✤ Vyrm
Once the king of Hallownest, now a simple bug tormented by the guilt of his past actions, trying to make up for his mistakes. Following the return of the infection, he disappeared in a self-manifested realm where he hibernated for years until he was woken up by Ghost of Hallownest. He embraces his hunter's instincts by eating raw meat from beasts that roam Hallownest, though he is far from one himself.
─── ⋆⋅☼⋅⋆ ───
Info | |
|---|---|
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| Name Pronunciation | /vɪrm/ |
| Name Meaning/Origin | Serpent (wyrm) |
| Tribe | Vyrm |
| Birthplace | Bone Wastes |
| Hometown | Dirtmouth |
Personal | |
| Age | ~350 years old |
| Sex | Male |
| Gender | Male |
| Pronouns | He/him |
Appearance | |
| Eye color | ■ Slate blue |
| Height | 0.94m |
| Weight | 33kg |
| Notable details |
Leucistic skin
Additional pair of arms |
Relationships | |
| Partner | Grimm (husband)
The White Lady (formerly) †Herrah the Beast (formerly; dalliance) |
| Children | Hornet
Holly Lewk Asta Milo †Ghost of Hallownest †Unnamed vessels |
| Parents | †Unnamed mother
†Unnamed father |
| Siblings | †Unnamed brother
†Unnamed sister |
Vyrm is the owner of the tinkering store in Dirtmouth, where he creates custom orders and sells watches. At a glance, he is nothing more than a regular mortal bug, though some still remember him as the once king of Hallownest, or the last of the wyrms. He is married to Grimm, with whom he has three pups: Lewk, Asta and Milo. He lives in a large house in the center of the town, together with his husband, their pups and his children from previous relationships: Hornet and Holly.
Reference sheet
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Name origin
The word wyrm, which is the source of his name, is derived from Proto-Germanic languages where it means worm, serpent or dragon, and a Proto-Indo-European word root which means to turn or to bend. In-universe, the different spelling comes from the region where he was born. In the language spoken there, the name of his species is spelled as vyrm (plural: vyrmen) instead of wyrm, as it's known in Hallownest. Being the last of his kind and not given a name by his mother, he decided to use Vyrm as his official name, though during his reign only those closest to him knew him by that name (and most of them wrote it incorrectly, using the Hallownest spelling, Wyrm). Now that he is no longer the king, he dropped all official titles and asks to only be called by his chosen name.
Table of Contents
Background
Early life
Vyrm was born as the runt of a litter of three baby wyrms. Ever since the day he hatched from his egg, he had to fight for survival - he was lucky, as his mother refused to leave him to die or eat him, as the wyrm population was already in sharp decline at that point. Despite that, it was clear that she was disappointed in his state, and frequently made it clear to him. Vyrm had to fight for scraps with his siblings, and during his childhood, he was always the outcast. He was weak, nowhere near as aggressive as his peers, and his rare coloration made him stand out in the worst ways. Somehow, though, he managed to survive until maturity.Things did not go well for him after that. One day, his siblings all left the nest on their own, without their mother. He stayed behind, confused. After that, his mother followed, signaling him to not follow her, to which he obliged. He waited for her to return, but days passed and there was no sign of her. At first he assumed something must have happened to her, but as more time passed, he started to feel that perhaps he was too much of a burden and she simply abandoned him. So despite his fear of the unknown, he left the nest, and continued fighting for survival.
The next decades of his life he spent in solitude, avoiding his kind, as he knew he had no chance in a fight against them. He somehow managed to find enough scraps to make it, sometimes even feeding on carcasses of other wyrms just to have something to eat. Eventually, he stumbled upon a strange tablet, which seemingly spoke to him and guided him towards a source of what he would later find out was soul. He followed the instructions, and as a result, was able to learn powers he never once heard of before. After learning how to use soul as sustencance, he dedicated the next years of his life to mastering soul magic to gain an advantage over his peers. He became fascinated by the mortal bugs he stumbled upon, and somewhere along the line, he found Hallownest - a small land located in the Hallowed Mountains, with most of its territories found underground. He decided he wanted to reduce his form to gain the trust of the mortals, and to form a community built on respect and cooperation, something unheard of for his kind. In his eyes, it was a way to prove himself, and with all of his gained powers, he wanted to put them to good use by protecting those weaker than him, something he wishes he experienced as a hatchling.
Eventually, he learned a spell which allowed him to change his form to a much smaller one, rewriting a big part of his genome and essentially allowing him to start over in smaller, more manageable body. Soon after successfully using said spell, he crawled out of the carcass of his former body, only to find a strange being waiting there for him. Their light blinded him, but once he was able to see, he realized it was a tall, tree-like being. The White Lady was her name, and surprisingly, she took him with her to their mansion deep underground, located in a place full of lush vegetation and strange creatures. She helped him get back in shape, and over time, a bond formed between them. He wouldn't know until much later that what he felt wasn't love, and that the root was cold and seemed to care more about appearances than love and an emotional connection. He found her beautiful and fascinating, and in his lack of experience, he mistook that feeling for love.
Years of reign
The first years of his reign were just what he had hoped for. His new subjects would develop their communities under his guidance, they respected his teachings and were loyal to him. He built his palace, and invested a lot of time and resources into the infrastructure of the kingdom, the Stagways and the Tramways being some of his most successful endeavors. He founded the City of Tears, built under the Blue Like, and made peace with The Mantis Tribe, allowing them to remain sovereign. It wasn't all perfect, though. Most notably, the region of Deepnest and its inhabitants strongly opposed his plans to expand his tramways into their territory, forcing him to abandon the idea. But aside from that, everything went very well, and he was beloved by his subjects.Throughout the years of rule, he refused to eat. Still dealing with the effects his rough childhood had on him, he saw himself unable to eat in an appropriate manner, with his instincts taking priority. As a result, he would eat in a messy, beast-like manner, which made him ashamed of himself; he also believed he would be seen as a hypocrite, he preached that to achieve peace, the bugs' beastly ways should be left in the past, which only fueled his feeling of shame. And because he already used soul as sustenance before, he simply continued doing so, ignoring the very early signs that its effectiveness was only temporary.
He had other things to worry about, after all, as it wouldn't take long for his marriage to turn unhappy. He didn't feel loved, his wife rarely acted softly and lovingly, more often than not he simply felt like a trophy husband and a way for her to satisfy her needs. She was often blind to his struggles, she failed to see or react to him feeling uncomfortable or anxious, and seemingly only cared about his image whenever they appeared together as king and queen, and her own needs and expectations being met. She would often voice her displeasure whenever he did anything she perceived as inappropriate, and he frequently heard comments about his own appearance coming from her, which resulted in him developing many body image issues. On top of that, he felt unsatisfied sexually, their encounters often left him more stressed than satisfied, as he struggled with the idea that he needed to perform to the best of his ability, or else she would be disappointed or upset. This left him with a very warped idea of intimacy, he saw it as a responsibility, not something that was done for pleasure and out of love.
There were moments where she showed him some kindness, rare glimpses that convinced him that perhaps he was the overly sensitive one. But that wasn't the case, whatever kindness he experienced wasn't enough, and he was often left to deal with his struggles by himself. His low self-esteem made him assume that his problems were just a burden that he has to carry by himself, he was scared of asking for help, a mindset he still has to deal with to this day. On top of that, the stress of ruling the kingdom eventually caught up to him, and as a result of both of these weights on his shoulders, he began hiding away, usually in his personal workshop, in hopes of escaping all the anxiety even for a bit.
Meeting Grimm
During one of such escapes, while a royal event was happening within the Palace, he excused everyone and left to the balcony, to get some fresh air and escape all the noise. It was at that day when he first met Grimm. Unaware of his lustful intentions and encouraged by his warm presence, Vyrm began slowly opening up about his struggles. In normal circumstances, he would quickly realize his misstep and apologize, but Grimm seemed very invested and kept asking questions. The conversation was very pleasant, and eventually turned into a discussion about interests, to which Vyrm excitedly told Grimm about his workshop. His duties sadly forced him to return to the palace, but he invited Grimm to visit the next time he was around, so he could show him the workshop and discuss more things. To his joy, Grimm visited again, and again, and kept visiting him every now and then, more and more often as the two grew closer. However, at that time, they were still just friends, Vyrm didn't yet realize he had feelings for him, and while Grimm wasn't a stranger to flirtatious comments, they never reached suggestive territory. They became best friends, and Vyrm was excited at the prospect of seeing Grimm again every time he visited.As his rule progressed, the side effects of relying on soul for sustencance began to show. He would slowly lose weight and become more and more sickly, frequently appearing weak and nearly fainting. He would hide his condition under long, flowy robes, so that his subjects would not notice. Besides, the soul had healing properties, so he would be fine, or so he thought.
The infection
Soon enough, he'd have more important matters to focus on. The expansion of his kingdom wouldn't go unnoticed. The Radiance, a being of light and dreams, and Grimm's sister, was enraged at the prospect of losing followers, and when her own Moth Tribe turned their backs on her, she snapped. A terrible infection followed, turning Vyrm's own subjects into mindless drones that endangered his whole domain. Things took a desperate turn as no amount of effort could halt the spread of the infection. In search of a solution, Vyrm consulted Grimm, who suggested using the void to stop his sister, mentioning his father's sacrifice hundreds of years ago. Vyrm followed his advice and, together with his Great Knights, opened the Abyss. The severely weakened form of The Shade Lord, the ancient void being, greeted the intruders, but they were able to defeat it in an event later known as The Battle of the Blackwyrm.Vyrm studied the void carefully, and eventually concluded that The Radiance could be sealed inside a vessel composed of void. He experimented with an artifical shell, the result of which were the Kingsmould that later served in his palace, but they proved to be too unstable. In desperation, he asked his wife for her thoughts, and she brought up the idea of using an organic being as the vessel. None of the experiments on beasts of all sizes worked, which ultimately brought the two to a terrible idea - they never planned to have children, but they knew that a demigod offspring born to them had the potential to be strong enough to contain the infection. Vyrm was devastated at the thought, he knew it was a monstrous task which went against all of his core beliefs, but time was running out, his subjects were dying en masse, and he had to save his kingdom.
After siring thousands of small, seed like eggs produced by The White Lady, the two placed them all at the bottom of the Abyss, where they merged with the void residing deep underground, forming void eggs from which the vessels would hatch. However, most of them were too weak to survive even an hour, and only some of them managed to begin the climb towards the Abyss entrance. It broke Vyrm's heart seeing them fail one by one, but eventually one of them succeeded at reaching him. He left the Abyss together with the Pure Vessel, and sealed the place away in guilt and shame.
The Pure Vessel was raised and trained to become the vessel that would stop the infection, but to successfully seal it away, he needed someone to sleep for eternity in order to make that seal strong enough to last. The first of those Dreamers was Lurien the Watcher, a loyal subject and one of the most respected bugs in the City. Monomon the Teacher, the head of the archives, followed soon after. The third Dreamer ended up being Herrah the Beast, the queen of Deepnest, but she had one clear condition - before her eternal slumber, she wanted a child with the king, to have a strong heir who would grow up to rule in her absence. Vyrm was hesitant, but eventually agreed, and the result of this dalliance was Hornet.
Things between him and The White Lady only got worse as a result of the vessel plan. They were always somewhat distant, but their different ways of coping soured things even further - Vyrm was devastated and couldn't sleep peacefully as he would blame himself for the monstrous act he committed; his wife, on the other hand, wasn't as deeply affected and encouraged him to move on for the sake of the kingdom. He couldn't comprehend it, and would begin voicing his diapproval, something he has never done before. He started seeing how poorly she treated him more clearly, his close bond with Grimm made it obvious - he felt comfortable and respected in Grimm's presence, all the while he felt like a puppet in his marriage, dancing to his wife's wishes. The aftermath of the vessel plan was the breaking point for him, and the relationship would eventually come to an end. The White Lady left the palace, and Vyrm was left in a confused, but slightly relieved mental state, now that he didn't have to constantly worry about upsetting her.
Xero incident
Soon after the sealing, Vyrm traveled to the City of Tears with baby Hornet, and that is when he was approached by a warrior named Xero. The warrior threatened him for reasons unclear to the king (though he soon noticed the orange droplets dripping from underneath his helmet; Xero was one of the very last beings to display the signs of infection), and without a second warning, attacked him. Vyrm was able to push Hornet away from the danger, but Xero was strong, very strong, and he found himself struggling to overpower him, his weak state becoming even more clear. Suddenly, Hornet grabbed Xero's cloak, in an effort to stop him from hurting her father, which infuriated the warrrior. However, before he was able to deal a fatal blow to the little princess, he was tackled by Vyrm. The king completely blacked out, fueled by protective instincts, and by the time he regained his senses, he was standing over the bloody, decapitated corpse of the warrior, panting and spitting out blood and chunks of flesh. He grabbed Hornet and rushed back to the palace, where he would hide away in shame and violently convulse at the mere thought of consuming another sapient being in blind rage.Despite that traumatic event, the next 15 years were somewhat peaceful. The infection was gone, and he could focus all his attention on bringing the kingdom back on its feet. The task was difficult, but what proved even more challenging was raising his daughter, Hornet. He loved her dearly, she was the light of his life and he promised himself he would do everything to make her childhood as happy as it could be. He wasn't one to ask for help, still though, he was incredibly grateful when Grimm offered to give him a helping hand at raising his daughter, whenever he was visiting. After some years, Vyrm finally saw that what he felt towards Grimm wasn't exactly platonic, but he struggled deeply with that realization. He would continue doubting himself, though the signs were fairly obvious, he would blush more often, and his mind would wander more and more frequently, in directions he felt were inappropriate. He felt disgusted at himself, the images his mind conceived, and the things he did to relieve himself of the feeling. He believed that confessing his feelings would destroy their friendship, and so he kept them a secret, silently suffering from the yearning. What is more, his physical health kept declining. He still refused to eat proper meals, the memory of Xero's corpse still fresh in his mind. Even despite the peace, his life was a struggle, but there was a possiblity that it could turn better.
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