When King Maurice gained the throne, one of his first official acts was to issue the Benign Beings Emancipation Proclamation of Twelve Eighty Six, which outlawed slavery of sapient nonhuman creatures (human slavery was already illegal in Valinoin). This edict caused significant financial losses to certain noble houses, and one or more of them, it is believed, commissioned the devastating curse that caused King Maurice's firstborn child to be born a fox. No mage yet has been able to lift the curse and give Phillip a human form. "It's complicated" they say, involving some sort of a spirit creature that has entwined itself with Phillip's soul, and on Avalon cannot be removed while he lives.