Dr. Koppel Schleppen

A relatively recent addition to the band of adventurers, Dr. Koppel Schleppen is a brilliant and inquisitive, but cowardly and unscrupulous, gnome wizard.

He is the founder and pioneer of a strange new field of arcane study and unique techniques arising therefrom, and Chairman of the Department of Chronurgy and Time Studies at Yalevard University. He is also a master of a number of other subjects, and is something of an auto-didact, as many gnome academics are.

History

Born to a goodhearted couple who ran the campus bar, Koppel learned from the patrons about philosophy and stupid questions from a very young age. He also learned that he intensely disliked physical labour and idiots.

Brilliant beyond his years, even by the standards of the gnomes, he was accepted into each of the universities. Naturally, he chose the Yalevard University, the oldest and most prestigious and most published (and thus best!) of the Gnomish universities.

Koppel quickly mastered several fields of study, in the process alternately irritating and impressing his professors (often simultaneously). Like any well-respected Gnomish academic, Koppel's interests generally had and continue to have a strong tendency towards the esoteric and theoretical - practical applications are best left to the engineers (read: those not smart enough for academia but too smart for actual physical endeavours). Some of his many lesser interests, which he has mastered nonetheless, include philosophy, history, arcana, and draconic linguistics.

He is also an accomplished alchemist, with the capacity to make a large number of useful concoctions (although he is careful not to let that be widely known, as it smacks of *shudder* "applied sciences"). He mostly uses this ability to make "eau de vie" to his particular tastes, which he then consumes in moderation.

Academic Pursuits and the Department of Chronurgy and Time Studies

Koppel's main interest is "time", and the nature and function thereof. Koppel has made an entire promising career out of it. As a field of study (created wholly by Koppel), this was ideal in many ways - time is generally agreed to be important and fundamental to understanding the nature of the universe and to many fields of study, but is also poorly understood, highly theoretical, deeply esoteric, not previously subject to any research, difficult to test, with progress is hard to quantify, and research is, generously put, very "philosophical" in nature.

At a, what is for Gnomes, very young age, Koppel has managed to obtain tenure, secure a modest amount of funding, and create an entire new department, of which he is the head: the "Department of Chronurgy and Time Studies". "Department" may be a generous term, as it is in fact made up of Koppel, an irascible and aged physics professor who left his previous department in a huff, and three put upon graduate students.

The Department was treated as a goodnatured joke by most other serious faculty for a long time.

To be fair, a lot of what the Department seemed to produce, and continues to produce, is empty liquor bottles, heaping piles of dreamweed ashes, intellectual garbage, and treatises filled with philosophical gibberish that is nigh incomprehensible even by Gnomish standards. Koppel's half-cocked theory of "vibrating strings" may fall into one or both of the latter two categories, although he continues to heatedly insist that his theory is a work in progress and will fundamentally change how everyone views and understands the "Cosmere" (another theory of Koppel's that is again, generously put, yet to be fully developed).

Notwithstanding its small size, the department has, in fact, made several important discoveries over the last few decades, the implications of which are only beginning to be realized. They have developed new ways of understanding time, and even twisting it, developing a few new spells in the process. This has earned them a measure of grudging respect from many of the other faculty.

Koppel is the youngest department head at Yalevard University. He is not particularly popular or unpopular - a fact which bothers him greatly, as he hungers for widespread recognition and respect, or at least attention and controversy over his theories. He is respected, but not enough as he sees it. He chairs and vice-chairs a number of committees, of varying levels of importance.

Ambitions

His current hope is to find a promising area where he can start his own university, or more modern "technological institute". He has not fully worked out the details of this plan out yet, but it generally involves a tower, flashing lightning, an appropriately grateful and humble populace (including the local royalty and nobility), and a lot of books and philosophical contemplation. At one point it also involved a harem of co-eds, but his last two divorces has soured him on that aspect.

Koppel is intensely interested in immortality (one of the reasons he was interested in studying and mastering "time"), from both a philosophical and theoretical perspective, as well as a practical perspective.

The Call to Adventure

This academic fact finding position regarding the reported rise of "dragons" which Yalevard University has sent him on seems like a good opportunity to stretch his stubby legs and broaden his horizons. And also to make new discoveries to lord over the other faculty. And, incidentally, to avoid dealing with his ex-wives. If he has to suffer a little "adventure" in the process, that is a regrettable but necessary condition - great truths and discoveries always come at a cost.

Personality

Dr. Koppel is both snobbish and persnickety about nearly everything. He looks down on societies that he sees as less developed, and beings whom he sees as less civilized. He looks down on physical labour, exertion, and effort. Like most gnome master academics, he values the theoretical and intellectual over the practical - except when there is a pressing need otherwise.

He enjoys good food, good books, pointless intellectual debate, academic research, the recognition of his academic peers, intellectual achievement, and fishing.

Koppel has some small tendencies towards megalomania, although his desire to rule is more theoretical than practical - the day to day work of actually ruling does not appeal to him in the least, and you can't really delegate anything important (as other people are drooling morons). He has been known to compare kingship to being a pig herder.

He is fearful and neurotic. He is keenly aware of the dangers that the world poses to someone of his size and dispositions, and seeks to avoid such dangers whenever possible. The idea of "honor" seems primitive and foolish to him - caring what other people, particularly non-intellectuals and/or short-lived individuals, seems to him to be foolish and more than a little pointless. Trouble and conflict should be avoided. When conflict cannot be avoided, the opposition should be utterly annihilated, as a practical measure, and one should approach this in a detached, unemotional, and systematic way.

While he is not malicious, he is also generally fairly selfish. However, he does happily help friends and persons whom he knows well, as long as it does not involve any substantial effort or cost on his part, although he likes for his contributions to be recognized and dutifully appreciated and praised.

On occasion, he can be quite generous, as long as he is caught in the right mood.

He has an interesting sense of humour.

Interests

He has a familiar named Archimedes.

He enjoys fishing, reading, and eating.

He is a master alchemist, and is capable of making a variety of materials when he has sufficient time to do so. Of all the substances he distils or refines, he most enjoys making eau de vie, which he enjoys drinking and is generally generous about sharing. He has been known to occasionally indulge both in a little dreamweed and pipe tobacco, which he smokes in an elaborately carved pipe, but looks down on anyone who indulges too much in any vice.

Appearance

He is barely over three feet tall, and weighs about 40 lbs.

He has an ornate hat that, when starched and fully extended, is approximately a third as tall as he himself is.

Relationships

He frequently rides on the shoulder of Solveig Eriksdottir, rather than walking. Most of the time, he affectionately sees her as a beast of burden or a walking tornado of destruction that he does not care to be in the path of. More recently, he has begun to develop an uneasy feeling that she has a strange mystical connection to the wolves of Pettylin and some sort of destined responsibility tied to same - possibly as a result of some sort of divine practical joke.

He respects Serini's wisdom and common sense (or uncommon sense, as Dr. Koppel puts it), although not her lack of literacy.

He likes Ivor Halverson.

He enjoys the company of Willers'Ed.

Dr. Koppel has a number of ex-wives, several of whom continue to chase him for arrears of alimony payments, and a not insubstantial number of children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

His relationship with his children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren varies by child. While he does, in some sense, love all his children, and love them all equally, in another sense, he does love some children more than others. He systematically evaluates his issue on the basis of accomplishment and intellectual prowess, measured according to a labyrinthine system that is incomprehensible to anyone who is not a gnome, and adds his favour to those who measure up.

He generally has a good relationship with his parents (although he does not give them enough credit for his success, and secretly knows and regrets it), and with his many siblings and half-siblings (although he considers himself better than them, he does deign to grace them with his presence regularly).

He has a less good relationship with most of his ex-wives. Each of those is a long story in and of itself, which Koppel repeatedly relates to his "psychiatrist" in a whiny and long-suffering tone. Suffice to say, it is never his fault. Except for Saraleh. That one was, in fact, his fault. But he was still justified.