Oculama

From the highlands of the Hida mountains of Japan, Banto spent his early years in peace, basking in hot springs and playing in the shrines.

He was captured and enslaved as a young adult and brought to the Midwest to work in the Salt Mines.

From there, he was recruited for the Civil War. During the Battle of Salt Creek, he convinced the Bioux Tribes to unite and help defend Toro Village against an army a thousand strong.

He is credited for slaying a hundred apes in the days after the conflict as the army retreated — although whether this is a myth or a fact is debated. His actions gave him the nickname The Ghost of Salt Creek.

After the war he retreated from public life. He lives in a secluded shrine he built to honor a natural spring near the top of Mount Erebus. There is no clear path to his home, and the mountainside is near impenetrable. Banto uses a large black goat as a mount to help traverse the mountain.

Banto built a series of small wayside shrines in secluded locations to honor places of natural and divine beauty. If one wishes to contact him, they need only leave an offering and a letter at one of these shrines.

Banto remains close friends with the Bioux tribes, descending from his mountain to help resolve their conflicts on occasion. He generally stays out of towns and away from other more civilized apes, unless a villager leaves an offering at a shrine, giving him word of a moral crisis that needs a steady hand.

Although he can understand English perfectly fine, he cannot speak it fluently, preferring to stay silent rather than embarass himself with broken language. He’s been known to use a crow or similar animal to translate brief sentences when necessary, although how exactly he accomplishes this is still unknown.

His best friend is a frog named Mr. Ribbs, and he has a natural affinity with most animals.

His childhood gave him a gentle spirit.
The salt mines strengthened his bones.
The war perfected his skills.

But Banto desires only peace; to sink back into the soft edged world of those early years in the hot springs, tending to his daily offerings at the little shrines.

— but the legend persists. The townsfolk still murmur about the Pale Ape in the hills, The Specter of Mount Erebus, The Ghost of Salt Creek, the Divine Reaper who steals thieves away in the night, the only true force of morality left in these lawless grey hills.