The adage “live by the sword, die by the sword” is great advice for those who have swords to stab monsters with. Monsters don’t use that expression, partly because only some can use swords, but also because dying by sword is kind of a given when you’re some low level mook in a world full of sword swinging murder hobos. This is, of course, to say nothing about the many ways to die monsters can look forwards to. Such as being killed by bigger, stronger, and, importantly, jerkier monsters.
“I mean, yeah, I’m a jerk, but given my situation of living out a miserable and likely short existence, its not like I’ve got much practice in manners.
Mostly ducking practice, though. I’m pretty good at that.”
Flonk is from a species you’ve probably never heard of while killing more popular monster species for low level experience quests. That’s ok if you haven’t; plenty of adventurers have hunted them, as flamoggats are definitely on the “hail adventurer, did you bring me 10 flamoggat antennae” side of kill and loot quests. So it seems very unlikely one would sign up for team Good Guy, except when you consider all of their kind that are maimed, stomped, eaten, or generally killed out of bordome by the larger monsters in The Big Bad’s employ.
“Employ sounds like a human word for ‘you get gold for doing your job.’ For us monsters, its more along the lines of ‘living through today is more likely if you do what we tell you to do.’ Although being killed for shirking does make office paperwork a lot easier to fill out.”
Loyal to one thing only, himself, Flonk is smart enough not to say this aloud, but it still baffles him that there are others who don’t share his pragmatism. He’s not sure what to make of not being killed by humans, or why they actually seek to protect him against being killed by anyone in general, but he’s not going to question his fortune, nor count on it lasting long-term.
“They say the enemy of my enemy is my friend. I’m not sure why they say that, because the enemy of my enemy is not obligated to avoid killing me as collateral damage. I will say that if they’re between me and the guy trying to kill me, they’re friend-like.”
In battle, Flonk uses any trick he can get to put others into harm’s way. The fact that he’s a monster means he’s got some inside knowledge on their vulnerabilities, and can even play the “help, those humans captured me but I’m on your side” backstab trick. Later, he’ll gain minions of his own to dispose of — I mean, tactically assign to protect his carapace.
The Also-Rans 