The Distant Prince – formerly known as the Cannibal King is one of the newest Vulture recruits to join the ranks. The son of a renowned VTU Historian, The Distant Prince was born in Vault 76 several months after the doors had shut. His mother having to leave her husband behind in the ICU to flee for safety from the bombs was stricken with grief by the new turn her life had taken. A recluse to many in the vault, his mother only took solace in a friendship with one other dweller – a vault nurse who had overseen her husband’s treatment before the bombs fell. The nurse, being a new single mother, herself provided much needed moral support throughout the pregnancy, and assisted throughout the difficult birthing process. Ultimately his mother died from complications, and the nurse decided to take the orphan in, naming him after his late father, Clarke. The nurse vowed to protect Clarke and raise him as if he were her own.
Clarke grew close with his new family, especially young Blythe, the daughter of the nurse who was around his own age. The two were inseparable. At the age of five a mole rat infestation caused the roof to collapse on the two children’s bedroom. The Overseer and the Vault Security Chief Sean Healy scrambled through the rubble for nearly two days trying to save the children. When they finally had broken through the two beheld the small children tearing apart the flesh of the fallen mole rats. The Overseer swore Security Chief Healy and his team to secrecy, and kept a close eye on the two children, occasionally sneaking them raw scraps of meat from the kitchen to appease their new fondness for flesh.
Clarke and Blythe grew up as many children did with the prospect of reclamation day always looming ahead, and of course engaging in some tom foolery to pass the time. Clarke and Blythe often had altercations with the security staff, and they never understood why the Chief Security Officer Healy gave them a pass for their typically wild behavior. A vacancy had been left in the vault’s library by Clarke’s mother when she passed, and so he spent much of his life preparing to educate the other vault dwellers about the surrounding areas through folk lore, historical data, and various books on local fauna and their medicinal purposes. His mother had left behind a substantial collection on occult studies of West Virginia which he read aloud to Blythe whenever a power outage would occur. After receiving his G.O.A.T. score at 16 Clarke took over the vault’s dusty library and became the new vault’s newest and youngest ever Head Librarian. He spent the next nine years maintaining his collection, holding community learning programs, and ultimately supplying the technical knowledge the dwellers would need to survive after reclamation day.
On the day, the Vault doors opened many dwellers decided to test their luck in the wasteland either alone, or in various small factions that could never agree on which direction would be best. Naturally, Clarke and Blythe had been preparing for this day since they were children and had already memorized the many drawings of maps they created as children and committed the path they would take on reclamation day to memory. The two believed other larger groups were folly, and would only attract the unwanted attention of aggressors, and so had made a pact to stick together and follow the route they had memorized as children. However, it became clear after mere hours of exploring the wastes that the two could never had prepared for the horrors of this new world. The two struggled for scraps of food and supplies constantly being chased away from their bounty by scorched, death claw, and mirelurk alike.
Two months had passed like this, and the two friends were beginning to jump down each other’s throats for the smallest of grievances. One day a robot approaches their camp delivering a message stating that the Enclave is looking for Blythe because her long-lost father has become a new lead scientist with them and needs her help developing new medical supplies to combat the scorched and other threats. Begrudgingly, Clarke agrees to accompany Blythe to her father’s lab. However, when the pair arrive at a secret bunker, they soon learn that the intention of Blythe’s father is much darker than they had anticipated. The two were shackled in chains and received treatment after treatment to enhance their radiation resistance and make their genes more pliable to future experiments. Clarke was able to overpower one of the guards during transport and managed to make it out of the bunker alive. He swore vengeance on Blythe’s father and the enclave vowing to return with an army to liberate his oldest friend who remained a prisoner.
Clarke traveled the wasteland searching for an army to take up his cause, and eventually he came across a group of traveling carnies who took great interest in the genetic enhancement treatment Clarke had received. The Ringleader, a ruthless blood eagle, had already enslaved and attempted to force mutations on others, but currently was only in possession of one freak for his show; the Siren Prince a half murlock-half man looking creature with the ability to regenerate limbs and breathe underwater. The Ringleader lured Clarke into a false sense of security by agreeing to help him in his cause, and then slapped a slave collar onto his neck while he was asleep at their camp. The Ringleader then began the month-long process of forcing mutations onto Clarke by soaking him daily in vats of irradiated water. Clarke’s body began to warp rapidly, and his genetic enhancements only made his body more malleable to the blood eagle’s sick experiments. When the Ringleader had finished with Clarke, he had grown a beak-like appendage from his mouth and seemed to be much more agile than most humans could otherwise be. His bones though brittle could not withstand a direct punch from the guards (a fact they often relished in after show-time), however it allowed him to be thrown off of cliffs without sustaining any injuries – which was an act that spiked the carnival’s attendance by tenfold.
With the increased attendance the Ringleader was able to line his pockets generously and expand to a second location to the west out in Ash Heap where he had anticipated on producing more foot traffic being near several established blood eagle settlements. The freakshow’s original location continued to kidnap and attempt to force mutations on various settlers throughout the wasteland. Each attempt ended in utter failure, and eventually the various raids began to cut deeply into the Ringleader’s budget, until ultimately they had to shut down their original location, and move all resources to their newest outpost at Lake Reynolds. After taking a huge financial loss, the Ringleader resorted to feeding Clarke and the Siren Prince the rotten bodies of all their failed experiments to save money for the carnival’s expansion. The Ringleader, being a lucrative motherfucker, decided to incorporate the flesh-eating into his show – making sure to only feed the two freaks the irradiated rotten flesh after days of starvation in front of a live audience. The Siren Prince was always a timid “performer” causing him to be lashed after every show, but Clarke took to the meat like it was the only food he would ever eat again. From the very first performance, he became known as the Cannibal King, the name being cheered by every member in attendance of the show, the name concocted by his slave master, the name of his golden goose.
Months went on and the carnival became one of the most renowned forms of entertainment for the Blood Eagle members, and often was used as a central meeting zone to coordinate larger operations in the Ash Heap region. That is until one day the Cannibal King managed to get the slip on the guards and steal a key without notice. The three survivors from that night include one Blood Eagle who managed to warn a nearby outpost before dying of blood loss from a severed limb. The second being the Siren Prince who fled north claiming that the Cannibal King freed him but warned of a dangerous crusade to come in the following months. Then there was of course the Cannibal King who was last seen leaving the burning carnival heading further south into ash heap. To this day the remnants of the original freak show can be found east of Foundation, however the location of the former carnival has since been reduced to rubble and ash, though the Siren Prince distinctly remembers the sour smell of sinew in the air as he fled the scene and listened to the desperate screams of agony coming from the old carnival. It was rumored that the Cannibal King took the head of the Ringleader first and now carries his skull around as a trophy of his victory and self-liberation.
The Condor, the underboss of the Vulture’s gang, eventually hears word of the Cannibal King and rumors of collapsing blood eagle encampments in the Ash Heap region due to continual disruption from a bird-like creature. With the warlord prisoner of the 5.0 Responders she is desperately searching for new recruits both for threats from outside as well as within the Vulture ranks. Knowing the animal-like nature of the Cannibal King the Condor strategically selects Teekhup, a skilled huntress capable of taming even the most bloodthirsty beasts, for the mission of taming the Cannibal King, and recruiting him into their ranks. Teekhup, willing to prove her loyalty to the underboss agrees and sets out for the Cannibal King’s throne in the farthest reaches of ash heap. While on her journey Teekhup gathers intel from various sources piecing together the best way to gain the trust of the Cannibal King. She returns to the grounds of the original freak show and presents the Cannibal King with the remnants of his old prison and one pristine history textbook from a nearby high school written by Clarke’s mother. The Cannibal king looks at his shattered cage, and this pristine book, and begins to weep. She promises to take up the Cannibal King’s cause of slaying the Blood Eagles, and eventually liberating his old friend being held prisoner by the Enclave scientists if he agrees to follow her command in the various battles to come. The Cannibal King is reluctant at first questioning the motives of the raiders wishing to avoid any other form of imprisonment. To further entice The Cannibal King Teekhup makes a shrewd deal agreeing to transport the various corpses of the vulture’s kills to his camp so that he may adorn his throne with the bones of their common enemies – a symbol of their partnership and thirst for vengeance. The Cannibal King agrees to lay down his mantle as a rogue assassin and takes up his newest title as the Distant Prince, a ruthless bird-like creature capable of eviscerating even the most lethal of targets.