Baiken

Don't stare too long. The forest got into them, and it never got out. That’s what the other chimps whisper in The Heart of the Forest. Baiken was once just another young member of the food-obsessed community, but they wandered too far into the wild outer regions. They returned changed, with a chaotic energy behind their eyes that made them adapt to their surroundings in frighteningly unpredictable ways. Elders saw echoes of the outcast Hen'i-tai in their strange evolution. The war paint Baiken wears isn't for battle; it’s a daily ritual to quiet their anxious mind, a mask for the uneasy power they can’t control. They carry bamboo to carve flutes, hoping a simple song can drown out the forest's whispers.