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throughout his childhood, hunter was kept away from the other scouts in the emperor’s coven and was tutored privately. he then inherited his staff and became the golden guard (apparently being the youngest scout to receive that title.)
and apparently belos hates killing the grimwalkers bc it reminds him of when caleb “betrayed” him.
he also wants them to be a “better version” of his brother.
through his rise to power, belos had killed each golden guard and would replace them with another. it is unknown how many he’s killed exactly but its probably like… a lot.
the grimwalker clone becomes what is likely to be the first golden guard and would be used to stage terrorist attacks to gain belos’ favor of the public. belos proposes a coven system of “nine healing lights” and claims that only he and he alone can speak to the titan.
we actually see the process of how he makes a grimwalker in ‘for the future’ and its fucking disturbing
this is how hunter was born btw! (albeit it in a much more stable condition)
philip has a lab for the grimwalkers at the bottom of the titan’s skull, which he would’ve gained access to after killing the stonesleeper and using its lungs as one of the ingredients.
evelyn would then use the portal to bury a tube of titan’s blood under gravesfield, hide one final rebus under the floorboards of caleb and philip’s shack and then finally return to the boiling isles so she could bury the portal behind her home.
presumably as a way of controlling the elements more directly, philip decides to carve the glyphs into his skin with a dagger. combined with his consumption of palisman souls, this creates a side effect where philip becomes a goopy boi.
in their adulthood, around 1635, caleb and philip encountered a real witch named evelyn clawthrone who dazzled caleb with her magic by showing him visions of her homeland (the boiling isles) as well as her palisman-making skills, which is likely how flapjack was made.
something must’ve happened to their parents which led to the two becoming orphans. as his older brother, caleb took care of philip and the two arrived in gravesfield around 1613, where they assimilated into the town’s now unsavoury practices as witch-hunters.