Monster Hunter Tri

In one of the later volumes of ‘Legends of Windemere’, the readers are introduced to a new organization and wanderer type.  It showed up by accident because I couldn’t figure out why this guy and Luke kept fighting over monster treatment.  Then I found my old notes to explain the other notes.  This guy was a Monster Hunter, which is an organization that doesn’t get along with forest trackers.

These are people that kill monsters for money using a bounty system.  Some are situation specific like a pack of goblins going after a farmland.  They don’t wipe out every goblin in the world.  Just the ones causing trouble and it’s typically down to the last one.  Other creatures have been deemed too dangerous to exist and are hunted for money.  This is where forest trackers get angry because it’s basically poaching and the hunters rarely do much about the body.  Forest trackers will typically honor a slain beast with a prayer or taking a trophy.  It really hasn’t come up too often with Luke since undead and demons don’t fall into this honor.  Many of the other beasts have been enchanted, which is another odd category.

Anyway, I’ve been toying with an idea about a book that follows a bad of Monster Hunters.  This will happen after another event occurs that changes their organization to be more about permits, levels needed for certain hunts, and situational bounties.  I can’t go into details without spoilers.  I do know that I ran into a slight problem because I can’t bring myself to be 100% serious on this idea.  I mean that I want a good amount of comedy even with a serious plot.  I’m looking at this as an exploration of this organization without being a boring ‘hunt this beast for money’ story.  Hard to do when that’s all these people are interested in.

So what if there’s a hunter that is going after something that nobody knows about?  What if this person and others in his group were cursed by this monster?  So it’s a push to reach the highest level of hunter to get permission to go after this mystery beast and then finding the damn thing.  I’d start the book after the level is gained because I’m looking at this as a solitary.  I just need to think this idea through and decide on curses.

Most people think a curse needs to be highly debilitating and so harsh that the character can’t really function.  Turned blind, dies in sunlight, always hungry, undead, and so many other terrible ailments.  Well that’s great and all, but it means the characters will probably fail.  I’m all for getting over an obstacle, but I really don’t want to go that dark.  Which brings me to the one curse I do have.  The main character will change gender whenever he/she is touched by the opposite gender.  Think Ranma 1/2 and Fruits Basket.  If the character is currently a girl and is touched by a guy then she becomes a he.  I’m not sure if it’s any touch or hugging or something else more specific that can still happen.

That’s really all I have on this.  I don’t know what the monster is, how the story will progress, or the other curses.  I’m thinking of having them go after other monsters that hold clues to the other one or are wrong paths.  Like every chapter is a different hunt until they reach their final one.  Oh and that title so has to go, but I have no idea what else to call it just yet.  Maybe the real name of the monster?