#norstein bekkler

[zephiraz]

Okay so in my head there lives Magus and an alternate timeline Janus. They say they don't like or trust each other, but they get along better than anyone.

(This got a lot longer than I thought it would whoops.)

There once was a king of Zeal, surely. Janus and Schala didn't just come out of nowhere. And the queen wasn't always...like that. No one really likes to talk about how the king died, though. Illness, the seneschal said, though he was newly appointed and had not the full details himself. Illness, the queen cried, deep in mourning, as she tore down the king's portraits and replaced his aides and servants and research partners. Only the Gurus remained, too vaunted to truly be touchable. It was such a sudden thing, the sickness that took him. None who had seen him believed him ill or frail, and he'd been in such fine spirits just the day before, though any murmurs of such are quickly silenced lest the queen dowager hears. You don't wish to upset the lady in mourning, do you? You don't want to disappear.

But the king had been in perfectly fine health, in fact. The only thing that wore on him was his wife's insistence on pursuing a field of research that he viewed as dangerous. The couple had argued about it, the queen proclaiming this new energy source she'd discovered would propel Zeal to ever greater heights, and the king decrying it as madness. He forbade her research entirely after one day walking into her lab to see her research assistant—one Norstein Bekkler—shatter before his very eyes, Bekkler's essence drawn into a black hole in space, ripped from his body with such force that only pulped meat remained.

For weeks the queen pleaded for another chance, defending her research and describing all the different safety measures she could—would—implement, if only she were given the chance. She was so close to a breakthrough! Eventually, the king relented. He did love his wife, and he wanted to believe in her, after all. He allowed her one more chance, on the grounds that he supervise her next experiment. Should at any moment it appear too dangerous to continue, it was to be shut down immediately.

Little Janus with his brand-new kitten in tow saw his parents wandering the halls together, oblivious to his presence underfoot. He followed them, only noticed when he tripped on robes too big for him. His father turned, a face lined with stress and worry brightening like the sun emerging from behind storm clouds at the sight of his son. The king scooped Janus up in a big hug, then set him back down on his foot and urged him away to find his sister. Mother and father have important research to do; it is not safe for little kittens!

Janus watched heavy marble doors shut behind his parents. He never saw his father again. None would ever find out what happened behind those doors.

...But time is as fickle as a kitten struggling in a young boy's arms, spurred by the tantalizing mystery of a slowly closing door. Alfador leaped from Janus's grasp and bolted after the king, the young prince hot on his heels.

Thousands of years later, a motley group of time travelers wanders Guardia's forests at the behest of the Guru of Time. From his perch at the end of all things, Gaspar had seen a disturbance in the vast darkness of time. A loose thread, forgotten in the ebb and flow, causing the weft of reality to fray. It was with great trepidation that Crono led his friends through the dense wood. A bright flash of blue light had signaled the opening of a gate, but finding the thing was proving tricky. Voices echoed amidst the trees, jeering laughter and barely-audible murmuring interspersed with the crack of magic and infrequent shouts of pain.

After long minutes of searching the party found the source of all this noise; Dalton, half obscured by hanging branches, cackling as he channeled magic, draining energy from a groaning man just out of view. It was Magus who acted first. He leaped from the forest's grasp and bolted straight for Dalton, slicing the man's head clean off with a flourish of his scythe. ...And Dalton, a different Dalton, fled into a hastily-summoned black gate with a second prisoner in tow just before the rest of the party could bring their weapons to bear.

With little else to go on but a headless, lifeless body, Crono turned to help up the Daltons' victim, but was startled to find him a spitting image of Magus. With the party too shocked to act, the man stood shakily on his own and dusted his fine robes off. He thanked the party for their timely intervention, and introduced himself as King Zeal.

Magus refuses to believe it, at first. This can't be the king of Zeal. He'd died years ago! The stranger's jaw sets at that, fists clenching at his sides. He states again that he is the king of Zeal; Janus, son of Alfard, who he watched perish before his very eyes.

Janus had pushed the door ajar just in time to see his father disappear into a black hole in space, his mother's face twisted in vicious triumph. Janus ran crying for guards, for Schala, for anyone. The queen in her panic chased him through the halls, hoping to silence the prince. She was captured, raving mad, and sentenced for the murder of the king and attempted murder of her own son. Her lab was shut down, her research burned. It fell to Schala then to lead Zeal under the guidance of the Gurus, who she later joined in scholarship when Janus was old and learned enough to take the burden of the throne from her. There he ruled with fairness in relative peace for several years, until he was recently approached by a man claiming to be a prophet. This prophet spoke of a people divided, of those without magic cast to the frozen earth to toil away building technological marvels they would never benefit from, of a ruined Zeal. Janus ushered the prophet behind closed doors so as not to alarm his subjects. He believed the prophet a madman, of course, but it was his duty as king to thoroughly investigate any potential threat to his people. It was only when the heavy marble doors fell shut behind him that he realized he'd walked into his mother's old lab, and only then that he recognized the prophet as a sycophant who used to aid her in her research. And there beside a yawning black gate stood a man identical save for the ragged patch covering one eye. The false prophet pushed Janus into the gate, and his world went dark. It felt like eternity in a single moment, terror tearing through his mind as suddenly he was a child again watching his father succumb to this same fate, and then he was himself, sprawled upon an unfamiliar forest floor. And then he was nothing, his whole being suffused with blinding pain as the two Daltons drained him of his magic. He was lucky these kind strangers intervened when they did, lest he be drained entirely.

Magus mulls this over, staring at the blood-soaked ground beneath him. Still he struggles to find this true, but... His eyes alight on Dalton's head, face-down at his feet. He gently kicks it over. Two glassy eyes stare up at him.

With no sign of the gate that brought him here remaining, the party takes King Janus with them. He is shocked to hear their tale, appropriately dismayed and awed at each turn of fate, but it is hearing what very nearly was his own fate that shocks him into silence. At length, the king resolves to accompany the party in their quest. He might not be much of a warrior, but he is the King of Magic; a peerless enchanter, his wards and barriers know no equal, and the party could surely benefit from a highly learned support mage. He takes the name Magil, after an old tutor of his. He knows that this is not his own timeline, and he defers the name to the self who truly belongs here. Magus, for his part, is hesitant to take the name himself. He is only just starting to get used to hearing it again, after all. Regardless, they both still answer to Janus, and they both share the same goal, unspoken yet firmly understood between the two of them. If one King Zeal found his way here through a black gate, then what of the first? Could their father yet live?

(This was originally a put-me-to-sleep story in my head that I revisited like five times over a few months so the details got muddled between iterations, and some got left out. In one iteration the Other Zeal timeline was literally falling apart as time unraveled from Primary Dalton fucking stuff up in pursuit of power. Also Schala was there. Anyway I just think Magus and Other Janus would hate each other and then be friends. Magus would be so so so jealous of Other Janus getting to grow up in Zeal without a lot of the bullshit. Not much for Other Janus to be jealous of except in the first iteration of this plot it was a love triangle turned half-merged consciousnesses due to time fuckery to we're sharing him now between Crono and the Januses, but that plot is All For Me. Okay goodnight)

[shell-senji]

Anyone else get Norstein Bekkler vibes from the Quiz Master?

[belleshade]

Norstein Bekkler’s Tent of Horrors from Chrono Cross (1995, SNES)

[zarla-s]

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Ah, how nostalgic.

It’s been a while since ciphers have shown up!

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[overfedvenison]

Chasing Tangents Again Because the Hiatus Has Gone On A Year

You know, I made the joke earlier about “Maybe Kris is just shambling around like a zombie because that is what teenagers are like” But thinking about it, doesn’t this character get compared to a corpse a little too much for it to not be suspicious? And if you look through the glass formed by the dark crystal, you can see through your hand. But... An observation. To some artistic parallels, that may or may not MEAN anything. Alright, spoilers for chrono trigger which is probably now old enough to need a spoiler warning about plot twists that were once famous. This post is about Deltarune.

You know, to set up the Dual ACTs early on in chapter 1, one of the first ones you get is X-Flatter. Then, In the Snowgrave Spamton Neo fight, you also get X-Slash. If you are unaware, those are definitely Chrono Trigger references - One of the most iconic dual-techs in that game is X-Slash, due to how early you get it, and it’s famously the game that introduced both New Game Plus and a heavy use of Dual Techs to RPGs.

Here is X-Slash But of course... Famously, the twist in Chrono Trigger involves THE main character, Crono, dying. This was also unprecedented at the time - Chrono was “you,” a silent protagonist who you inhabited. You eventually get him back by playing around in the time stream, as Chrono Trigger is a game about time travel. To explain a little... In the Chrono Trigger timeline, in the year 600 there is a war between Humans and Fiends here. They are led by the Fiendlord, Magus. Monsters come in a variety of strange forms, and can use magic - an ability that humans used to be able to do, but lost long ago. That’s not super innovative. “War between humans and monsters, led by a King of Monsters” is a concept that goes way back and endures to this day in Japanese fantasy series as a cliche. And, 600AD is a pastiche of a typical RPG Chrono Trigger does a lot of pastiches of various settings, such as the End of Time - where time travellers gather - being strongly Victorian looking as kind of a Victorian Time Traveller thing. 

Actually, relevant to Deltarune fans: the old man here is named “Gaspar,” and he arrived here when he was thrown across time And he also gives you the “Time Egg.” That is one part of restoring Crono to life, as if it is taken to a particular tree, it will allow you to go back to a particular place in time. But you aren’t done. You need a “Clone” of Crono, and that can be found from a mysterious person at the carnival, one Norstein Bekkler. He’s a particularly weird looking fiend: He resembles a floating head with two hands.

(I’m going to be real, this guy is fucking mystifying. Nothing else in the game looks anything like him, he’s put in this weird circus tent with a giant skull outside, his ability to make clones is never explained, and it is 100% required you interact with him to beat the game.) Bekkler has the ability to magically(?) conjure a clone of a person. It’s essentially lifeless and has no will, basically acting as a statue that can imitate some actions. When you go back in time, this will replace Crono, and you pull him out moments before his death. Don’t read too much into this. However, now that I’m writing all that down, that sounds kind of...

Now, this doesn’t mean anything right now. Lets not get ahead of ourselves with Gaster theories. But, I HAVE heard some people mention the tree and the egg may be Chrono Trigger references, before. But I have my doubts as to the intentionality of that. Still, Clones, Eggs, Trees, Mysterious Old Men Being Thrown Across Space/Time? Well, maybe there’s something there. I ought to at least mention it, right? But... I digress. My point is that there DO seem to be SOME intentional Chrono Trigger references. You DO partake in a JRPG combat system with dual-techs. There ARE mysterious eggs given by old men in suits that appear to be from outside of time.  You DO start the game when your mom wakes you up in almost the exact same as as the mom in chrono trigger does does at the start of Chapter 1

You combine that with Kris looking like a “Corpse” and “Shambling around like a zombie?” Seeing through themselves when they hold up a shard of glass? ...I feel like this all may foreshadow SOMETHING. It could well be that Kris -dies- and towards the latter half of the game, you have to move on without them and eventually work to get them back. Likelihood like, 20%, tops. But, it’s fun to think about what that might entail, and the possible inspirations for this game I like regardless ...One more thing You wanna know a rather famous secret in the game? There’s a powerful weapon sold by a merchant right at the start of the game, who stops selling it after you go off on the adventure. The most effective way to get it? When you visit the fair, you end up with a girl named Marle as part of the plot. She is an Ice Mage/Healer. You explore with her, and she does Date Things like buy candy with you, you set up her character. So you can go and have some fun before the game starts ...But there’s an alternative. You can take her to the Guardia Forest - the only place with enemies this early on - and just... GRIND. Kill enemies repeatedly for about an hour. You, Silent Protagonist Swordsman and Squishy Healer Ice Mage, go and murder monsters so that you can get enough money to get a powerful weapon sold by a special merchant for only a limited amount of time. Well, and a bounty of XP to start off the game stronger than you normally would. Well... Isn’t that interesting?

[chrono-the-babe]

Character List

Playable

Chrono

Marle

Lucca 

Robo

Frog / Glenn

Ayla

Magus / Janus / Prophet / Magil / Guile

Kid

Serge

NPC / Enemy / Others

Alfador

Atropos XR

Azala

Belthasar

Chancellor

Cyrus

Dactyl

Dalton

Doan

Doreen

Dragon Tank

Epoch

Fiona

Flea

Fritz

Frog King

Gaspar

Gato

Giga Gaia

Gina (Chrono's mum)

Heckran

Johnny

King Guardia

Kino

Lara

Lavos

Masamune / Masa & Mune

Melchior

Mother Brain

Nizbel

Norstein Bekkler

Nu

Ozzie

Queen Leene

Queen Zeal

Schala

Slash

Son of Sun

Spekkio

Taban

Tata

Toma

Yakra

Zombor

[magnomagus-janus]

Headcanon suggestions? {ooc}

So what are some headcanon suggestions you have for Magus, as well as those important to him and the Kingdom of Zeal?  I just want to share some ideas for any fics I may do in the future. 

Some things I’ve been thinking about:

-If the Zeal royal family are the most powerful magic users, what happens if someone else from another family becomes or shows the potential to be even more powerful or even at the same level of power as them?  

-Is there any difference between the way that Crono, Marle, Lucca, and Frog cast versus the way a trained mage like Magus, the mystics/fiends, and the Enlightened Ones cast?  

-How did the Enlightened Ones loose their magic after the fall of Zeal anyway?  And yet somehow the potential for magic still runs in their descendants.  

-In the NA translation, some NPCs in Zeal mention something about sensing “auras” or some way of detecting magic or something about others, an imp is surprised about Crono and co. having magic and are surprised by it even though they haven’t used magic in front of them-unless they think the gate was their own doing.  More accurate translations (according to some) use the word “spirit” instead (hence my tag “a spirit full of hate and sorrow” which is taken from a comment an NPC says about “the prophet”)  How do you suppose this works and could any well-trained magic user do it?

-The four elements in CT are very different, even from CC!  Instead of the typical Air-Fire-Water-Earth-Aeither, or even Air-Fire-Water-Wood-Earth-Metal, it is Dark-Sky-Water-Fire, or in the NA translation Shadow-Lightning-Water-Fire.  Spekkio says they are fundamental forces of the universe, suppose they actually mean something else?  How do you suppose this works and how does it effect people born with a magical disposition toward an element?

-What the hell is Norstein Bekkler anyway? Or even what the Crono doll/clone was?  That whole quest line is full of uncanny weirdness and unanswered questions.  

-Does everyone in the CT universe actually speak the same language or is there some weird translation mumbo jumbo we don’t see?

-The origin of the mystics.

-How the hell did Belthasar predict that the heroes would come to revive Crono, even though that intervention in the timeline of Zeal had not even happen yet?

-Time travel headcanons-time traveler immunity, how does The Entity preserve someone’s place in the timeline(like Ayla, she gets away from the normal flow of time, yet her descendants still exist, and how Crono and Lucca still remember Marle even after she “ceases to exist” from history), and preserve the existence of people even if you alter the past significantly in a way that could erase people from the timeline(even Lucca in CC acknowledges this).  How would Lucca’s memories, perhaps even her personality even be altered a little due to intervening in her own past?    

-Is the reason the “Chrono Trigger” and Crono have the same name just some Odysseus/The Odyssey bullshit or is there some bigger reason?  Like DOES CRONO BECOME THE GOD OF TIME IN THE FUTURE or some weird shit like that I dunno that’s a stretch but this is ripe of fic material.

-Stuff about Zeal society, the origin of Lavos, why Schala to control the Mammon Machine, differences in the history of humanity in CC and in CT, etc.  

[magitek]

so about the “something else” aka that one fusion I’ve had in mind forever but never actually wrote, re-designed for xv instead of vii:

Crono & Marle: Prompto and Noctis are gonna share elements from both of those roles. Noct being the runaway royalty, but also the self-sacrificial hero, and Prompto being the “bad influence” and usual catalyst for the plot to keep going

Lucca: CINDY!!!!! SERIOUSLY!!!!! IT’S CINDY!!!!

Frog: this is the only character that works much much better in the vii version but daemon-hunting anthropomorphic owl (maybe, haven’t decided) who hasn’t used her real name since her brother went “missing” ten years ago, gee, I wonder

Robo: Okay, instead of Robo, we’re gonna have two sort-of cyborgs who’ve been sort-of hibernating since the apocalypse hit: Ignis and Gladio

Ayla: Aranea, like, do I even need to elaborate

Magus: Ravus, how did I not think of Ravus previously, I feel like someone told me it should be Ravus but I promptly forgot, etc.

Schala: And there’s Luna!

Dalton: ARDYN FRICKIN LUCIS CAELUM

Lavos: Instead of Lavos, we’re getting the ~eternal darkness~ like in canon because. It’s Ardyn.

Zeal: Izunia.

Azala: Camelia Claustra?

Nizbel: lol on that note, Weskham, but the prehistoric era’s gonna look pretty different than in the ~source material~

Kino: Biggs and Wedge are still Aranea’s subordinates

Guru of Time: Gentiana, clearly

Master of War: It is he, Gilgamesh!

Guru of Life: Cid. Definitely Cid. (man I love time travel stories)

Guru of Reason: Sania

The Epoch: The Regalia (The Aero-Ardyn Imperial)

Doan: Holly, keeping the lights on for the survivors

Leene: i’m blankin out here folks

Sir Cyrus: Gladio, before becoming a cyborg-in-hibernation

The Commander: Nyx :)

The Chef: Ignis, before becoming a cyborg-in-hibernation

Ozzie: Caligo Ulldor, joke villain no.1

Slash: lmaoooo idk

Flea: Loqi, joke villain no. 2

Fiona: Sania

Toma: Dino lol

Crono’s mother: Just. Not there. Like the Argentums :’( cough cough hmm what’s goin on here

Norstein Bekkler: Kimya

[centwithlove]

I dont believe you NEED to interact with Norstein Bekkler to beat the game, only if you want to return Chrono to life. Yup, returning him to life is completely optional, which seems ominous if youre thinking that will happen in Deltarune.

Chasing Tangents Again Because the Hiatus Has Gone On A Year

You know, I made the joke earlier about “Maybe Kris is just shambling around like a zombie because that is what teenagers are like” But thinking about it, doesn’t this character get compared to a corpse a little too much for it to not be suspicious? And if you look through the glass formed by the dark crystal, you can see through your hand. But… An observation. To some artistic parallels, that may or may not MEAN anything. Alright, spoilers for chrono trigger which is probably now old enough to need a spoiler warning about plot twists that were once famous. This post is about Deltarune.

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