Teaser: Monster Huggers

That's a working title.

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All right. For this week I’m going to talk about the new story I’m going to be working on over on my Patreon for $5 and up subscribers. Not going to preview any of the story itself—maybe next month—but I want to tell you a bit about the story and what excites me about it.

Monster Huggers is obviously a euphemism and probably will not be the final title, but that’s okay; it doesn’t have to have a final title yet and that gives you a good idea of what the central premise will involve.

The story takes place in a new world where people have these companion monsters called jukka that are mostly like dragons with some amount of Pokemon-like variation. A lot of them fly, most of them can affect the world around them with fire or other powers, and they can change their size at will. They are also each companions to one non-dragon person, which can be a human or one of the furry races in the world, and they are an intelligent creature that can converse with their companion.

Jukka are most commonly family guardians, because they are created at the death of a person, if someone is around to cast the right spell. The jukka isn’t a reincarnation of that person, but they do retain some of the emotional connections that person had, which means they have a strong bond to family. It also means that if you murder someone and then try to create a jukka from that death, the resulting monster will not like you very much, even if it may not quite understand why, and being bound to it will not be fun for you.

The other way they are found in society now is as adventuring companions. There are a handful of schools in the current kingdom that will help you create one (but not by murder, because that would be wrong…) and train you to defend the land (probably in service to the King but all this is still a bit nebulous). While the adventurers are idolized by a few, there are also many who think an attachment to a monster like that is troubling, and there are stories about how close those attachments can get…which doesn’t happen with the family guardian jukka, or at least doesn’t get talked about when it does, and people won’t say why cousin Cheis and their jukka were kicked out of the family.

So our hero is an on-the-cusp-of-adulthood fellow who is one of the minority that idolize the adventurers, and he’s left home to try to get into one of the schools. He meets another person like him, a Lisori (a fox-person, of course) who also wants to be an adventurer, and together they’ll work to get their companions and then navigate the unique, intense relationship they have with them—and also with each other.

The first arc of the story will be about our two heros rescuing friends, getting their jukka, and getting to know each other while trying to figure out who this yellow-clad army is and why they are killing and kidnapping people. Eventually they will get on their way to applying to one of the schools in an upcoming arc. I’m excited about finding out more about the jukka as I write, because “dragonriders crossed with Pokemon” feels like a lot of fun to explore. I’m also excited to watch our hero navigate a new world of adventure and relationships.

And to write some monster sex, although that might not be right away…

Monster Huggers will start the first week of July! First installment will be free to all so you can read it and decide if you want to keep going. Even a $5 subscription to the Patreon helps me out, but don’t worry about it if you can’t afford it—the plan is to release the installments on FA and other platforms a few months after they appear on the Patreon. There may be other perks for patrons, like voting on aspects of the story or getting to see illos I commission for it.