Jurgen Baccara

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Jurgen Baccara

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Bigger, better and longer than ever, I proudly present to you:

Jurgen Baccara

Piedmont, 1401...

The court of Amadeo of Savoy burned, the great palace reduced to a blazing ruin. Its occupants had gone, had fled the roiling magical duel like mice faced with a terrible predator. But the duel was over now, its result inconclusive, its only victim the once-magnificent Italian palazzio that was even now going up in smoke and flame.

On the central courtyard stood the two people responsible for this offence against the Savoy dynasty and priceless medieval architecture both: one man, one woman, no fifty paces apart. Both were drenched: the apocalyptic fury unleashed by their enchantments had stirred the very atmosphere itself. Mother Nature was now bleeding off that excess energy in the form of a terrible storm come rolling down from the nearby Alps. The rain beat a rumbling staccato on the cracked flagstones, the fine marble now stained with soot and blotches of rapidly evaporating ectoplasm.

“I would have hoped that by now” spoke the man, who was dressed in a doublet of silk velvet with silver-gilt welts, “you would have realized that I can't go along with your wild plans of world domination.” He wiped a slick of black hair out of his eyes. “And that you can't force me to do anything. Let's face it: you're good, but not that good.”

The woman glared at him, her chest heaving. Her sleeveless gown was tattered and singed by magical energies, its embroidered fabric further ruined by the ceaseless torrents. “But if you just-”

He cut her off. “No. I told you before, I'll tell you again. I like life under the Duke just fine. I don't want to
be the Duke.”

“But you could be so much
more! She was pouting, almost wailing now. Fire and rain had ruined her elaborate make-up, which somehow served only to make her more attractive.

The man looked at her, exasperation on his face. “For the love of God, Constance. I am not a murderer, or an emperor, or a demigod. I am Jurgen Sekhet Baccara, and I control my power. I do not let it control me. And I don't use magic to kill people or usurp thrones. Magic should be used to discover, to protect, to mend, to help. Not to destroy.” It looked like he wanted to say more, but instead he looked up, as if startled by an unheard sound. “And it appears Amadeo's tame sorcerers have arrived.” He looked at the woman, Constance. “Are you going to make a scene again? Because I won't let you.”

She glowered at him. “You won't be able to stalemate me forever, Jurgen. I'll see you around.” She made a quick, dazzling gesture with her left hand, and disappeared with the familiar thunderclap of air rushing in to fill up a sudden vacuum.

The man, now alone in the cracked and burning courtyard, stroked his goatee and smirked at no-one in particular. “Oh, I'm looking forward to it already.”



History

Wizard. Multi-billionaire. Trickster. Inhuman elder thing. Self-professed hedonist. Survivor of a hundred empires. Jurgen Baccara is all these things, and many more. His actual age may be impossible to determine, but certain is that he has roamed the earth for over nine thousand years, ever since he was summoned to Earth by Hermes Trismegistos, the thrice-great. The ancient Trismegistos was said to have killed Argus, and for this reason to have fled to Egypt, and to have given the Egyptians their laws and alphabet: for this, he was adopted as a son by Thoth, the great god of writing and magic. With all the knowledge of the god at his disposal, Hermes Trismegistos became the first and greatest Alchemist, an engineer of pyramids, who produced tens of thousands of arcane writings.

In those early days of civilization, when Ancient Egypt was yet young, the great sorcerer brought Baccara up from the Abyss, the metaphysical darkness that separates this from that, and is from ought, to act as his scribe at the temple of Neith at Sais, where there were secret halls containing historical records which had been kept for countless millennia, some of them dating back to before the fall of Atlantis itself. It was Hermes Trismegistos who taught the strange creature of massless shadows to assume first solid, and then human form; it was he who gave it its True Name and instructed it in the arts of mathematics, medicine and architecture, but most of all the art of the arcane, so that he might better aid the Pharaoh whilst the great sorcerer himself delved deeper into the secrets of the abnatural. And so Baccara found himself – for he found that, for reasons unknown even to himself, he preferred the male above the female form – in the service of some of history's greatest figures: Hatshepsut and Akhotep, Ahmose and Ramses.

“Do You not know, Asclepius, that Egypt is an image of heaven, or, to speak more exactly, in Egypt all the operations of the powers which rule and work in heaven have been transferred to Earth below.”

For many thousands of years Baccara was content with his position at the side of Trismegistos. But eventually the proud Egyptian civilization began to crumble; its greatness faded and was ultimately eclipsed by other Empires. The ancient Egyptian gods went to sleep, and so ultimately did Hermes Trismegistos, whose fortune was ultimately tied to Thoth: the great alchemist left the Heliopolis of Thebes and ventured into the desert alone, to go to slumber in the Black Pyramid until Thoth had need for him once more. His faithful servant he left behind. And for the first time after thousands of years of servitude, Baccara alone, and free to do as he pleased.

It sparked something of an identity crisis in him; his purpose had gone, and yet he still remained. Now what? He remembered little of the time in the Abyss. That dimensionless place seemed unsettling in retrospect, less a 'place', in fact as it was a scream stretched out across time. By his newfound human sensibilities, the idea of a return to the nothingness that had come before made him nauseous. And having tasted the high life of Ancient Egypt's courts, and enjoyed it massively, after years of contemplation he decided once and for all that the Earth, with all its myriad pleasures, was a much better and more interesting place to be. And so, Baccara embarked on a journey to experience the worldly pleasures Earth had to offer him, a journey that would last several millenniums and one that he is still on even today.


Constantinople, 1081...

He met her for the first time in that great capital of the Byzantine Empire, still standing proud and tall, at a costumed ball in the Blachernae palace on the edge of the Bosporus. Princes, captains, merchants, dignitaries and ambassadors milled in the bewildering, gaudy vortex of medieval power that was the great hall, dancing, talking and drinking under the light of a thousand candles and torches.

He wore the robes and attire of a well-to-do Venetian merchant prince, for that was who he was at the time, and despite the excellent drink and the fine music he was bored. Masked balls had never been his thing, not when their host had been Alexander the Great, and still not now. He was about to slip away when an unfamiliar voice stopped him in his tracks.

“Mr. Baccara, I presume?” He turned around. She was dressed in a glittering gown was covered with dazzling color animals - lions, elephants, eagles, and griffins. A mirrored mask covered her eyes, but a few locks of blonde hair escaped a crumpled cap of blue. Her ruby lips were pressed in an amused expression at his surprise. “May I ask why you are not wearing a mask?”

He smiled. “Ma'am, who says that I am not?”

She inclined her head. “A man of mystery, then. They told me that you were.”

He quizzically raised an eyebrow. “And who might 'they' be, ma'am?”

She laughed, and her voice had a strange musicality to it. “Ah, would you not like to know!” Then she offered him a gloved hand. “Care to dance, Mr. Baccara?”

Three dances later, she led him away through the labyrinthine passageways of the great palace, and into a darkened bedroom. With a gesture and a surge of Power she lit every candle in the room. He cocked an eyebrow. She smiled and shed her dress. “Come on now, Mr. Baccara. I know who you are. Surely you are not surprised?”

He smiled back, and with a flick of his wrist the room went dark again.



Personality

Most outsiders will, when asked, describe Jurgen Baccara as a hedonist, one who follows a school of thought which believes that pleasure is the only thing that is good for a person. He would most likely not deny this charge, as even today he very much strives to maximize his net pleasure. However those to simply write him off as a hedonist have missed a more subtle undercurrent, and run a very real risk of underestimating their opponent, for Baccara's character is much more complex than that.

Jurgen Baccara has a very particular view of the world, everything that it contains, and the role of magic in that world. Even though he is a sorcerer of prodigious ability, he has never used that ability to amass power, usurp thrones or to destroy the many enemies he has made (and lost) through the many ages of his Earthly existence. He firmly believes, as he was taught by the thrice-great, that magic should be a power that creates, mends, and harmonizes; to use it as a means of amassing power or influence, to destroy or wreak havoc upon those who do not have such ability is an affront in his eyes.

Despite his primary quest to enjoy the simple pleasures in life this view of the world has nevertheless forced him frequently throughout the history of the world to confront those who would abuse their gifts, and to make right what has gone wrong. He is a reluctant hero, never eager to shift his focus away from wine and nectar, but never failing to do so all the same, should the world need his services. Throughout history he has kept a watch over his surroundings, to make sure that those he feels need his protection get it, although he will rarely admit to doing so openly. Just like his human identity is equal parts facade and reality – for he has grown so accustomed to his masquerade and has spent so much time in human society that months can go by in which he never even thinks about his distinctly inhuman nature - his hedonistic debauchery is equal parts a real obsession, and a way of throwing people off from the deeper motivations below it.

And then there days, not too many, but there are days when Jurgen Baccara questions the nature of his own existence. He knows the place from whence he came, even has faint and fleeting memories of his time there, and he knows he was summoned from that strange non-place. And occasionally, this makes him wonder. Can he truly be a resident of a place that, technically, does not exist in a physical way? And if so, how come that in all his long centuries on Earth he has never encountered a creature like himself? Is he a naturally occurring thing, or is he some kind of golem, fashioned by Trismegistos' awesome power from a strange metaphysical ab-stuff? And if so, would that matter for a creature that has pretended to be human for so long it for the most time thinks of itself as human? What is a human?

It is questions like these that make Jurgen Baccara's head hurt, and so he tends to try and not think too much on the subject. Besides, it is rather useless to continue to ask such questions when in nine long millenniums you still have not yet managed to obtain the answer.


Crowtalon City, 2006...

The myriad spires of the city skyscrapers jutted into the slowly darkening sky, silhouettes of art-deco fists juxtaposed against a setting sun. Fluttering among them were the city's namesakes, dark swirling murders of crows hunting desperate pigeons like aerial hyenas in the sweltering afternoon. The hunter crows were one of the odder ecological phenomena in the city, but they failed to attract the attention of its inhabitants. Except for one. Just beyond the tendrils of the great city and its complex suburban sprawl, on a forested flatland bordering Lake Michigan, stood a gigantic complex of buildings that appeared wholly out of place not just in this city, but on this continent and indeed in this age. A stupendous 247 acre-covering recreation of the ancient Egyptian temple-complex of Karnak sprawled across the flats. Lauded as an exercise in excess that would put the Carnegies and Rockefellers of the last century to shame, this is the private residence of one of the world's richest individuals and a warren of columned temples, shadowy precincts and torch-lit halls.

Architectural and archaeological critics alike had berated the duplication of the Temples of Ipet-Isut as flawed and imperfect, but their owner knew better. His critics had not been there during the rise of the New Kingdom, when the original temples had been brand-new. He had. In fact, he had helped design several of these shrines. And it is he who now watched the faraway crows intently from the top of what he knew was a perfect, stone-for-stone replica of the Temple of Amun.

Jurgen Baccara stood silently watching, hands clasped behind his back. The room around him was eclectically furnished. Ancient Egypt was twenty-six centuries dead but it lived on in this strange mansion, excessively Egyptian in its ornamental detail: from the office-doors, framed by lotus-topped columns and bronze sphinxes to the vague odor of linseed oil, the tesserae walls and the enormous desk, carved from a single block of Nubian marble. But Jurgen Baccara was nothing if not practical, and so there were Chippendale bookcases, a Wright reading table covered in papers, soothing orange electric lights to compliment the brand-new torches on the walls, thick Persian carpets, a series of computers and a gigantic plasma television tuned to a muted CNN business program.

But Baccara paid the room no mind, instead being content to watch the crows twirl and spin through the artificial downtown canyons. He did not turn, not even when the thick sycamore doors swung open and his closest confidante entered. Susannah Nixon held a linen handkerchief against her nose to stem the bleeding. “Did you
feel that?” she mumbled, her voice muffled underneath the blood-stained handkerchief.

Her employer, teacher and the closest thing she had to a friend nodded slowly. “It tickled. A little.”

For several seconds Susannah could only glare at him malevolently. “Are you kidding? Fuck! I'll have a migraine for
days!

Jurgen threw a glance over his shoulder. “Be glad for it. The vein that just popped in your nose could have been in your brain instead. If you'd been any less of a skilled sorceress you could be either comatose or dead right now.”

“Well that certainly puts things in perspective”, Susannah growled, her voice clearly signaling she was far from content with the answer. She moved toward the window and stood beside him. “What the hell was it anyway?” she demanded.

He shrugged. “The discharge and backlash of a major incantation. Sloppy, but major. Quite nearby too, somewhere downtown if I had to guess.”

She sniffed. “So somebody is throwing around major-league magic in our town and you're...” She followed his gaze. “Looking at the crows? Why?”

“They remind me of someone”, Jurgen smiled, and his voice took on a distinctly dreamy quality.

“They do?” she threw an unconvinced look out the window. “She must've had a real charming personality then.”

He looked at her, a little startled. He liked that about her, the ability to surprise him. Not many people could manage it these days. “What makes you think I'm talking about a woman?”

Susannah rolled her eyes. “Jurgen please. I've known you longer than today. This mystery woman of yours, she wouldn't have anything to do with my headache, would she now?”

A frown creased his brow. “I'm not sure” he admitted. “The pomp, the flair, the casual waste of energy. That's her style all right. Yes, it does feel like her. But... I'm not sure.” The tycoon finally turned away from the window and sat down in the vaulted leather chair behind his marble desk. “You know what, tell our informants in the city to keep an eye out for anything unusual.” He hesitated, then smiled. “Or rather, this being Crowtalon City, let them keep an eye out for anything more unusual than usual.”

Susannah nodded curtly. “You got it boss.” She turned and left, closing the sycamore doors behind her. He reflected that the ability to know when not to ask awkward questions, not to pry when he obviously didn't feel like talking about something, that was another quality he liked in Susannah.

Outside the sun sunk beneath the horizon, shedding a few last orange-red rays that sparkled off the glass skyscrapers of the financial district. The first snowflakes of December twirled down from the sky. Scratching his perfectly trimmed black goatee, Jurgen Baccara frowned and rotated the chair toward the great window behind him. “Constance, Constance, Constance...” he murmured to no-one in particular. “What are you up to this time?”



Assets

First and most obviously Jurgen is an extremely accomplished businessman, and has all the power and influence that comes with owning an international business empire and having more money than God. His international empire encompasses dozens of different companies, most of which specialize in one specific pleasure or another. He owns breweries of exquisite wines and other drinks; Russian caviar fishers; English fabricators of hand-built limousines; international charter jet companies; Italian tailors; a world-class escort service based out of the Netherlands; casinos in Las Vegas, Monaco and elsewhere; jewelers in Antwerp and New York; a famous yacht builder in Dubai; several French firms producing perfumeries and cosmetics; a producer of high-fidelity equipment in Germany; a Colombian drug cartel; Swiss watchmakers and chocolatiers; museums in several world capitals; an American space tourism company; private banks in the Caymans, Luxembourg and Gran Canaria; and many others. He owns houses all over the world, has one of the largest private collections of paintings and antiquities in the world, and vies with Anthony Saint for the position of the world's second-wealthiest man.

He is, of course, also an immortal with several millenniums worth of life experience and, last but not least, he is an extremely gifted and extremely powerful sorcerer in his own right, capable of unleashing spectacular amounts of power from his fingertips if he so desires. Few on Earth would be able to rival him in his knowledge and mastery of the arcane, and Baccara is far from alone in his endeavors: he has assembled a group of like-minded close confidantes under the banner of the Hermetic Society, a group of wizards, magicians and other talented individuals with similar goals of combating the magical evils in the world so that humanity can keep on enjoying its hard-earned prosperity.

Jurgen Baccara currently makes his home in Crowtalon City. On the outskirts of the city, on the edge of Lake Michigan, Baccara has assembled what is arguably the most hotly debated piece of architecture in North America: a drive-way lined by rows of ram- and human-headed sphinxes leads to a sprawling replica of the ancient Egyptian temple complex of Karnak. The gigantic complex contrasts vividly with the predominantly Gothic architecture of Crowtalon City, and has attracted the criticism of architectural experts, city planners and archaeologists world-wide. What the critics do not know is that underneath the temple complex is located a library containing manuscripts collected over the centuries, many of them relating to the esoteric and arcane, most of which are commonly believed to have been lost to the sands of time.


Washington, D.C., 1933...

Millions of stars reflected solemnly in the mirror-smooth surface of the Reflecting Pool, before being abruptly washed away as the water was disturbed by the impact of a female body. Thrashing and convulsing she resurfaced above the shallow water of the pool. “What-” she gasped. “What the hell just happened?”

“And a good night to you too, Constance” an intimately familiar voice spoke. Like her he was once again wearing different clothes: an elegant waistcoat, a white bow tie and a top hat. He wagged his finger in mock reproach. “Did you just try something naughty?”

“Jurgen” her voice was filled with venom. “I almost...”

“You almost used the Washington Monument as the anchorage of your summoning circle, and you almost mind-slaved the United States government on inauguration night.” He tssked. “But that simply won't do, my dear.”

Constance Merveille bristled as she drew herself up from the lukewarm water of the Reflecting Pool. “What are you doing here?” She was rattled: he could tell. But that was only understandable – one didn't lose control of an enchantment powerful enough to encompass most of the city without some serious backlash. The fact that she'd survived his curse-breaking at all, let alone entirely physically intact, was a testament to her skill. Jurgen Baccara couldn't help but be impressed.

Not that he'd show her any of that, of course. “Why, good old Franklin invited me”, he replied, his tone blasé. “He has some marvelous ideas to combat this depression thing that's going around. Wanted to talk to people who knew how to handle money about a 'new deal' or some-such. So, here I am.” He tipped his hat with ironic flourish. “And just in time too, it would appear.”

“If you'd just let me finish” she growled. “You would not have had to worry about the Great Depression anymore. I would've taken care of that for you.”

“You also would've dominated the minds of everyone in the United States government” he pointed out, shedding his waistcoat and offering it to her. “What did you plan to do with that power, set yourself up as a goddess in the White House?”

She glared at him, then snatched the coat from his hand, draping it around her soaking shoulders. “Empress actually. I got the idea from this fellow I met in San Francisco.”

“And you thought that nobody would've noticed anything amiss about that?” He shook his head. “You would've caused a war.”

Constance snorted. “Have you seen Europe lately? There's going to be war sooner or later anyway. It might as well have been me that caused it.” She sniffed. “No thanks to the Russians by the way. They threw me out, would you believe that? Tried to have me shot and everything. Damned revolutionaries.”

“Such is the fate of immortals” he nodded sympathetically. “But allow me to say, you made a dashing duchess while it lasted.”

“Oh shut it, Jurgen”, she sniffed resignedly. They walked off underneath the breathtakingly starry sky.
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Shroom Man 777
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Re: Jurgen Baccara

Post by Shroom Man 777 »

Pure, unadulterated awesome. You know how much I wuv Jurgen Baccara (and wuv pairing him off with Alexei Ross, for BACCAROSS!) and this is just great. Finally, the Magica DeSpell character I've prattled on and on about is canon! Huzzah! DuckTales, woo-hoo! :D

I love the expanded profile, how it incorporates a lot of the old-profile that I've forgotten but also has all these "flavor" bits as you call it, that add lots of flavor and really make Baccara out to be an awesome, laid-back, fun guy and a complete smugdog bastard. Baccara, what a guy. And, hah, he has a space tourism company now! He CAN host Iron Chef tourneys... IN SPAAAACE! :mrgreen:

I always liked the Jurgen Baccara character. So much potential for awesome, such as temporal romantic comedies with Tiffany Jones in Woodstock (speaking of which, now you can totally use your recovery powers to find DOCTOR FUNKENSTEINER!). And, yes, I like how you also used that old story bit of yours with the pigeon-eating murders of crows - now modified with Magica replacing Sophie blowing up Berlin.

Man, Jurgen. This character is just, well, the definitive Siege Comix Character - immensely rich, immensely powerful, and immensely classy at the same time. Awesome.


Now what shall I do with the old Jurgen Baccara thread? :P

EDIT:

And mang. Neo Nile Noir! Totally Neo Nile Noir! Man. Throw JEFFERSON AMENOPHIS into the Hermetic Society and we can totally have awesome fun.

"When the darkness fell, the city became something else, any old Sinatra song notwithstanding. Bad things happened in the night, on the streets of that other city. Crowtalon City."

"They were all dead. The final scarab was an exclamation mark to everything that had led to this point. I released my finger from the amulet. And then it was over. "


GOD-DAMN!

EDIT 2:

Now to actualize THE GHOST OF RICHARD NIXON! :twisted:
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Re: Jurgen Baccara

Post by Malchus »

Wow, look at that. A new Jurgen Baccara article. And just when I was thinking of making a quick snap involving him too.

Anyway, it's a well written article, and I love the little snaps the pepper it. It's a really good showcase of his character, and his amiably antagonistic relationship with Constance is both sweet and awesome.

As for his old article, maybe it can be combined with this? The timeline in that one was interesting and quite informative.
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I admire the man, he has a high tolerance for insanity (and inanity - which he generously contributed!). ~Shroom, on my wierdness tolerance.
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