There were many races of Monsters. While there were drastic changes among the races, it wasn't viewed any differently than racial differences among humans. The difference the monsters saw was the variety, as there were far more different types of monsters than humanity could ever aspire to. The Boss Monsters were of the highest order, and of specific breeds. Goat Monsters, or "Gavalitch", Fish Monsters, or "Faquant", and Skeleton Monsters, or "Svestipal", created a triumvirate for this specific label. The Spider Monsters, or "Alachtis", were once revered and respected across the land. They were once the most expansive race, and easily made up the bulk of military might for monsterkind. It wasn't until after the Great War that they, like many of the other breeds, were almost completely wiped out.
One branch of these races that often gets overlooked are the Elementals. Once upon a time, there used to be three of these. Fire Elementals "Brovol", Water Elementals "Bineev", and Life Elementals "Briche". They took the shape of their respective elements, and their lore and demise extends back much further than the history of man and monster—in fact, Elementals were possibly far older.
Elementals were often viewed differently than other monsters, not just in power and appearance, but in personality. It was a shared trait among monsters to love puzzles and brain activities, as well as naturally lean toward peace in comparison to the wrathful humans they shared the earth with, only the Faquant being a biological exception. Elementals were more human-like, though this attitude was usually directed toward one another. Endless wars were fought amongst themselves for hundreds of years, before one fateful battle it went too far. The ancient Fire Elementals wiped out the others entirely, or close to it, and once that was done... competition was gone, and they began to turn on one another.
Through centuries of conflict amongst themselves, younger generations were brought up to be more passive than their ancestors. It's due to this that the Fire Elementals didn't go extinct, as many expected them to. They bounced back from their status and reasserted themselves in the world. It was the Great War that brought them to their knees once again. Sealed underground, the Fire Elementals struggled to cling on, and eventually were boiled down to two families. The Fire Family, and the Flamesman Family.
Another thing that separated Elementals from other races was their reproductive cycle. Opposed to birth and mating, the Elementals were widely an asexual race. Gender was subjective and optional to them, much like the Ghost Monsters. While Ghost Monsters couldn't reproduce offspring, Elemental Monsters could. When one came of age, they could take some of their own life force and imbue it into a flame they separate from their bodies. The other elementals worked similarly to this.
It had become a tradition among the Fire family to follow a pattern. Children of a Fire Elemental were designed in the eyes of the parent. The color of the fire, the attitude of the child, right down to the preferred gender. That could be changed when the child came of age to have children of their own, but due to tradition, members of the family maintained their given roles.
Grillby Fire could still recall his childhood. He'd been raised by 'Maggie Fire', his mother, and his grandfather, 'Burnie Fire'. Fire Elementals were strange, when it came to age. They could live eternally, but when the time came to become a great grandparent... they would just flicker out and perish.
Fuku was 'born' the same day Burnie died. Maggie had started the bar & grill when Grillby had been a few years old. She'd named it after him, and raised him into it. Burnie hadn't been a man for this kind of work. He'd run the old inn before he sold it to the Bunnie family, only at Maggie's insistence. She loved Grillby's as much as she loved the real thing. She was a very passionate monster, and Grillby often aspired to her work ethic. His grandfather was incredibly lazy and apathetic, whereas his mother was consistently active and caring. He grew to somewhat be a combination of the two. He maintained her work ethic while gaining his grandfather's mostly uncaring, quiet attitude. Grillby kept to himself, a man of very few words. He only spoke when he absolutely needed to, not for any particular reason. He just found that people listened more to someone of few words than someone who blabbed all the time. Besides, talking was exhausting. He'd rather focus on work.
