Corning Beckdoran

"Corning Beckdoran"

- when told that a woman committed suicide under Shepherds' influence.

About
Corning Beckdoran was the leader of Advanced Checkmate, the five executive members of the dark organization Shepherds, and a major antagonist in Rance Quest.

Prior to joining Shepherds, Beckdoran was a man named Bronnenberg Hentz (ブローネンバーク・ヘンツ, burōnenbāku hentsu) who served as the leader of the Temple Knights, the private military force of the AL Church, the largest religion on The Continent. At some point during his time leading the Temple Knights, Hentz entered into a romantic relationship with Am Isuel, a young woman who worked as one of the four bishops beneath the pope. In the year GI0979, Am was chosen to succeed the pope in recognition of winning the Mula Test, only to disappear only two months into office, telling no one, not even Hentz, of her whereabouts. With no pope present to lead them, the Church was forced to hold a second Mula test to find a replacement.

Sometime following Am's disappearance, she returned to the Holy City of Kaiz, the headquarters of the AL Church, and approached Hentz in secret. Am revealed that after becoming pope she had been visited by the Goddess ALICE, the patron deity of ALism, who informed her of the true purpose of Humankind: to endure constant torment for the sake of entertaining the Creator God Ludo-Rathowm. Unwilling to submit herself to such a being, she abandoned the Church in search of a means to slay Ludo-Rathowm and free the world from its suffering.

After extensive research, Am discovered that the creator god's body was composed entirely of Souls that moved to and from the plane of the living through the Reincarnation Cycle. As souls that had become fully contaminated by negative thoughts were incapable of re-entering the reincarnation cycle, she determined that she would eventually be able to weaken Ludo-Rathowm enough to be susceptible to harm if she were to produce enough of them. With this idea in mind, she made it her personal goal to spread despair throughout the world to deprive the gods of as many souls as possible, and asked Hentz to assist her in doing so. While Hentz was disturbed by the notion of driving others to despair and concerned by Am's radical change in behavior, he chose to believe her claims and agreed to join her cause, partly in the hope that it would return her to her former self. Renouncing his faith alongside four other knights loyal to Am, he was rechristened with the name Corning Beckdoran in reference to one of the five Archangels spoken of in AList texts and set out to pollute the world. Over time, whispers of the group's actions compelled others to seek them out and pledge loyalty to their cause, gradually gathering enough people together to form a collective known as Shepherds united by its desire to generate despair.

By the time of the LP Era, Shepherds finished production of devices known as Soul Shackles, which augmented the human mind to enable soul pollution to increase more rapidly, and started distributing them to the public. The group's actions resulted in a steady surge of criminal incidents perpetrated by people wearing soul shackles, leading the AL Church to begin investigating the devices. To avoid a direct confrontation with the Church, Shepherds remained cautious and conservative in its movements, using several third parties of manipulated individuals to give out soul shackles in its place, and continued its operations without drawing notice to itself.

During the events of Rance Quest, the five members of Advanced Checkmate gathered in the cavernous hideout of Despair Group, an cult-like organization created under their influence comprised of 1,000 people dedicated to immersing themselves in despair. Intending to use the Despair Group as the primary center to administer soul shackles to the rest of the Continent, the group delivered a large shipment of the bracelets to the cave. The mission was compromised by the sudden appearance of the AL Church, which had become more militarized in response to the rising threat caused by soul shackles and began ruthlessly exterminating every contaminated person within the hideout. Hiding behind an outcrop of rocks, Advanced Checkmate held an impromptu meeting to decide their next course of action. While Beckdoran believed that a confrontation with the AL Church was inevitable, he asserted that it was an unnecessary risk to challenge it at that moment and motioned to abandon the Despair Group, gaining majority support from his colleagues Loafer Seconaott and Springer Paruott.

Before Advanced Checkmate could make its exit, it was ambushed by the warrior Rance, who had traveled to the cave seeking soul shackles to exchange with the AL Church in the hope of attracting the interest of female nuns. While exploring the Despair Group's hideout, Rance witnessed a young woman with a high level of soul pollution take her own life and was horrified by the sight. Having overheard the five executives speak of their involvement with the group, he confronted them about their actions. Though Beckdoran was mournful of the woman's fate, he did not express any remorse for her death, arguing that its happening was a natural consequence of the brutality of their world. Rance remained angry, failing to understand Beckdoran's philosophical rhetoric, and prepared to kill the five men as penance for harming cute girls. His challenge was answered by Term Salbenoatt, who had unsuccessfully lobbied for the group to stay and fight the Church's forces and was eager to sate his bloodlust. After some light coaxing, Beckdoran relented and allowed Salbenoatt to do as he wished, warning him only to not act recklessly, and fled the cave with the remaining three executives.

While Advanced Checkmate escaped from the conflict relatively unharmed, the Despair Group was completely destroyed by the AL Church, forcing Shepherds to seek out alternate means of propagating soul shackles. Its efforts were routinely quashed by interferences from the Church and Rance, preventing it from making significant progress. The organization finally achieved a major victory shortly after the end of the most recent Mula test, where it infiltrated Kaiz during Bishop Crook Mofus' inauguration ceremony to the office of pope, abducted the visiting Kalar queen Pastel Kalar and several powerful Balance Breakers that had been sealed beneath the city, and transported them to its lair inside one of the holy city's waterways. The hideout was quickly found and surrounded by the Church's forces, placing Shepherds in great danger. Rather than make an escape, Am informed her followers that she wished to speak with Pope Mofus personally and ordered them to allow her passage into her personal quarters. Beckdoran complied with the request, but arranged special precautions in anticipation of the meeting not going as Am planned, ordering Seconaott to hold off Crook and her allies long enough for him to prepare.

After reaching Am's location, Crook agreed to her request to speak privately with each other. Am expressed her condolences to Crook for having to process the revelations that came with becoming pope and revealed to her Shepherds' plan to eventually destroy Ludo-Rathowm by removing souls from the reincarnation cycle. After disclosing her motives, Am asked Crook to join hands with her to assist in achieving her goal. Crook bluntly refused, unwilling to have any part in such a task, and called the rest of her allies into the room to capture Am. Before they could initiate combat, Beckdoran appeared and released three balance breakers to attack them, buying Am and the rest of Shepherds the time needed to escape with Pastel in tow.

Fleeing to the Tower of Babel, an enormous building Am had commissioned to be built in the Free City of CITY, Shepherds began to carry out their ultimate operation to bring despair to the world. Using her transcendent persuasion skills, Am transformed Pastel into an obedient servant and ordered her to utilize her potent Curse Magic to amplify the potency of a mass of fully-polluted souls the organization had collected. Under the effects of Pastel's magic, the cluster of souls started to emit a vast fog across the Continent which drastically raised the levels of soul pollution of anyone that came in contact with it. In an effort to rescue Pastel and the rest of the world, Rance, Crook, and their companions stormed the tower to defeat Shepherds once and for all.

Alerted to the presence of Rance and his allies inside of the tower, Beckdoran moved to its 25th floor and prepared to intercept them. As he waited, his heart began to fill with doubt over Shepherds' actions that he had suppressed within himself since he had first joined the organization. His contemplation was interrupted by the arrival of the intruders, who readied themselves to face him in battle. Before engaging them, Beckdoran confronted Crook over her previous interaction with Am, asking her how she was willing to continue fighting for the sake of the world even after learning its true nature. Not recognizing the significance of the question, Rance answered on Crook's behalf, stating that it was the natural thing for her to do as the head of the AL Church. Beckdoran was charmed by the straightforwardness of this response and wistfully remarked that he wished he could have become allies with the two before drawing his weapon and attacking.

After a difficult battle, Rance's party managed to lethally injure Beckdoran and bring the fight to an end. As Beckdoran lay dying, Rance asked him why Shepherds bothered doing the things it did, stating that they made the world less fun to be a part of. Beckdoran did not reply, but chuckled weakly at the claim, finding resonance in the other man's words. He was then approached by Crook, who revealed that she had looked through the AL Church's archives to learn the identities of the members of Advanced Checkmate and asked if they had allowed their minds to be controlled by Am. Beckdoran objected, using his last breaths to declare himself and his allies to have been of sound mind when they made their decision to follow Am, and held his hand above his body to pray that Crook and Rance would one day understand their perspective and embrace God's oblivion. In his final moments, he thought one last time of the innocent laughter that Am once had before drifting off into the afterlife. Rance and his allies eventually went on to succeed in stopping Am, freeing Pastel from her control and bringing an end to the dark influence that Shepherds had on the world. In the non-canonical Kichikuou Rance, an alternate version of Beckdoran appears as one of the five aides serving beneath Pope Mulalaloux. He appears to be in charge of reporting incidents outside of the Church to the pope, and is the one to alert him of the Kingdom of Leazas invading if Rance, the nation's recently crown king, chooses to attack its headquarters after agreeing to continue donating a portion of his country's monthly profit to it. Compared to his canonical incarnation, there is no indication that Beckdoran is the leader among his colleagues, with Salbenoatt being instead identified as the Church's second-in-command.

If Leazas enters war with the AL Church, Beckdoran and his four associates will move throughout the country's territory leading the ALists within them in riots at the end of every week, claiming ownership of the areas in the name of the Church if they are not intercepted. While the rioters the five aides command can be engaged in battle by Leazas' forces, the aides themselves will always flee before having to enter the battlefield and cannot be encountered in combat.

If Rance chooses to impersonate Salbenoatt, the person designated to act as the interim leader of the AL Church in the event of the pope's death, after conquering the Church's headquarters, he will declare that Pope Mulalaloux was struck down for committing sinful acts and endorse Leazas as an allies of God. This proclamation is met with surprise, but is diligently upheld by ALists across the world, with the four remaining aides ceasing all further attempts at leading riots in Leazas. When visiting the Church's headquarters as Salbenoatt afterwards, Rance has a chance of encountering Beckdoran, who reports that there is a lingering discontent toward Leazas among many wealthy ALists, with numerous large donations being given to the Church the hope of motivating it to mobilize against the country once more. Using this information to his advantage, Rance privately begins plotting to deprive these people of all their possessions as punishment for defying him.

Personality and Appearance
Like all members of Advanced Checkmate, Beckdoran was a man clad in black heavy armor that obscured all of his features. As he held the office of leader of the Temple Knights in the year GI0979, over 40 years prior to his debut appearance, he is assumed to have been fairly elderly, but possessed the strength and vigor of a much younger man. The armor worn by Advanced Checkmate included a bronze face plate, glowing red eye holes, and a red cape adorned with a black rose symbol on each side of its collar, giving all who wore it a sturdy and intimidating air. Beckdoran was distinguished from his fellow executives by the eye mask worn on the chest of his uniform, which was colored ocher and styled in the shape of a beak. Compared to the masks worn by the other members of Advanced Checkmates, Beckdoran's lacked any circular markings, possibly to denote his position as leader.

In his Kichikuou Rance incarnation, Beckdoran is depicted as a priest draped in a black cassock with a golden belt, a blue mitre with white curtains, and a matching blue and white cape bearing the symbol of the AL Church. While he retains the ocher-colored beak-like mask of his canonical counterpart, he uses it to cover his face rather than as an emblem on his chest, leaving his physical features a mystery. Unlike his associates, Beckdoran's mask conceals even the lower half of his face, making it truly impossible to discern his appearance.

A calm and well-spoken individual, Beckdoran carried himself with the reserved dignity befitting of a leader. As a former man of faith, he took the doctrines of Shepherds the most seriously of his comrades, and made a point of blessing them with the oblivion of God, the organization's creed, before entering every battle. He was also generally noble and compassionate, going out of his way to avoid causing needless bloodshed, express sympathy toward both enemies and victims alike, and consult his allies for input when making important decisions. While he took no pride in his work as a member of Shepherds, outright referring to its actions as evil, he believed it to be a necessary step to liberate the world from the cruelty of the gods, and described allowing someone to die and enter the reincarnation cycle to suffer further to be "sinful and sad". As such, he was able to dedicate himself to bringing despair to all of humanity without any reservations, and maintained confidence that his organization was a just one even in his final moments.

As with the other members of Advanced Checkmate, Beckdoran was utterly devoted to Am Isuel, relinquishing his name and identity in her honor. His bond with her was particularly intimate, as the two had been romantically involved in the time before Am became pope. Their relationship was brought to an abrupt end after Am was exposed to the true nature of the world, where she abandoned him without a word and only reunited with him to gain his assistance in killing God. Am did not acknowledge her previous feelings for Beckdoran after he joined Shepherds, and referred to him with the same detached tranquility as she would any other subordinate. While Beckdoran seemed to understand that Am no longer loved him in the same way that she had previously, he was nonetheless motivated to follow her in her crusade in the vain hope that doing so would eventually return her to how she once was. Before dying, Beckdoran's final thoughts were of Am laughing cheerfully, revealing that even at the end of his life his sole desire had remained getting to see her be happy again.

Due to his limited screentime, Beckdoran lacks the majority of his most distinct personality traits during his appearance in Kichikuou Rance. He is still shown to be fairly reserved, speaking comparatively little relative to his peers, and is suggested to be very loyal due to diligently following every order given to him by his pope.

Abilities
As the former leader of the Temple Knights, the highest military position within the AL Church, Beckdoran was an exceptionally talented warrior with a surplus of both skill and experience. He possessed a high Level Cap of 48 which he had reached by the end of his life, placing him among the strongest people on the Continent, as well as a large and sturdy body that bestowed him with a naturally high amount of strength and stamina even at his advanced age. Despite this, he was significantly weaker as an opponent when fought by Rance's party than Battling Centers, his eventual successor as Temple Knight Captain, suggesting that his abilities had decayed somewhat over time.

In combat, Beckdoran fought in a defensive style wielding both a sword and a shield. He possessed both the Sword Combat Lv1 and the Guard Lv1 Skill Levels, giving him excellent aptitude for each of his weapons. Compared to his associate Term Salbenaott, who also fought with a sword, Beckdoran's fighting style prioritized defense, and focused primarily on protecting his allies with his body and warding off enemy attacks with his shield over dealing raw damage.

While Beckdoran does not demonstrate any combat ability during his appearance in Kichikuou Rance, he is shown to possess the same persuasive powers as the other high-ranking members of the Church, and can easily rally thousands of ALists together to riot against those deemed enemies of their religion.

Trivia

 * Beckdoran's codename within Shepherds was "Twilight Raptor". Twilight refers to the period of time when daylight transitions into darkness, possibly as an allusion to his status as a former holy man driven to go against his religious beliefs, while a raptor is another term for a bird of prey, referring to his methodical personality.
 * Beckdoran is the only member of Advanced Checkmate that can only be fought once in combat, and as a result is also the only one of the group who must be defeated by the player during their first encounter with him.
 * Beckdoran is the only member of Advanced Checkmate whose real name is given during his appearance in Rance Quest, with the other four executives only having their real names listed in their Rance World Notes profiles.