The Struggle Against the Doom Lords
“There’s an ancient feud older than the Unikingdom itself. A feud between life and death!” - Queen Tabbycorn
Welcome to Unikingdom History 101! This is an overview of the Unikingdom’s struggle against the Doom Lords, from the group’s emergence all the way to their downfall. The Doom Lords sought control by terrorizing anyone they could, the only intent being to bring out people’s weaknesses and spread fear and pain, no matter how far they had to go to ensure someone was weakened enough.
1880 - 1940: The Struggle Emerges
About a decade prior to the destruction of Unicat’s first home in the Dawn Peaks, there was a power-hungry creature in Frowntown who took pride in controlling anyone she deemed weak, and bringing out their weakness by ensuring it caused them pain. When she and her little group of allies overthrew the government of Frowntown and placed themselves into power, the creature’s thirst for control was still not satisfied. This creature would became known as Master Doom, leader of the Doom Lords, her allies.
In her desperation for the thrill of spreading pain, she discovered several mountain towns in the Dawn Peak range on the other side of the Dusty Stretch, and began to send her recruits to terrorize them. When the inhabitants of the mountains fought back, she called for their destruction, and amongst the survivors was Unicat, a young unicorn-horned kitten. After she, her mother, and Spencer, an orphaned survivor found the foothills, Unicat made it her life goal to rid the world of the Doom Lords for the safety of future generations. The Doom Lords eventually discovered the foothills and would terrorize Unicat and her allies, before and after she founded the Unikingdom. But Unicat fought back each time. And she ensured that every ruler of the Unikingdom after her would uphold the promise of protecting the kingdom with hope and happiness. Hope and happiness was the sworn enemy of the Doom Lords, which Master Doom would hunt down for sport. Once she could strip someone of their happiness, she was in control.
1940 - 1965: First Opportunities for Revenge
Master Doom knew the promise would be upheld by Unicat’s successors, and with each new ruler coming along, she saw another opportunity for revenge. But the Unikingdom would fight back. In 1940, she saw Queen Tabbycorn was in a weak spot grieving her mother, but the rest of the Doom Lords were taken aback by Tabbycorn’s sharpness and quick wits, as well as the fierceness of her recruited bodyguard. Tabbycorn was determined to honor her mother by upholding the promise, and had learned excellent persuasion skills from her mother’s wisdom. Knowing how easily Tabbycorn could outsmart them, most Doom Lords refused to go near her. This lead to Tabbycorn heading into Frowntown in 1965, to try to help the citizens organize a resistance, but this was foiled by the Disaster of Frowntown, a flash flood resulting in Tabbycorn’s death. And the Doom Lords did not care — as long as there was pain, there was control.
1965 - 2007: Fearing the Queens
Around the time Queen Unikitten rose to power, the Doom Lords nearly gave up trying to terrorize the Unikingdom and focused on Frowntown. Though Unikitten seemed to the Doom Lords like the embodiment of their prey (happiness) and therefore an easy target, she wasn’t. Unikitten had recruited Tigermoth, a well-known Action Fighter with an excellent sense of smell and a knack for stealth, which meant even a low-ranked Doom Lord would be sniffed out and sent back to Frowntown.
This continued well into the reign of Unikitten’s daughter Caticorn (who became queen in 1992), the biggest cat in the royal bloodline. Not only did they fear the bodyguard, but the also feared the queen herself. Queen Caticorn was a massive cat with a muscular build and huge paws, and she appeared as though just one swipe of her claws would necessitate dozens of stitches. As the Doom Lords decided to shift their focus to controlling Frowntown’s every move until Unikitten and Caticorn were gone, the Unikingdom flourished.
Caticorn did particularly well in upholding the promise to protect with hope and happiness, using her pacifist nature to her advantage. The Doom Lords still feared her and most refused to set foot in the Unikingdom. This also led to conflicts within the Doom Lords, and King Unicanine, who’d sometimes spy on Frowntown, could see that upholding the promise to the extent that Caticorn was could cause the Doom Lords to crack from within. And every time Unicanine spied, it only seemed more true.
This was until shortly after a flash flood in 2007, when a low-ranked Doom Lord known as Master Malice was tasked with posing as a criminal and mugging citizens. He discovered Caticorn alone and terrified, and that revealed to him that the Queen of the Unikingdom was not a fierce fighter like the Doom Lords thought. Malice broke her paw, and nearly robbed her before Unicanine intervened and bit him. When Master Doom heard about this, she was ecstatic, and selected Caticorn as her prey. The terrified queen refused to ever enter Frowntown again, and it became was much harder for Unicanine to spy on the Doom Lords. Master Doom later sent out one of her newer recruits, Master Pain, to lure Unicanine into a dangerous trap for no other purpose but to make Caticorn miserable. When the plan worked and it lead to a fight in which he was killed, they knew that they could indeed terrorize the Unikingdom.
2007 - 2018: The Disbandment
The Unikingdom’s struggle continued after Caticorn died, and the Doom Lords felt even more confident entering the Unikingdom. Though they would be fought off by Hawkodile, the young bodyguard, they still refused to give up, as Caticorn’s heiress Princess Unikitty was still too young to reign. But the Doom Lords started to crack from within again after an incident between Unikitty and Master Doom’s newest recruit, Master Frown. She withheld any respect from him, making it clear that she didn’t even care about her allies — she only cared about herself. But Master Frown, desperate to regain control, obeyed her, with false hope that he’d eventually gain her respect. Meanwhile, the high-ranked Doom Lords started to go after Unikitty, Master Pain being particularly fond of the idea of straight-up killing her. Master Hazard nearly killed her by setting fire to the castle in the middle of the night, and while it seemed Unikitty was weakened, she bounced back. However, seeing how the fire scarred her, the high-ranked Doom Lords felt as though their job of hurting her was done.
Master Doom, power-hungry as she was, continued to hold Frown to unusual standards until one day he finally snapped and quit. Master Doom was furious, and did everything she could to punish him for turning against her. This was when Master Frown, after spending a lot of time messing with Unikitty’s day and spreading frowns, as much as he enjoyed that, realized just how powerless being a Doom Lord made him. He reluctantly joined forces with Unikitty, who was horrified at just how dangerous the Doom Lords had become. The Unikingdom fought with Frowntown in a rebellion known as the Frowntown Flood of Hope, where Frowntownian citizens stormed the headquarters of the tyrants and fought the rampant Doom Lords in the streets. Master Doom herself was defeated, and the Doom Lords disbanded. Order was rebuilt in a now-thriving Frowntown, and the Unikingdom continues to flourish under Queen Unikitty’s leadership.
