Anathema

Tiago is still learning how to relax. The journey started in November 2021 when he arrived in Toronto, still searching for the Daughters of Kain. He had just met Onyx Argonhammer in the woods after trying to kill and eat him by mistaking Onyx for a Črii Bat (Tree Bat). Onyx introduced him to Kamarion Carter and Castillo "Cash" Vacca. Kamarion is the only one who lives alone in an apartment, so he let Tiago "crash," Kamarion said, until a new place came along.

People who are meant to find each other will do so. On a planet where non-humans live under the shadows, Tiago thought of this group of friends as far and few between. Onyx grew up in the woods because he was raised by a mother who was half humanoid and half Črii Bat—hence Tiago's confusion. No one knows who his father is, except his father, perhaps, but Onyx has posited that he looks worlds more human than his late mother. Despite his bat-like ears and nose, and webbed appendages, he wears glamours—spells that make something appear differently to everyone but the wearer—everywhere except his face, which he passes off as cleft nose. No one ever presses that much for info and he thinks it's funny to leave people giving sympathy for something that isn't hurting him and can't be fixed. Onyx's agility and speed make him an agile hunter and sparring partner. His happy-go-lucky disposition and good sportsmanship drives Tiago up the wall. At first, he wasn't used to people fighting him and then wanting to chill at the dive afterwards. He's still getting used to it, but friendship has been growing on him quickly.

Kamarion is a human wizard with warlock ancestry. Warlocks are not human, but a wiry, morally slimy, goblin-like race infamous for populating the Dæma Dirña (Daemon Disease) army. Some centuries ago, Kamarion's blood was changed by human after human until a mutation gave him wizarding magic. Coincidentally, he met Onyx while hunting with his cousins, made friends while the others weren't looking, and led him to the forest on the outskirts of the city. Kamarion's afluent family never knew where they got thier old money, unlike most who have stories and legends about their great great grandfather's shoe repair empire. Talking with the parents about "great grandad Smitty," Tiago suspected that some Warlock gained rank with the Dæma Dirña before settling with whatever riches that got them and passing it on to Smitty in the Earthen 40s. But who knows... sometimes family secrets are supposed to stay that way. Today, Kamarion's parents made him get a real estate license that he has yet to use. He doesn't exactly want to follow his parents footsteps since he gained a cursed sword that sends its victims straight to Hell instead of killing them on Earth. He named it Mailman, since "it sends mofos to Hell like UPS," he said. A lot of unpaid opportunities have arisen since then, which he seems not to have a problem with.

A few weeks after Onyx followed Kamarion home like a stray dog, Cash saw Onyx and Kamarion smoking on the roof of his apartment building and offered some drinks to go with it. All very intoxicated, Cash revealed the genetic reason for his large stature, Onyx took away his glamours, and Kamarion made a constellation above them in the spirit of their newfound friendship. Cash's Titan blood isn't Hellish, but from another dimension where most dare not go: The Other. He often jokes about his fourth great grandmother having to deal with "tiny human weiner" because she was so fed up with the Titan and Other barbaric culture. Usually about 15 feet tall, Titans live in the Other mountains and have a tendency to follow visitors back to their homes to colonize. Tiago's books as a child only knew so much about Titans because of the Dæma Åucc (Daemon Greed) and her ex-lover the Titan Demetrius. Naturally, the Gods of Hell can take any form they choose, and one day the Dæma Åucc chose to travel the Other mountains in search of a treasure for her sister, the Dæma Dirña. While there, she found Titan Demetrius and brought him and five other Titans for the Dæma Dirña to choose from. She chose Demetrius, which the Dæma Åucc wasn't expecting. They fought over the Titan for 72 days until the Dæma Åucc pretended to give up and asked for a single embrace before she let him go to the Dæma Dirña. The details are fuzzy after that, but everyone in Hell knows that the Dæma Dirña never got her Titan and the Dæma Åucc still won't admit where she put him. Cash says that his fourth great grandmother was the daughter of Titan Demetrius, before the Dæma Åucc interfered. Apart from gross jokes about old lady sex, Cash won Kamarion and Onyx over with "scary dog privileges" when walking through the city and the idea to start the Ghoul-scapades.