Modokata

About
Skeleton King Modokata was an extraordinarily powerful Rare Guy Monster reluctantly affiliated with the Kayblis Faction and a minor antagonist in Rance X.

Born within the depths of the Road to Hades dungeon in the Izumo province of JAPAN, Modokata garnered a legendary reputation across the eastern nation for his tremendous strength and ferocity. He was said to have killed every Human that dared cross his path while traversing through his home and worn their bones as armor, earning him the nickname of "The Bone-Draped King of Death".

At an unknown point in time, Modokata was confronted in battle by Mouri Motonari, the boisterous and bloodthirsty ruler of the Mouri Family, the clan that presided over Izumo. The two warriors matched each other blow for blow for hours until both reached exhaustion, ending their fight in a standstill. Captivated by his opponent's strength, Motonari immediately offered Modokata a seat at a banquet he planned to throw. Modokata accepted, and soon became a regular presence at the Mouri family's raucous feasts, developing a close kinship with Motonari and his three daughters in the process.

Eventually, the intimate bond that Modokata formed with the Mouri family became contaminated by his natural instinct to kill others, causing him to lash out at them suddenly with murderous intent. Though Motonari was able to subdue Modokata before he had caused any serious harm to his followers, he could not handle the potential risk of allowing him to rampage again, and was left with no choice but to exile his friend from his territory.

After his exile, Modokata met and fell in love with Mud Princess Byranrose, a Rare Gal Monster with a body composed of a slick, mud-like substance. As Byranrose's body made her near-totally immune to direct physical attacks, Modokata was unable to harm her after his love became corrupted by his drive to kill, enabling them to remain together without fear of him killing her. Exposure to Byranrose's gentle and whimsical personality steadily calmed Modokata's urge to slaughter, transforming him into a much more controlled creature as he continued being around her. To commemorate their love, the two married and, for some time, lived happily together.

In the year LP0007, the Monster Realm, which had spent the duration of the LP era divided by a civil war, was finally unified by the Dark Lord Kayblis, elevating him to the position of absolute ruler of all of Monsterkind. Immediately after becoming the ruler of the Monster Realm, Kayblis ordered an invasion into the Human Realm using the entirety of the Monster Army’s forces, sparking the beginning of the 2nd Dark Lord War. Fearing his own safety, however, he abstained from entering the frontlines himself and instead chose to remain within the Monster Realm, issuing commands from a heavily-fortified sanctum he had secretly constructed in the depths of the volatile landmass Mount Bezdog.

Despite the protection that his fortress provided him, Kayblis remained ill at ease, and called for several powerful monsters to be stationed along Mount Bezdog to serve as his bodyguards. Modokata was one such monster, but initially refused the offer due to lack of interest. Unwilling to be turned down, Kayblis pressured Modokata into grudging compliance by threatening to have Byranrose killed if he did not. As the most powerful of the monsters recruited, Modokata was given the duty of guarding the entrance to Kayblis' private chamber, where he was to serve as the final line of defense against any potential assailants. To his obliviousness, Byranrose had also been approached by Kayblis, and was forced to guard the Monster Army's base in Shangri-La under threat of her husband's safety.

During the events of Rance X, one month after the beginning of the 2nd Dark Lord War, the forces of the Human Realm were, through various circumstances, formally united under the warrior Rance to create the United Human Army. Due to possessing the Dark Sword Chaos, one of the only weapons capable of penetrating the Invincibility Field that protects Dark Lords from all forms of damage, Rance was able to form a specialized squad made up of humanity’s finest warriors designed to fight against and defeat each of the Dark Lords leading the invasions into the human territories. Titled the Dark Lord Extermination Squad, this group allowed humanity to begin to mount a more effective resistance against the Monster Army, providing hope in a seemingly hopeless situation. Little by little, Rance managed to reverse the war situation, allowing the Human Realm a chance to take the offensive and land a decisive victory against the monsters.

In the "From the Sea" and "From the Sky" ending routes, Rance leads roughly half of the Dark Lord Extermination Squad in an assault on Mount Bezdog. Through a combination of its own raw determination and the quickly-diminishing enthusiasm of the monsters guarding it, the group succeeds in breaking through Mount Bezdog's defenses and reaching the entrance to Kayblis' chamber, where it encounters Modokata. He is instantly recognized by Motonari's daughters, who had been acting as members of the Dark Lord Extermination Squad and explain his identity to Rance. While Rance at first attempts to get the three sisters to negotiate with their former friend to avoid an unnecessary fight, he is informed by them that Modokata's personality would not allow him to step down peacefully. Rance then tries to speak with Modokata directly, only for the monster to claim that he has no words and suddenly attack.

After an intense battle, the Dark Lord Extermination Squad is able to overcome Modokata, who admits defeat and allows it passage into Kayblis' personal chamber, expressing hope that its strength would be enough to defeat his hated master. Despite its best efforts, however, the group proves to be unable to stand against Kayblis in its weakened state, and only narrowly manages to escape death at his hands after falling through some loose flooring into the underground waterway beneath the fortress.

Immediately after the encounter, the furious Kayblis calls Modokata, along with his Apostles Kaybnyan and Kaybwan, the Monster General Max, and the Monster Captain Abashiri to his chamber to express outrage over their perceived incompetence in allowing humans to reach his location. Kayblis chooses to relieve his frustrations by brutally pummeling Modokata, who makes no effort to retaliate and quickly has his entire body crushed under the Elite Dark Lord's colossal strength, killing him in an instant. Modokata's death proves to be the final straw for Max and Abashiri, who had long grown embittered by Kayblis' selfish and cowardly leadership, pushing them into taking up arms against him.

While the two monsters' lives end in seconds against Kayblis' tremendous power, their rebellion nonetheless throws him over the edge into a state of grief and paranoia so great that he declares all who failed to defeat the invading humans to be guilty of treason and sentenced to execution. Kayblis' actions soon cause him to lose the few allies he had remaining, forcing him to fight against the Dark Lord Extermination Squad alone and ultimately die in battle, ending the 2nd Dark Lord War in humanity's favor.

Personality and Appearance
Modokata was an enormous creature that resembled a bizarre amalgam of a crustacean and an undead samurai warrior. While his body was encased in a thick, crimson-colored shell and featured two sets of clawed arms, several rows of spindly legs, and a fan-shaped tail, his torso stood upright and sported a black, skull-like face with an eerie green glow emanating from its eyes and mouth. He was also incredibly large, with the entire length of his body reaching ten meters and his torso alone standing at three, which caused him to tower over most other lifeforms. Modokata decorated his shell with the bones of his fallen enemies, with a massive golden skull placed at the center of his chest, and wore a small golden crown atop his head. For these audacious and intimidating clothing choices, he was given the nickname of "The Bone-draped King of Death" by those who knew of him.

Described as a natural born predator, Modokata was ruled by an unstoppable killing intent that instinctively caused him to attack others. He was also very proud of his strength, and wore the bones of his former enemies as trophies to demonstrate his numerous victories in battle. In spite of this, he was not an inherently malicious being, and was capable of developing a great amount of respect for opponents who could provide him with a sufficient challenge, even forming lasting friendships with both the Mouri Family and the monster captain Abashiri through mutual admiration of each other's abilities. Tragically, Modokata was incapable of completely regulating his unbridled urge to end the lives of others even in these instances, causing him to grow steadily more fixated on killing his loved ones as his relationships with them grew more intimate. This compulsion to kill the ones he loved brought much grief to Modokata, and made him carry a palpable melancholy beneath his outward ferocity.

Modokata shared an unexpectedly loving bond with the rare gal monster Mud Princess Byranrose, whose ability to negate all physical attacks allowed them to develop a close relationship without fear of him killing her. Byranrose's influence was said to have had a calming effect on her husband, with the Mouri sisters noting that he seemed much less bloodthirsty when meeting him after they had married. While Modokata was often exasperated by his wife's lighthearted attitude, even describing her as troublesome, his affection for her was boundless, to the point where he obediently allowed himself to be crushed to death by Kayblis solely so that the Dark Lord would not harm her in retaliation for his defiance. Modokata was deeply ashamed of his inability to do anything other than blindly comply with the whims of Kayblis to protect his wife, and described himself as a "weakling" for not being able to fight for her safety. He remained oblivious to the similar sacrifices she had made for his own safety until the end of his life, causing both halves of the couple to ultimately meet unfortunate ends for the other's sake.

Abilities
A vicious warrior said to possess strength rivaling that of a Dark Lord, Modokata was regarded as one of the most powerful monsters in existence and, by extension, one of the most powerful beings on the Continent at the time of his death. During the 2nd Dark Lord War, he had reached the extraordinarily high Level of 80, which is presumed, but not confirmed, to have been his Level Cap; giving him an astounding amount of potential as an individual. Modokata's abilities surpassed the limits that his great level implied, as both his strength and endurance exceeded that of even the four Great Monster Generals that led the Monster Army's invasion into the Human Realm despite them each being 10 levels higher than him, implying that he may in fact have been the single strongest individual in all of monsterkind following the Great Monster General Stroganoff's retirement from active duty.

Modokata's most notable attribute was the extremely thick shell that coated his entire body, which bestowed him with exceptional defensive abilities. While he lacked his wife Byranrose's ability to negate and redirect enemy attacks, his shell made him highly resistant to all forms of damage, both physical and Magical, making him a difficult opponent to face regardless of the means through which he was fought with.

Trivia

 * Modokata is the only unique monster character in Rance X to appear exclusively in the "From the Sea/Sky" ending routes, with Byranrose being fought during the operation to capture Shangri-La, the Maereeta Squad making various appearances throughout the game, and both Max and Abashiri making appearances in the "Great Invasion of the Monster Realm" route.
 * According to Orion, the Rance Series' lead artist, Modokata was designed as a "partner" to Byranrose, with his emphasis on hard bones intended to contrast her mud-like body.
 * Modokata underwent several radical design changes over the course of his creation, with his initial design being nearly identical to the character La Galeo from Orion's unproduced trading card game Vis-A-Vis: The Eternal Duel that was incorporated into the card system of the Alicesoft game Mamatoto. Another scrapped design for Modokata depicted him as a cartoonishly simplistic skeleton done in the style of Fujio Akatsuka, with the intention of having him serve as a sort of counterpart to the similarly cartoonish Chochoman Public. Orion eventually settled on having him resemble an undead samurai, which later evolved into him becoming a crayfish-humanoid hybrid due to Orion finding crayfish to be "cool".