story
READ SLATE AU COMIC (i'll write it up later)
Slate
info
A stoic and seemingly-docile wolf from an alternate universe. Raised in the city as Osmanthus' familiar, without a pack to call his own.
from an AU comic not canon to any of the games. since we made an alternate universe version of senbei, you KNEW another version of timber would be coming next...
slate is what timber would become if he was forcibly removed from mount sorbet as a child. his story is so dark. lilium wrote it, so you know it's bad in there... at time of writing only part 1 of his story is finished, but part 2 will be coming in like august or something so look forward to that!
slate was first designed on 5/26/2026, then became real in comic form a couple weeks later.
personality
this man. he has been beaten down by life so hard. unlike timber he has nothing to smile about... he goes through a massive change after the end of his backstory, so i'll wait to write about his current-day personality until part 2 of the comic is finished! BUT LIKE... HE'S SO LONELY!!! HE CRAVES THE COMMUNITY OF WOLVES HE WAS TAKEN AWAY FROM AS A LITTLE KID!!!!! WHY DID THIS HAPPEN TO HIM NOOOOOO
relationships
FAMILY
Tundra and Grim (mom and dad)- his birth parents, both deceased in the AU. this isn't in the comic but you can assume his dad died the same way as in canon, and his mom died trying to fight off the witches who ended up capturing him... nooo.....
- Osmanthus' uncle (adoptive parent)
- not shown a ton in the comic but like. slate obviously hates this man, he's horrible to him.
Osmanthus (adopted brother)- the entirety of part 1 of the comic focuses on how their relationship evolved over time. it was set up to be abusive from the start, they were often pitted against each other and fought, but they also had some good times together as two kids trying to survive living under oz's uncle's roof... slate would protect him but didn't plan to stay and do that forever since he was being treated so badly... and as adults he is literally just chained to osmanthus now, being made to feel guilty for abandoning him and leaf during act III. it's so rough.
Leaf (adopted brother)- the reason slate sticks around osmanthus honestly, this kid did nothing wrong and both slate and oz want to protect him.
FRIENDLY
Twigs- COMING IN PART 2 OF THE COMIC
Mason- ALSO COMING IN PART 2 OF THE COMIC (slate becomes his familiar)
trivia
- a lot stronger than timber since he actually has access to food and works out... wait how muscular is he compared to senbei... i think senbei is a bit bigger... (sorry, i know, i can't draw men that well so it's hard to tell from my art)
*DEEP INHALE* a lot of inspiration for slate comes from fenrich in disgaea 4, specifically the flashback episode, which is a postgame dlc chapter and my favorite piece of disgaea content ever. in some of the early concept art for fenrich he had an eyepatch, but because the character art would often be flipped and they weren't doing 3d models for disgaea yet, they decided against it since it would never be shown on one side consistently. in one of fenrich's specials, vanargandr, he turns to wolf form and has a bunch of visible scars and chains on him (in reference to fenrir) which worked perfectly for me because i had already decided slate would be osmanthus' familiar.
now, allow me to relay the plot of d4's flashback episode to you (alternatively, watch it! it's one short chapter!)
*tells u my favorite story about my favorite guys*
fenrich is searching for a worthy master, someone capable of one day ruling over all the worlds. it's left up to interpretation why he has devoted his life to this, but considering the scars and chains a lot of fans have had headcanons that he came from abuse, so he's looking for someone who can reform the world (i personally think because he doesn't want what happened to him to ever happen again, but that's probably giving him too much credit--he's a demon after all, and disgaea is not THAT serious.)
while searching for a worthy master, fenrich works as a mercenary in order to find strong demons. he's hired by minotrose, a guy who thinks money is everything (wow! osmanthus!) and he accepts minotrose's offer to pay him 100 million HL in exchange for taking out tyrant valvatorez.
fenrich meets val and lies his way into becoming allies (val acccepts easily), is unable to kill him with his underhanded methods (that go completely unnoticed by val), and then gets blown away by his stubborn ideals that don't make any logical sense to fenrich. he practically falls head over heels, but convinces himself that val can't be the perfect master he's seeking because he doesn't have the ambition to achieve fenrich's goal.
so fenrich returns to minotrose, saying he'll just kill him to take the money instead (knowing minotrose never intended on paying him anyway), but minotrose expected the betrayal, and seal's fenrich's power by blocking the moonlight. he's about to kill fenrich when tyrant val swoops in to literally take the bullets for him, an act of self-sacrifice that fenrich has never seen before and didn't think was possible coming from another demon. (demons are supposed to be evil, remember?)
the thing is (sorry i'm trying so hard to keep this short) val isn't limiting himself to following demon ideals, he has learned from humans that teamwork makes the fucking dream work, so he has resolved to always have absolute faith in his comrades. he believes demons must aspire to symbolize fear itself, so everything he does is in pursuit of that single goal.
...so fenrich is like oh wow yep i love this man, i'll serve him forever! they go beat minotrose and fenrich pledges his life to val, they make a vow to the moon to be together forever, haha, it's so romantic! wahoo!!! i love them, thanks for reading!!!!!
......anyway mason is slate's tyrant val, but because it's mason, he's no good at it! so it doesn't have a happy ending 😊 and that's basically where i'm going with this story!!!!! thanks NIS!!!!!!!!!!!! i'm so glad i get to rehash this plot with new guys of my very own!!!!!!!!!! (i mean the details will be completely different but the vibes are too strong to ignore)
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