The Late Great Badger

Rigar was a large-built man with a muscular frame, although he wasn't particularly mindful of his cardiovascular health.

The Great Badger had a long, stern face with a thick beard.

Rigar was born in Billings, Montana in 1951, the son of parents who had immigrated to the United States from Germany following World War II. Although this is unconfirmed, there is some indication that his father, a physicist, was brought over as part of Operation Paperclip. According to childhood friends, his relationship with his parents was "tense." His school records showed good grades, but poor behaviour. He was prone to getting into fights, spent a lot of time in detention, and had a juvenile arrest record for vandalism and assault.   Rather than pursuing a career in STEM, he left school, and his family home, at the age of 15, and to all accounts, simply disappeared. He did not re-emerge into the public record until the death of his father in 1972, whereupon he showed up at the funeral and spat on the old man's coffin.  

Rot in hell, you son-of-a-bitch.

— Rigar Meles at his father's funeral

  Although there was some trouble over this incident, after that, Rigar settled into a relatively normal life. He got a job at a local mill, and as a Werebadger, secretly assumed the role of The Great Badger. It is widely accepted that the need to do this was the impetus for his return.   Having flirted with Norse Paganism in his youth, Rigar found a home in the local Nazarene church, where he met his future wife, Larissa. They married in 1979. Nikolas was born in 1981, followed by Robert in 1983. Behind the scenes, he threw himself into the politics of old Literomantic Great Houses with gusto, which still held some secret influence in significant political circles. He reinstituted some old Meles traditions that had not been practiced in generations, such as the Great Hunt, which was a quest to find and fight mythical beasts who posed a threat to the Realm.  

You mean I could have been part of the Illuminati? Why didn't anybody tell me?

— Queen Sable

  Rigar's own relationship with his sons was strained. Robert, "Rob" to his friends and family, got into drugs as a teenager and struggled with addiction. Both boys got into trouble. This was in no way aided by Larissa's early passing due to cancer in 2000, nor by Nik getting into legal trouble when he was arrested for armed robbery.   Rigar used back channel influence, and his abilities as a Literomancer, to get the charges dropped, but would not listen to his son's pleas that he was innocent of the crime. The two resumed their estranged relationship.   From that point, there is little public record of Rigar's activities until his death in 2010. His health took a sudden turn for the worse in the last year of his life. He died of heart failure, with both his sons still estranged. Darth Nikolas ascended to the position of Great Badger, being the only known literomancer in his generation, and thus, the only suitable heir.   Even after his passing, however, the Late Great Badger continued to influence the politics of the Great Houses, with more resonance after the events of 2020. On the first of July, 2024, his diary was discovered, naming Tome Knights Purpleheart and ShyRedFox as his illegitimate daughters. When the diary was authenticated, they were accepted as Meles Royals, and upon Darth Nikolas' abdication, Purpleheart ascended to the position of Queen Badger.  

I never knew him. Jo CrossFox was more of a father to me than Rigar was. Purple and I were both stunned to find out who our father by blood was.   My mother didn't talk about him much. Just said my father left when he found out she was pregnant with me. That fact and his lurid diary entries didn't leave me with great impressions. I wish I could go back and talk to Mom though. She must have seen something in him. But I don't even know if she's alive or if anything's left of the Gaiaverse.

— Princess ShyRedFox

Cisgender

Heterosexual

1972-2010

While the Meles family has an ancient noble and royal history, by the time Rigar came to the House Leadership, they had lost any previous overt hold on temporal power, and most of the family wealth, with the last of their European holdings being lost in WWII. Their primary asset remained their American holdings, most of which were transferred over sometime prior to the American Civil War, their extensive literomantic library, and the Badger's Heart Henge.