Bear King

The Bear King is a demigod and ruler of the forests around the Tsargis Mountains. He is primarily worshipped in Dutan. Long before becoming the Bear King, he was born in the foothills of the Tsargis mountains as the smallest and weakest cub. His mother threw him out of the den to fend for himself, and he wandered for days by himself. Eventually, he cried out for help, and a great owl swooped down and carried him off to a distant realm. He disappeared from the world and resided in a forest of eternal summer where he grew to be the largest and most magnificent bear that ever lived. He lived in harmony with the woodland creatures and walked beside the goddess Valtena. He was content to live there for eternity, but Fate had other ideas. A time came when he felt the pull to leave the safety of Valtena's forest, and he returned to the mortal world with her blessing.
He returned to the foothills of the Tsargis mountains, and much had changed in his absence. Places that he knew as wilderness were now inhabited by people. In his anger for defiling the forest, he went on rampages slaughtering people and destroying villages. Eventually, a great hunter was sent out to defeat the massive bear. For months, the hunter tracked him down deeper into the woods. In a great battle, he finally slew the bear and cut off its head. When he returned to announce his victory, he learned that the queen of Dutan had given birth to a son. Unbeknownst to all, the soul of the bear resided in the child. The queen was impressed by the hunter's heroism and appointed him as the tutor for the prince so that he might learn to be a great warrior, too.
The prince had a happy childhood and became a great warrior with the strength and courage of a bear. He married the daughter of a neighboring kingdom and sired several children. When his father died, he became the king of Dutan. But the night of his coronation, he began experiencing strange dreams of running through the forest and heard whispers of a voice. At first, he tried to ignore them, but they persisted for months and years. One night, while he was out at the royal hunting lodge, the king ventured out into the woods alone. He was overcome with a sense of familiarity and was able to eat the carcass of a dead deer. He acquired the deer's speed and senses. And night after night, he ventured out into the woods like he had lived there once before.
On the final day before winter, the king came across an abandoned bear den. A flood of memories returned of his previous life as he explored deeper into the cave. It dawned upon him that he was once a bear in another life and born in this very cave. He remembered the fight against the hunter and that he once walked alongside a goddess. When he returned to Praetan, the king summoned his tutor who had since retired and asked him about the bear he slew. The hunter cowered in fear when he realized that the king and his charge was the very same bear with memories no one else could have. He begged for mercy, and the king granted it. Humans were not as evil as he once thought now that he lived among them.
After that, he began enacting laws to limit the expansion of his people in the woods, and to this day, much of the land remains wild. When Fate chose him to ascend as a demigod, he chose to be the bridge between nature and civilization and had the ability to change between bear and man at will.

Honorary & Occupational Titles

Lord of the Tsargis