After being exiled from the Enchanted Forest by the Unseelie Court Thanatos found himself in the mortal lands. Though he was now a crippled hunchback with a twisted body, he could not simply resign himself to his dreary fate. Such a betrayal by his own kind left him boiling over with rage and he vowed to take his revenge on everyone responsible.

Thanatos knew that time was running out for his mortal shell, so he immersed himself in his studies of undeath, keeping to the wilds and experimenting on any creature unfortunate enough to cross his path. When he had perfected the trapping of souls between worlds enough for them to retain their living memories and personality, it was time to focus on the Overworld.

Thanatos was acutely aware of the fact that they kept freeing his soultraps, so he traveled to the Overworld in his astral form and formally challenged them for the right to freeze souls. They fought back, but could not stand up to the raw power of the Dark Sidhe archmage, and were finally forced to acquiesce to his request.

His powers now certified by the caretakers of the Overworld, the first thing Thanatos did was trap his own soul between the Land of the Living and the Land of Truth . In this way he gained for himself immortality through undeath, and proclaimed himself a god. But alas, all the immortality in the world could not make him beautiful again, so he wore layers rags to conceal his disfigured body.

A real god needed followers, and Thanatos had none, so he wandered the land in search of suitable subjects. He went to the Forestside Kingdom of the West, but it was already claimed by Osenya; he went to the Tundra of the North, but it was already claimed by Taiga; he went to the Riverside Kingdom of the East, but it was already claimed by Visna; he went to the Tashar of the South, but it was already claimed by Siyanna. Finally, he journeyed to nameless jungles deep and dark, and there he found the godless Annukai, pushed out ever-farther by the thriving Tashari Empire.

These were fierce felines that stood on two legs and worshipped the ancestors that had gone before them. Their name came from the first ancestor and mother of their bloodline, Anna-Nukai. Her bones were entombed in the highest burial pyramid, with the skulls of successive generations embedded in the bricks below her. Thanatos carefully observed their rituals and customs, and decided upon the means to make the greatest impact on these creatures.

When the Annukai gathered to honor Anna-Nukai, they watched in shock and awe as her weathered bones came alive and began to dance. Then there emerged a hunched over figure cloaked in darkness, with eyes that burned like hot coals from under its hood. Seeing what power this being had over their ancestral goddess, the Annukai bowed low and praised their new overlord. They were unable to discern the gender of this being due to its voluminous clothing, they called it the most ambiguous name they could come up with: Suknuru – the Dark-She-He.

Suknuru claimed dominion over this jungle realm, and acquired several devout priests who pledged to serve him in life and in death. This was important because though Suknuru could raise all the mindless undead he wanted, he could only make thinking undead by consent. The priests became the mediums between the common folk and their god, and were given authority to dictate laws. Criminals and unbelievers were sacrificed during monthly festivals in honor of Suknuru, to become part of the growing undead army at the priests’ command.