Chester Rumbarahl
Chester Rumbarahl was a general or high-ranking military officer in the Narano, a warrior-cutlure that may have been one of the early incarnations of the Marcon Alliance. He was definitely a battling sorcerer, but not a wizard of any great note. Most of Rumbarahl's story is pieced together by supposition, though he is mentioned in at least three historical texts of known provenance.
Early Life
Rumbarahl was most likely born during the Intermediate Period. He may not have been a Marcon at all, as the chief document that mentions him does not have a solid date for composition.
Most scholars put him around 2405 B.G.A., or around 100 years before the established official formation of the Marcon Alliance. Chester could not have been Marcon by birth (at least not in his first life), and likely grew up along the Nara River. Emilie Sachen claimed he was born and raised on the site of the modern city of Zathra, though her accounts are typically regarded as fiction.
Later Life and Death
Perhaps his primary claim to fame, as it were, was not his life, but his death. The most important document that mentions him is a passage of the Mehi Codex which explains how, after living 96 or 97 years, he was magically reincarnated into a new body (perhaps, unintentionally), as a girl.
With reincarnation not uncommon during the era, the Mehi codex treats this as nothing special, but it is one of the most well-known and historically proven accounts of reincarnation. The codex does not indicate his ability to re-incarnate as odd; rather, that at the age of 5 (and as a girl) he had already resumed command of his army. And that this was not so much strange as simply breathtaking.
Later Lives
In A.Y. 6314, Emilie Sachen came forward claiming to be the reincarnation of Ester Wyoh, a well-known rocket scientist who died over a century before Emilie's birth. Her case was brought to the attention of the Foundation, who studied it, and declared her genuine.
Emilie claimed to be the seventh reincarnation of Chester Rumbarahl, having now lived three lives as a man and being on her fourth as a woman. She went on to write over a hundred books about the life and times of Rumbarahl, but was never given historical credence. Though her status as a reincarnation of the famous scientist was considered above reproach, her claims of also being the 7,500-year-old general were not.
In A.Y. 6902, another girl, by the name of Arabelle Lyon came forward attempting to claim the copyrights and estate of Emilie Sachen, declaring herself the ninth re-incarnation of Rumbarahl (without mentioning who might have been the eighth). In the intervening centuries, thousands of people had come forward claiming to be reincarnations, and all were eventually exposed as frauds. Arabelle is of special note, however, because she was never actually exposed.
Emilie mentioned in her memoirs (published posthumously) how she had once visited the tomb of Rumbarahl. With the storm of frauds following her death, only one thing would ever be accepted as proof: the location of the tomb. When pressed for this location, Arabelle quietly withdrew her claim and, during a later interview, suffered a panic attack on camera in which she tearfully and passionately begged everyone to dismiss her as a scam artist and a thief and to forget she ever existed. She withdrew from publication a book she had written on Rumbarahl and attempted to disappear from the public eye, always loudly cursing and screaming at anyone who questioned her. She maintained that she had been a fraud until her death. The theory goes that Arabelle was in fact the real thing, but that she was afraid if she revealed her tomb to the world, it would break the reincarnation cycle. Having lived nine full lifetimes, it was possible she feared never again returning from death.
"Diaries"
During the late Golden Age a book was released claiming to be a translation of Rumbarahl's diaries from his second life. They talked about growing up as a girl, going through puberty, and struggling to earn the respect of his old lieutnants. For a while, the diaries received much acclaim as they were released several years before the discovery of the Mehi Codex. However, it was eventually pointed out that Chester Rumbarahl's existence and reincarnation were well-known through secondary sources for centuries before the diaries were published. The Mehi Codex was merely the first primary source.
Though it would take nearly five decades, the author of the diaries was eventually determined, and the diaries declared a known fraud. The diaries were again derided by Emilie Sachen, who considered them laughable. In her book, The Beginning Anew', she addressed the diaries and her own recollections of that time in her life. She claimed that, since his first reincarnation had been well-planned, he was only gone about five years, and she came back, her lieutenants had no trouble following orders.
Rumbarahl's biggest problem after reincarnating (aside from the nuisance of being too short to mount a horse herself), was not boys (as the diaries claimed), but rather girls. In life, Chester Rumbarahl had been a womanizer, and found this vice nearly impossible as a prepubescent girl.