ok chapter number ends with one, character descriptions arrive! btw it gets kinda dark at the end, it has mentions of child abuse so yeah tw
hun / hunnic empire
* might be related to the xiongnu
* a great warrior
* badass
* used to be powerful
* ruled over many peoples and they were united under his rule
* he'd raid both roman empires (the western one aka the italies' grandpa and the eastern one aka greece's mom) and they'd pay him tribute
* fearsome in battle, instilling fear in his enemies was very important to him
* but his empire was unstable
* it fell apart shortly after attila's death so he died too
* bulgar might actually be his son or relative
* idk if he's an adoptive or a biological son cuz the bulgars might've existed before the hunnic empire
* still I imagine the hunnic empire taught him a lot and bulgar / old great bulgaria respects him and takes after him a lot in personality, worldview, etc
* like maybe bulgar was like a protégé or an apprentice
* if bulgar was his son (regardless whether adoptive or biological), then maybe the hunnic empire would deform his skull from an early age and burn and/or slash his cheeks with a sword to teach him to endure pain, to make him appear more fearsome on the battlefield and to prevent him from having a beard as adult (huns saw beards as ugly and disgusting), like holy shit he'd be abusive
* bulgar would recover once he started being on his own as he's not a human and he regenerates differently and more quickly (afaik bulgars didn't do this to the cheeks of their sons and had no problems with beards so maybe he regenerated as his people didn't practice that custom)
* honestly if he was abused as a child by his caretaker it'd make sense why he'd have this philosophy of "if ur strong, u get to do what u want, nobody can hurt u or control u, if ur weak, u get hurt/controlled" and "if u form close bonds with others, they'll hurt u and use ur emotions towards them to control u"