Norstein Bekkler

Norstein Bekkler is the enigmatic sorcerer who formerly headed the ZAPS. In this post, he was also the effective director of intelligence for the Kingdom of Guardia. He was believed to have been killed in an explosion set off by the assassin Mister Bones, but was actually hiding in a Celpo briefcase at the time and is secretly still alive.

Norstein Bekkler is probably the most awesome character in the Kupopolis story. Way better than you, even.

History

Norstein Bekkler has lived many lives, worn many hats, and invented a number of popular colors throughout the course of his long existence.

Tibbius Shadow

Bekkler was born Tibbius Saddow, a child of Medinan parentage. Tibbius' father, Rennan, was a rebel agitator in the regime of Ozzie XI. After numerous exploits against the regime, Rennan was forced to flee Medina for Chorras. The elder Saddow settled down and married a nice Chorran girl, who became Tibbius' mother.

Rennan had lived a hard life, and had learned to blame the Mystics for the majority of his troubles. From his father, Tibbius inherited a rabid hatred of all things unhuman, as well as a powerful talent for shadow magic.

Political Career

Rennan Saddow, though living in exile, continued support for his bretheren still fighting the good fight against Ozzie's regime. This support came in the form of Syndicate-bought arms and other supplies, which all too frequently crossed the waters between Chorras and Medina in those days. But it was not to last: in the thick of the Syndicate Wars, Ozzie forged a pact with the Trann Syndicate, which cut off the supply line to the rebels. Worse still, Trann turned its eye on establishing a stronghold in Chorras, which brought a rather abrupt end to the small nation's firm stance of "leave me the heck alone please."

Tibbius, by this time a man in his own right (and, if I do say so myself, a very smart dresser), became prominent in brokering the pact between Chorras and the Arris Syndicate under Doan Pendouris. To distance himself from the activities of his father (which had, sadly, become a little too much of a liability for Rennan's ambitious son), Tibbius changed his last name to "Shadow," a pseudonym which had the dual benefit of being both phonetically similar enough to his real name, and also appeared to embrace his well-earned reputation as a potent shadow mage.

Chorras' alliance with Arris held off the Trann Syndicate, and proved to be critical in helping Doan reclaim the throne of Guardia. At the outset, however, Doan had promised the Chorrans that he would return their sovereignty once the land was at peace. Doan, of course, did not keep this promise, and to the great displeasure of many Chorrans, the provinces of Chorras became a part of the restored Kingdom once Doan was crowned King.

After the Syndicate Wars, Tibbius ran for and won one of Chorras' seats in Guardia's re-established Parliament. He had seemingly abandoned his fellow Chorran Nationals and embraced Chorras' place as part of Guardia. Because, really, all Tibbius cared about was his own power and position, and cared as little for the plight of Chorran nationalism as anything else. (sort of a jerk in that way, really) During this period, he also started the human supremacist group known as Xenos, encouraging and funding various covert attacks against Guardia's non-human minority groups. Xenos was a mostly small-time operation, until the discovery of the Web of Worlds.

Rise of Xenos

Gate's entry into the Web is best known for ushering in an age of unprecedented technological advances across the board. But as much as Gate gave to the rest of the Web, Gate also took profound influences from the other nations of the GACA. A small but significant uptick in immigration into Guardia, resulting entirely from contact with the other dimensions of the Web, helped to galvanize the Xenos -- even though a majority of the new immigrants were human.

Xenos membership increased, especially in Chorras, where the public sentiment was strongly anti-royal, significantly anti-GACA, anti-Medina and opposed to the sudden surge of contact with all things extra-dimensional. Tibbius ran the group in secret, while serving as the public face for the group's fueling sentiments in Parliament.

Xenos' rise to prominence came when the Parliament took on the task of redistricting the Denadoro region, shaving off large segments of neighboring provinces to form a new province which would be largely comprised of non-human races (especially Guardian Mystics). The effort to redistrict Denadoro was hotly debated in Parliament, with Royalists championing the effort in the name of providing greater enfranchisement to racial minorities, and Conservatives opposing the measure because it would largely benefit the already unassailable Royalist majority. While speaking against the measure in Parliament, Tibbius also mobilized the Xenos, which targetted key Parliament members in favor of redistricting and waged a campaign of intimidation, vandalism and even assault. This culminated in a lone wolf attack on Parliament chambers on the day of the vote, which was ultimately thwarted by the Shield.

Tibbius' Exit

After the incident at Parliament, the Xenos seemed to all but disappear from the radar. This was all a part of Tibbius' latest master plan: the Xenos members, being the chosen elite, had invested much time and resources into constructing a series of fortified underground bunkers across Chorras and lower Zenan. Safe in these bunkers, the Xenos would hide and wait out an apocalypse instigated by Tibbius Shadow, who had gotten it into his head that he could summon Lavos and wipe out all life on the surface.

Of course, trying to summon Lavos rarely works as intended. Because the Shield was probably busy doing other things at the time (like, say, intercepting a giant Lavos that had been summoned and was going to hit the surface of Gate III), his supporting cast (lead by Dreamer) went to Tibbius' house to try and stop Tibbius' being an evil dick from that end. This resulted in Tibbius and the goodguys being thrown back in time, because why not.

King Zeal

Tibbius arrived in the pre-historic past just as things were starting to cool down (by like, a lot; we're talking the start of the ice age here). While the goodguys worked on securing for themselves a way back to their home time period, Tibbius was left behind and started mucking around with history. He took several tribes of proto-humans under his wing and forged them into a sort of nation, becoming their god-king by virtue of his command over magic. By accident -- and, I swear, he didn't realize he was doing this until it was already happening -- he kind of founded the Kingdom of Zeal, and became its immortal sovereign.

The immortal part actually took a bit of work, now that you mention it. He was able to extend his lifespan by several decades with nothing other than magical experimentation, but it was one of his "Enlightened Ones" who devised a method for him to truly live forever. Following this prescribed course, King Zeal transferred his essence into a polished mask. The transferrence was, by all accounts, a success: King Zeal was able to fully articulate and maneuver the mask through some inherent telekinetic effect. By way of investing him with some amount of humanity, the mask was affixed to a stone body, presenting the illusion that it was the statue of the King which held his essence.

The King takes a Queen

Despite being immortal, King Zeal eventually felt the need to establish a dynasty. So he took a wife for himself, a young woman from the noble class, who had the gifts of ambition, magical talent and beauty. Being incapable of siring children with her normally, Zeal and his most powerful wizardly advisors began to try and work this problem of providing King Zeal with some redundant heirs to his throne. Thus we have Gate's own story of immaculate conception, as the Enlightened Ones of Zeal managed to impregnate their Queen with their King's issue through magic. Thus Schala and Janus were born; the former being the spitting image of her mother, and the latter greatly resembling his father when he was fully human -- though through some quirk of the process by which he was conceived, he had this weird pointy-ears thing going on that nobody has yet to explain how that happened.

All the Kingdom of Zeal was greatly pleased with the King's eldest child, Schala. She turned out to be a magical prodigy. His son, Janus, however, showed no magical aptitude, and while the Queen and otehrs at court regarded Janus as soemwhat worthless, King Zeal (perhaps by virtue of his being from the future) saw great potential in his non-magical son and showed him great favor.

The Coup D'Etat

King Zeal underwent a changing, character-growth type of story arc during his time ruling over the Kingdom of Zeal. Surely, it would have been a highly entertaining story to read. Perhaps it would have been worthy of receiving a Figgy or two. Or three. The subject of the story, at least, is a very captivating and dynamic fellow -- if I can be so bold as to suggest that.

But anyway, this King Zeal, he went from being a villainous, sometimes-racist jerk to being an affable, generally very likable tyrant -- and make no mistake, he was sort of a tyrant, but a likable one. Maybe that's what happens when you shed your mortal body and have your soul transferred into a magical mask so that you can live forever -- not that I'd know from firsthand experience or anything. But he was an all-around good sort, and people in the Kingdom generally liked him, and he had a good relationship wtih his family -- well, most of his family. His marriage, it turns out, was troubled. That's to be expected, though: the Queen had needs that a disembodied mask affixed to a stone statue just couldn't meet. You know what I'm talking about. And if you don't, I'm not going to be the one to tell you: go fetch mommy and daddy and have them sit you down for a long overdue chat about birds and bees, or whathaveyou.

But beyond the strain in the physical relationship, there was something else that our lovely Queen Zeal was lusting after. She was the second most powerful person among the Enlightened Ones, and wanted very badly to be THE most powerful. Which would have been unfortunate for her -- King Zeal being immortal and all -- if she hadn't had a plan in place to deal with her very, extremely likable and perfect husband.

The way it all went down, the details and so forth, are difficult to pin down (because they were never actually part of a Kupopolis story post -- but if they had been, it would have been worthy of a Figgy, I swear). Suffice to say, the Queen lured the King into a compromising position -- not difficult to do because the King, who was good and virtuous, completely trusted his Queen -- and then trapped him in what would become known as the Tomb of King Zeal, and then shot said tomb into space.

How did the Zealans gain the ability to launch an entire sky-island into space, you ask? Well, because a wizard did it, I suppose.

Anyway, the King had no means to escape his tomb, and so he just sort of hung out for several thousand years. He woke up once during that whole Lavos scare (because, it turns out, some jerk named Tibbius Shadow had tried to summon Lavos): the Shield and Johnny Fender were flying back to Gate III after blasting Lavos out of the sky and stopped on an asteroid that looked kind of weird. They accidentally triggered the defensive systems that the Zealans had left in place on King Zeal's tomb, and all the ruckus sort of woke King Zeal from what was an otherwise very pleasant millennia-long nap.

After that, Zeal woke up a second time, when his tomb (now without defensive systems, thanks to a certain super hero and his cyborg sidekick) became the refuge for an Archon named Danarael. Danarael had just fought in the final battles of the Leviathan War, and the horrific nature of those last days of conflict changed him. Those experiences made him the First of the Fallen, playing upon a flaw in the R-CON conversion process. Sensing how troubled Danarael was, King Zeal reached out to him.

Rajaat

King Zeal saw in Danarael the opportunity for a comeback that was thousands of years in the making. His long exile had made him a little loopy -- and extremely BORED -- and he thought it would be fun to come back down to the Gate Dimension and take the whole show over. Being originally from the modern era, and guessing at the current date based upon his observations of the stars, Zeal took a special delight in the prospect of dismantling the Kingdom of Guardia (which, you will recall, he once tried to destroy by summoning Lavos). So Zeal helped Danarael to cope with his current state as a Fallen Archon, and taught him to once again cast spells after having lost the ability to use magic through Spekkio's divine power. Zeal gave Danarael something that was very important to him later on, a magical theory that Zeal had tinkered with over the millennia of his exile on a Zealan tomb in outer space: Defiling magic.

Thus giving the First of the Fallen his greatest weapon, King Zeal then also gave him a new name: Rajaat, a word which in ancient Zealan meant "Perfection." With Danarael's journey to the dark side complete, Zeal was then stunned -- stunned! -- that Rajaat betrayed him. Proving to be more adept at wielding Defiling magic than was, at the time, convenient, Rajaat turned on the King and obliterated his stone golem body with a single blast of powerful, concentrated shadow. The ungrateful little supervillain then left the tomb and returned to Gate III, where he would recruit Tibbius Shadow's old gang in the Xenos to become his army of human supermacist evil wizards, thereby launching the Cleansing Wars.

King Zeal, being that his life's essence was safely tucked away inside the mask, survived being betrayed by Rajaat. He then opened a time gate (which I guess he could have done all along?) and left the modern era for points unknown.

Norstein Bekkler

Thus, the man that was Tibbius Shadow, and the God-King Zeal, became the eccentric disembodied mask called Norstein Bekkler. The meaning behind this name, or why he assumed this identity, are not rightly known (and I'm not likely to ever tell, either). His first appearance as Bekkler is not known for sure (and this is further complicated, as is the rest of his history, by the heavy involvement of time travel).

Bekkler's Carnival of Mysteries

In the year 0 AD, Bekkler is known to have arrived in Guardia at the head of a caravan of gypsies and performers. At the behest of Guardia I, they performed at the first Guardian coronation, and set the tone of the first ever Millennial Fair (which, of course, wasn't called the Millennial Fair at the time).

Bekkler's carnival reappeared again in the year 1000 AD, and in the year 2000 AD, for repeat performances. The entertainers in the carnival appeared to have been the same at each event -- though none alive today can actually verify that.

The Great War

Bekkler played a significant part in the events of the Great War which occured within the Gate Dimension, at the time ruled by Queen Zeal with the backing of the Dark Gods. Bekkler is said to have organized a significant resistance movement in the End of Time, striking out into all eras of Gate's past against the strongholds of Zeal and the Dark Wrath. Bekkler was also supposed to have been responsible for sending Sir Glenn of Guardia and his contingent of Gatian heroes out into the Web of Worlds to join the Grand Army.

Bekkler refers to his activities during the Great War as "the custody battle."

The Zealan Arts Preservation Society

Sometime after the Millennial Fair of 1000 AD, Bekkler is said to have purchased a large plot of land outside of Porre, and established a private club for spellcasters. Founded ostensibly to preserve the art of magic use in the Gate Dimension (which saw a sudden revival after the marriage of Guardia's crown princess of the time), ZAPS was, at its inception, equal parts magic school, tourist attraction (the lower levels hosted magic shows that were open to the paying public) and Bekkler's personal cult-ish following. (ironically, given Bekkler's history as a racist jerk, ZAPS attracted many Guardian Mystics, who saw the Society as a safe haven from racial persecution)

During the Syndicate Wars, around the time that his past self (as Tibbius Shadow) was establishing his fledgling political career in Chorras, Bekkler had already started to transform the ZAPS into something much more than a mere wizard's social club. He had given several of his best spellcasters specialized training, teaching them to use their magical gifts for the purposes of infiltration and information gathering.

During the war, Bekkler sent out his spellcasting spies and fed the information directly to the Arris Syndicate, putting a powerful source of information at the disposal of Doan Pendouris. In particular, Bekkler was said to have been the first to give Doan the heads-up about the Trann Syndicate's plans to invade Chorras (which, to be fair, he only knew about because he used to be a racist Chorran shadow mage several thousand years earlier). He also is reported to have said to Doan: "To win the Chorrans' trust, you should probably lie to them and promise to restore their sovereignty at some point later on." He then stuck out his tongue, which exploded into a shower of uncooked wild rice, made a quacking sound and exited through a nearby closet.

Years later, during the OmniSent Crisis, Doan called upon Bekkler once again. Remembering Bekkler's service to the Arris Syndicate, and his talent for discovering valuable information, Doan asked Bekkler if he would accept a post as the Director of Guardian Military Intelligence -- which at the time Doan judged as being woefully inadequate to deal with this sudden new threat coming from the OmniSent. Bekkler said "No!", but after a bit of haggling he did agree to accept a contract from the Guardian government to supply them with intelligence information and analysis. In order to fund this contract, Doan all but disbanded the GMI, with the understanding that Bekkler would hire and retrain GMI's former staff and agents. In this way, ZAPS became the de facto intelligence service of the Guardian government. Over the years, ZAPS and the Guardian government have grown much closer, with personnel crossing over between the military services and ZAPS very freely -- however, on paper, ZAPS is still an outside contractor, even though it is so intertwined into the government and military that any separation at this stage would be next to impossible.

The Super Soldier Program

One of Bekkler's most enduring contributions to modern Guardia was his participation in the Guardian government's various "super soldier" programs. In particular, Bekkler was responsible for crafting the enchantments that created Guardia's own super hero, the Shield.

Bekkler also had a hand in helping Archbishop Meres to create the Archons.

I'm sure he actually finds all of this incredibly funny.

The ZAPS Corruption Hearings

Most recently, Bekkler was involved in the machinations of the Pyra ring. While attempting to uncover the connections between the Pyra ring and the Morris Administration, Bekkler made enemies of Khalid Morris' superiors. One of these men, Dr. Daniel Chalasser, targetted Bekkler for removal, and framed Bekkler with the very same intelligence that Bekkler had worked so hard to gather about the Pyra ring.

Rather than allow himself to come under fire, and give his enemies a political chip to play, he opted to remove himself from the field. Thus, he fired all of his best agents (including Osprey, who is still looking for work), had the Celpo hire Mister Bones to break into ZAPS headquarters to kidnap him, and blew up his own office.

Bekkler is still in hiding with the Celpo, waiting for an opportune moment to return and strike back at his enemies.

Personality

It's hard to pin down Bekkler and say, exactly, what kind of person he is. The long millennia of his life have truly transformed him, and he is an entirely different person depending on where along the trajectory of his life you happened to have met him. The Bekkler of today is eccentric, but very wise. If he ever regrets any of the things he's done in the past (like, say, trying to summon Lavos, or creating Rajaat), he never outwardly shows it.

It's impossible to say whether Bekkler is a force for good or for evil. While he has done several things in the past which were unmistakably evil (the Xenos, summoning Lavos, giving Rajaat Defiling magic), he has also acted for the advancement of good as well (resisting Queen Zeal during the Great War, sending Glenn into the ranks of the Grand Army, creating the Shield and the Archons).

Powers and Abilities

Norstein Bekkler may well be one of the most powerful spellcasters in the history of the Web of Worlds. However, he devotes most of his magical power to random sight gags and perpetuating centuries-long running jokes that are only funny to himself.

He is known to be able to travel through time (but only when it is either convenient or funny), can apparently summon Lavos, knows Defiling magic (since he made it up), and holds weekly gaming sessions of the Kupopolis RPG, where he serves as Gamemaster to the various gods and goddesses that he invites to his roleplaying table.