Balthazar

(All formerly)

Balthazar was an NPC created by JGREAD, later made an RPC on account of his increasing importance in the Chima Roleplay. Balthazar became the temporary leader of the Bat Tribe a total of three times over the course of the Roleplay, in addition to having been one of The Four Supreme Crawler Commanders, and the Bats' first Grand Admiral. Balthazar was a tactical genius, and, though he was barely involved in the Chima Alliance—Crawler Empire War, he did send Scorponok on his successful mission to rescue the captured King Bliston late into the war, and deduced Bratta's intent to defect from the Bat Tribe in time to apprehend her.

During the Crawler—Ice Hunter War, the Grand Admiral played a crucial role, not just for the Imperial Remnant, but for Chima as a whole, responsible in large part for ridding the world of the Pirates and Icebear Fleet who both sought to dominate The West Sea. Before his assassination, Balthazar notably encountered and destroyed the first Manta Ray Empire scout vessel to ever get near the eastern continent, and discovered the Bat Tribe's future HQ, New Bat Island.

## Biography

### Early Life

Balthazar began as a primitive creature living at the bottom of The Gorge of Eternal Depth. He was eventually evolved into his smarter, bipedal state when Gible dropped chi orbs into the Gorge. Like the other Bats, Balthazar named himself before exiting the Gorge through the tunnels Bliston had found, and promptly helped to conquer a third of the Outlands for the newly formed tribe, gaining war experience from the territorial skirmishes with the Spiders as a result. Balthazar was soon ranked up to second-in-command of the Bat Tribe due to his high intelligence and growing personal friendship with King Bliston; he served as one of the two stewards of the Bat Tribe, alongside Bliston's sister, Bratta.

For the next few months, Balthazar researched much of Chima's war history from Ludwig Luggington's books in Corvidholme, particularly naval history, and frequently discussed the strategies of inland generals with Scorpix, before crafting his own strategies for the future. At some point, Balthazar wrote the First Bat Dictionary, providing the Bats, Scorpions and Spiders with a complete compilation of the inland tribes' language (which the Outland denizens knew how to speak upon their evolution, for reasons unknown to them).

### Bat Tribe Leadership

After Bliston's disappearance during the Bat—Raven War, Balthazar became the temporary leader of the Bat Tribe. The Acting Regent ordered the increase of vehicle production from the factories within the mountain. Under Balthazar's guidance, the Bats completed their first set of speedorz. While Bratta was away, Balthazar sat on the throne in Black Fang Mountain, and was visited by a spider ambassador, who informed him that the Spiders would not be joining the growing alliance between the Bat and Scorpion tribes. As the spider left, an eagle arrived and asked Balthazar if the Eagles were at war with the Bats or not, to which Balthazar answered that they weren't. As the eagle left, Scorpio and Scorpix arrived, the latter asking about the amount of chi the Scorpions would receive, to which Balthazar confirmed that it would be an equal fifty-percent split. Scorpio asked for bat scientists to be sent to Aperture Mesa, and Balthazar agreed, under the condition that no Bats were to be used as test subjects. Scorpio then inquired about the Spiders, and Balthazar dismissed them as xenophobic, going on to use this word as an excuse to inform the young Prince and the General of the Bat Dictionary's existence.

### Admiralty

Soon after, Bliston returned to Black Fang Mountain with all of Cavora's chi, flying into the throne room and commemorating Balthazar on his job of leading the Bat Tribe, after the Acting Steward informed him of the speedor production. Bliston then transferred Balthazar from the position of Steward to Grand Admiral; Balthazar's second-in-command rank remained, but he was now the overseer of the entire Bat Fleet. Balthazar thanked Bliston and flew from the mountain, going to Bat Island to take command of the navy. Balthazar received his new uniform upon arrival, and ordered for production to be doubled on the ships, since he'd begun planning an expedition to discover and colonize islands to the far west, which Bliston approved. The new Grand Admiral also selected one of the Bat Fleet's battleships to be his flagship, having it painted with a unique black color scheme, and naming it the *Ascendancy*.

Balthazar was informed of a series of small foodstuffs raids on the Bat Naval Command Center by one thief, and he soon captured the thief, a lone fox named Klark. The old fox explained to Balthazar that he'd been marooned on Bat Island before the Bats had claimed it, and that he didn't have a purpose anymore. Balthazar then offered to give the clearly experienced warrior a new purpose in life: to act as the Grand Admiral's personal bodyguard. Klark agreed, and received weapons for the job. Under Balthazar's leadership, the Bat Fleet increased in size, becoming one of the largest and most powerful fleets on The West Sea.

#### Blockade

Although the Bat Fleet didn't end up being attacked by the inland tribes, and thus wasn't involved much in the war with the Chima Alliance, Balthazar, on Bliston's orders, temporarily had the fleet cover the Eagle coast, to form the western portion of the blockade of Eagle Territory. Balthazar researched the "myths" of the Phoenix through books from the Eagle library, and came to strongly suspect that the stories of the Phoenix were, in fact, true historical documents. At some point during this time, the Grand Admiral sent two small scout ships up north to search for the missing Dr. Benjamin, but those ships didn't return (having been frozen by the Icebears; their crews imprisoned in Icestrike's Ultimate Glacier, unbeknownst to Balthazar).

Later, diplomats from the Gorilla Tribe (whom the Bats had made peace with) arrived by air and spoke to Balthazar on the *Ascendancy*, requesting that Crawler Empire ambassadors be sent to the Gorilla HQ. They also requested Bliston's presence at the HQ. Balthazar agreed, the Gorillas left, and Scorponok soon arrived, asking Balthazar about strange "fire visions" and dreams he'd been having recently. Balthazar displayed his intellect by explaining the most probable meanings of Scorponok's dreams and visions. It was from Balthazar that Scorponok learned that the Phoenix were sending him these fire visions and dreams (though unbeknownst to either of them, the phoenix "sending" the visions was within Scorponok himself). During their conversation, Balthazar thought a great deal about the earlier dubious request from the Gorillas, and realized that it was a trap for Bliston. Balthazar calmly informed Scorponok, who was already planning on seeing Bliston, of the Bat King's location of Gorilla HQ, secretly sending the scorpion on a rescue mission that not even Scorponok himself was aware of yet.

### Second Time Leading the Bat Tribe

Sure enough, Scorponok's rescue mission would end up being successful, but until then, during the time when Bliston remained captured by the Gorillas, Balthazar was once again in charge of the Bat Tribe. During Balthazar's reign, the Crawlers built many more vehicle factories in Eagle territory, and significantly upgraded their cities, walls, and defenses in The Great Desert, the Crawler-claimed Bear Cave region, and the formerly unclaimed land to its south. After learning about former Bat Tribe 3ic (third-in-command) Barney Balhoun's betrayal and defection from the Crawler Empire to The Forgotten, Balthazar publicly placed a bounty on his head, dead or alive. Balthazar also secretly asked the Eagles, who'd joined the Empire by then, to keep a lookout for the fugitive, and turn him over to the Crawlers if they found him. Balthazar then ranked Brakket (the former 4ic) up to 3ic, and chose the competent General Badrar (one of multiple generals; 5ic) to ascend to 4ic.

Balthazar soon flew back to Black Fang Mountain to arrest Bratta, who was Barney's love interest and was just about to defect. It was then that Balthazar revealed he'd been intercepting Barney's letters to Bratta ever since before Barney defected, as well as piecing together information for months. Balthazar ordered the guards to lock Bratta in the prison cave closest to the summit of the mountain, therefore as far from the eastern Aperture Mesa tunnels (from which Bratta was going to rendezvous with Barney) as possible in terms of elevation, while still being in the Bat HQ. Balthazar then sat on the black throne, and received a message from Ewinus informing him of the Gorillas threatening the Eagles. Balthazar dismissed the Gorilla attack as futile, and said he'd ask their Crocodile allies to reinforce the Crawler and Eagle defenses around the Spire. However, Balthazar ended up not contacting the Crocs, instead moving forward with his long-planned expedition into the uncharted regions of the sea, since the war had "quieted down". This proved to be a short-term mistake on the part of Balthazar, who hadn't known the full extent of the Schrewerer Gustav's power, and the Gorillas dealt heavy damage to Eagle Spire with the cannon.

#### Expedition into the Unknown Regions

Balthazar left Black Fang Mountain, returning to the *Ascendancy* and taking the Bat Fleet away from Eagle territory and sailing far into the "unknown regions" of the West Sea, on an exploration and colonization mission to expand the Crawler Empire's reach. Very far from the eastern continent of Chima and the Outlands, the Grand Admiral and his fleet found an enormous tropical island with its own chi spring; the Bats, especially their cartographers, took note of this. Going even farther west, they soon encountered a strange foreign ship called the *Outbound Flight*. Balthazar had a radio conversation with the commander of that vessel, who refused to reveal his name and species (though in reality it was a manta ray), but unwittingly revealed the existence of an empire to the far west. The Captain of the scout ship talked about conquering the eastern continent, its existence now confirmed to him, so Grand Admiral Balthazar promptly ordered the Bat Fleet to fire on *Outbound Flight*, destroying the threat to the Crawler Empire and Chima as a whole. Balthazar then returned to Bat Island with the fleet, where he was informed that Bliston was successfully rescued, and had resumed leadership of the Bat Tribe.

### Crawler—Ice Hunter War

Balthazar's third time leading the Bat Tribe was under very different circumstances. Bliston had returned to Black Fang Mountain for only a day before Balthazar received a radio communication from a Bat Dropship pilot informing him that Bliston, Black Fang Mountain, and much of the Crawler Empire had fallen to the Ice Hunters, so what remained of the Bat Tribe was under the Grand Admiral's command once again. The pilot also informed Balthazar that he was transporting the rest of the royal family in the dropship, and that there was an unidentified scorpion inside with them. Balthazar deduced that the scorpion was Scrin, the founder of the Forgotten whom Balthazar had learned about through Barney and Bratta's letters to one another. Balthazar spoke through the dropship's radio, telling Scrin that the baby Prince Bernard was to be placed in his care on Bat Island, but Bliston's wife and the freed Bratta could join Scrin if they wished. After Scrin agreed to this, Balthazar heard a loud impact on the other end of the radio connection, and asked the pilot of the dropship what had happened. The pilot told Balthazar that the dropship had just been hit by an ice laser, and that Bliston's wife had fallen into the fog below and froze. Soon after, the pilot told Balthazar that Bratta had decided to go with Scrin. Prince Bernard was then taken safely to Bat Island.

#### Imperial Remnant Leadership

Balthazar ordered all Bats who'd escaped being frozen to fly to Bat Island, where he integrated them into the Bat Navy. He placed heavy protection at the shore of The Grassy Plains, as the Imperial city there played a crucial role in the Bats' and Scorpions' mainland-sea trade. Balthazar appointed Badrar as his unofficial second-in-command, with Brethil, another new addition to the Bat Navy, eventually becoming third-in-command. The Special Forces Bats formerly working under Brakket, who'd gone missing, soon arrived and offered their services to the Grand Admiral. Though the fighting force of this newly-formed "Imperial Remnant" was comprised almost entirely of Bats, there was at least one scorpion, Scorpianus, who arrived and swore loyalty to the Grand Admiral, so Balthazar integrated him into a naval position as well.

#### The Balthazar Campaign

When the Icebear Fleet attempted to conquer Bat Island soon after, for a reason unknown to the Bats, the Grand Admiral led a surprisingly successful underdog campaign against the supernaturally-powered invaders. Balthazar had the Bats mine the giant, spiky black rocks grown from the craggy cliffs of Bat Island, and mount them to the bows of each ship (and the tops of each submarine, vertically) to spear the Icebear ships; thus "countering" the enemy's ice powers by being able to impale and sink their ships even as the black spikes were frozen upon impact. In his first battle with the enemy fleet, Balthazar's brilliant strategy cost the Icebears all of their small ships. This was a revolutionary victory against the Ice Hunters, since Balthazar was able to defeat them without using the not-yet "discovered" fire chi, and only sacrificed a single Wing Striker during the battle.

#### Turning the Tide

Since Balthazar needed fire weapons to attack the Icebear shipyards (which he'd located to the near north, in the icecaps), he sent the Special Forces Bats to liberate the fire catapults from the frozen Imperial cities in the Great Desert. During that mission, Balthazar was visited by the Pirates of the West Sea, and made a deal with Captain Lyrix: the Bat Fleet would ally with the Pirates against their common enemy, the Icebear Fleet, if the Pirates obtained Chi Ghost concoctions from the Gorilla Jungle for the Bats. After the Pirates left and the Special Forces Bats returned with the fire catapults, Balthazar led the Imperial Remnant in its second battle against the Icebear Fleet. This battle was even more successful than the first; now that Balthazar had catapults launching flaming boulders, he was able to destroy the Icebears' shipyards and many of the larger Icebear ships. Despite winning the battle, Balthazar ordered a retreat back to Bat Island when Vulture Gliders and Sky Scavengers unexpectedly arrived from the east, freezing many Wing Strikers.

#### Endgame

The Bat Fleet regrouped and prepared for their final attack on the Icebears, to destroy what was left of their enemies on the sea. Before Balthazar prepared for the assault, he had one of the smaller bat ships take Prince Bernard from the Bat Naval Command Center, in case the island were to be successfully attacked and frozen by the Icebears. The Pirates then arrived with the Chi Ghost concoctions, and a spiky black rock was mounted on the bow of the Pirates' ship, the *Sea Slicer*. Gibbs, now the Pirate Captain, explained that Lyrix had "tragically" been killed by the Gorillas during the battle to obtain the concoctions, which made Balthazar immediately suspicious, but he hid this. The Bat Fleet and Pirates then set forth. With Gibbs controlling an army of summoned Chi Ghosts that could interact with physical objects, but were impervious to damage themselves, Balthazar had them simply swarm, ram, and rip apart the Icebear ships. However, that was only a part of Balthazar's complex strategy, which, by the end of the battle, left only seven enemy ships remaining. The Icebears' surviving ships retreated, scattered between and throughout the icecaps.

After the battle was won, the Chi Ghosts suddenly turned on the Bats, but Balthazar revealed that he'd predicted the Pirates would betray them, so he'd sent a Special Forces bat to take the concoctions from the *Sea Slicer* during the battle. Balthazar crushed the small veils in his hands, immediately disintegrating all of the present Chi Ghosts before Gibbs could unleash them on the Bats (since, as Balthazar had learned from the Pirates, Chi Ghosts that were summoned would only remain in the mortal world as long as the concoctions that'd summoned them weren't destroyed). Balthazar then ordered every ship in the Bat Fleet to fire on the *Sea Slicer*, destroying the ship, and killing Gibbs and most of the other traitorous Pirates. However, Balthazar had no way of knowing that most of the fox Pirates he killed were the old friends and soldiers of his bodyguard, Klark. Because of this, Klark suddenly betrayed Balthazar, stabbing him through the back of his command chair and through the heart with his spear.

## Legacy

Badrar took command of both the *Ascendancy* and the Imperial Remnant following Balthazar's death, and Balthazar was buried on New Bat Island (the tropical island he'd discovered during his expedition) after the original Bat Island was frozen by the Icebears. Although he didn't succeed in completely destroying the Icebear Fleet and keeping the Icebears from freezing Bat Island, Balthazar's campaign left a massive impact on the Crawler—Ice Hunter War going forward. His destruction of the Pirates also freed all of Chima's tribes from their scourge of the sea, and Bliston named the Bats' new HQ on the island Balthazar City.

Additionally, for over two decades after the events of the Roleplay, Balthazar's strategies inspired the tactics of Grand Admiral Belkor and other naval tacticians from various factions during the West Sea Wars, and the largest ship type in the Bats' Tenth Fleet was named the Balthazar-class Dreadnaught after him.

## Appearance, Gear, and Traits

Appearance: Wears a white Grand Admiral uniform with a small chi harness in the middle of the belt, on the clasp.

Weapons and Gear: Chi blaster pistol in his pocket.

Personality: Balthazar is a brilliant mastermind in terms of warfare, and (according to the Bats) the second smartest bat in existence, after Bliston. Balthazar is a cultured bat with what would be called a British accent in the real world. He is usually calm and collected, but sometimes quick to anger if King Bliston or the Bat Monarchy is personally insulted.

## Quotes

"I am Grand Admiral Balthazar of the Bat Fleet. I have destroyed all of your small ships, and I now approach your fleet with my own. I would like to know why you are targeting Bat Island."

"So it's your island now, huh? Well there's something there that belongs to *us,*and we're taking it back even it we have to plow through any buildings there!"

"In that case, I will appreciate your immediate surrender and removal of your naval forces from the southern West Sea."

"Icebears never surrender! Victory or death!!"

"Very well." —Balthazar's first interaction with the Icebears.

"The...Bat Tribe...will live on...past my time...this...isn't the end for my people..." —Balthazar's final words.

## Trivia

* Balthazar was initially inspired by the character Thrawn from the Star Wars "Legends" Expanded Universe.
* The Balthazar Campaign, in full detail, can be read here (pages 49-51).

## References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Retribution: A Chima Roleplay Prequel Story
2. ↑ The Last Reincarnations: A Chima Roleplay Tie-in Story
3. ↑ Legacy Trilogy