There was once a skeleton monster by the name of Papyrus, living in the underground kingdom of monsters sealed within a magic barrier, who held the Most Important Royal Position. That was literally the name of his position. It was a role with no authority and no responsibility, one he was given by his boss and mentor (and friend) when she became Empress, after the previous king was slain by a human child.

And then some terrible catastrophe struck, and they and all their world - underground monsters and surface humans alike- were all destroyed. Only shattered fragments of their world remained, when another living planet swept through to collect as many of the lingering souls as it could.

Russell Scordato, now, is a young British man born and raised in Moss Manor, a small town on the Mossgate River that people from our reality might not find on a map. He believed himself a regrettably ordinary person, regardless of his mum's enthusiasm about 'indigo children' and the like, and he aspired to more than that... mainly, through theatre. He spent his teenage years learning the craft, going away to university, hoping to Make It.

He didn't, and so in his early-20s he moved back to the Mossgate area to settle himself in the local community, the local theatre group, and reconnect with his family. And one spring, he dared to go on a tour of the local caverns, expecting to be spooked by the deep dark of it all. Instead, it all seemed... strangely familiar, and a number settled into his mind, one that he couldn't seem to forget. In time, it gave him access to a network of other people with strange numbers and stranger memories, a secret community of people changing from who they believed they were... to who those fragments of souls had once been.