiona's family comes to bargain for her return, Mejojo not only refuses, but refuses very emphatically by stabbing her half-brother Nesso, and forcing her steward, Zara, to stay in the castle and work for them. Zara is a Rabbit, after all, who are especially skilled in medicine, so he's forced to stay and research Zodiva. In fact, Zara finds out later that the primary form of research comes from captured wolves, which Mejojo also tortures personally, since his hatred of the Wolves is so strong.

They had also captured one Wolf named Rath, who happened to be Arles's young brother, which leads to Arles and some other Wolves coming to rescue him. Not only are they successful, but Arles meets Fiona, and stricken by her resemblance to Elvira, he realizes why she's there. As a dig at Mejojo, he bites her, not enough to seriously injure her, but just to make a point. It definitely works, since when Mejojo comes to the garden, he goes mad with rage at seeing the bite on Fiona, and very nearly kills her in his anger, since Arles had once again "claimed" something that was his.

The next day, Nesso and Zara come to rescue Fiona, but while this takes place, Mejojo and Auger report the attack to their father. King Garibaldi laments Arles's betrayal, since he doesn't understand why Arles would attack, and Mejojo decides that he's a bit tired of playing the game, and tells his father the truth about what happened before smothering King Garibaldi with a pillow. Mejojo is now lined up to be king, but very much aware that Fiona is making her escape, Auger goes to deal with this afterwards.

Fiona, Nesso, Zara, and Julian (who had wanted to escape being isolated by his brothers) flee, but they're intercepted by Auger and his personal knights. However, it turns out that this was all planned from the start too, since Auger had informed Julian to lead Fiona the way he had if she ever tried to escape, and Julian, too broken to disobey his brothers, had complied. Still, Auger hadn't anticipated Nesso being a part of the group, and a powerful knight himself, the group is able to escape after all. Mejojo isn't very pleased by this development, and so he punishes Auger by giving his brother a matching scar to his, but Auger enjoys this greatly, since how he's so much closer to his dear brother.

While Fiona and the others search for the wolves to reason with them, the coronation of Mejojo takes place a few days later without any problems, and so he begins trying to find Fiona once more so that he can take what's his.