Mogmurch only wants love. Love and fire. Well, mostly fire. Big, beautiful, smoky,
warm, lovely fire! Mogmurch loves fire! He has learned some secrets of fire by
watching the herbalist Cackleface from inside the whelping cage, and has started
more conflagrations than any other whelp, using a much wider variety of tools. In
imitating Cackleface’s experiments, Mogmurch likes to mix chemicals and see if
they burn. Thus far his supply of chemicals has been mostly limited to mud,
oatmeal, and more mud, but the one explosion he produced left him feeling very
empowered by his research. His latest triumphs are three gourds filled with what
he hopes works as an explosive sludge. Unfortunately, Mogmurch hasn’t had a
chance to try them out and can’t remember how he made them in the first place,
anyway.
Mogmurch is very sensitive about his birthmark, which resembles a delicious
butterfly and earns him more than his fair share of bullying from bigger whelps.
His worst tormentor is pint-sized Rempty, a particularly vicious whelp who bites
him in his sleep and pulls his ears. Neither screaming tantrums nor application of
fire has kept his tormentor away, and Mogmurch hopes that escaping the
whelping cage will finally free him from the tyrannical girl’s attentions. Failing
that, he hopes to find something cool he can use to cover the horrible, horrible
mark, if not remove it forever.