What better way to begin a Bionicle-based blog than to talk about my Bionicle self-MOC? Although I do not remember exactly when I created him, I estimate that it was around June 2015 that I created the first version of him; he has gone through a number of revamps since.

The build of Natale’s figure is nothing all that impressive. The body is pretty standard as far as Lego action figures go, aside from how the mask is connected to the head, which I explained some time ago elsewhere.

Speaking of the mask, Natale wears the Great Kanohi Kraahkan, the Mask of Shadows. In my canon, this mask allows the users to take their darker emotions (fear, pain, anger, etc) and converts them into energy which they can use to amplify their natural abilities. Due to the nature of the mask’s power, it is not activated voluntarily; the best way I can think of explaining this is that the mask reads the wearer’s brain waves and glows black when inner darkness peaks.

His other main tools are a blue-bladed sabercane and a mechanical set of wings attached to his back and hidden under his cape. The blade functions similarly to a lightsaber blade from the Star Wars series–though the specifics have yet to be determined–meanwhile the bottom end of the cane serves two main purposes: (1) It is shaped sort of like a crab claw to optimize clinging to the ground. (2) The inner half of the claw has spikes/ridges, which can be used as a carving tool.

Now that you know the basics of Natale, allow me to share a snippet of his backstory:

During his youth, Natale Mortalis was a mask maker in the Kingdom of Marlina. He was not particularly well-known in the country aside from a few of his regular customers, but he didn’t particularly mind. He loved his job–making every mask he crafted slightly different from the last, meaning no two were ever exactly the same–it paid well, he had a decent social life. He wasn’t on top of the world or anything, but at his age he wasn’t trying to climb that high yet. One day, just shortly he came of age, his friend and employer Ravana informed him that the Royal Family had opened applications for a “very special job.” He did some research of his own and found himself interested in whatever the Family had to offer, leading him to resign from his job at Ravana’s.

After a grueling application process, Natale made it in and learned what the job was. King Benedict Attarai announced to the applicants that they would undergo training to join the ranks of the Royal Guards. Anyone who made it through would be knighted. Before the King finished speaking, he assigned everyone into pairs.

“The person you are paired with,” said the King, “will be your only friend throughout the training process. Aside from me or my heir, you are to trust and believe nobody.”

Natale was paired with a man named Silas Harchu. He was similar in structure to Natale, but could not be more different personality-wise. While Natale was soft-spoken, calm, and shy, Silas was brash, arrogant, and gave the impression that the word “quiet” was not in his vocabulary. Nevertheless, the two made a decent team and made it through the majority of their trials until their last. For their last trial, Natale and Silas would duel each other and try to pin the other to the ground. It was all or nothing. Natale, surprised that he made it as far as he did, tried to cool his emotions as he accepted the possibility of defeat. Silas, meanwhile, was determined to win the favor of the Family from day one. He dared to claim he was destined to win.

The duel was long and tiring for both combatants, but eventually Silas was knocked off his feet. Natale pinned him at the neck using the bottom end of his staff and ended their duel. As he went to retrieve his prize, Silas landed a cheap shot from behind. He could have just claimed victory there, but he wanted to avenge his stolen destiny; Silas wanted Natale to know how he felt inside. As Natale was mercilessly kicked and slashed, his mask began glowing a metallic ebony shade. He returned to his feet and proceeded to take on Silas again, this time returning the unsportsmanlike blows. Before he had a chance to kill Silas, his mask deactivated. He looked down at Silas. Then back to the King. He had saw the mask glowing. Even though Natale had acted out of turn, both could tell that he wasn’t 100% in control of his actions while Silas was, thus earning Natale the title of Knight and becoming the Family’s newest Royal Guard.

His time serving the family would not last long though. A catastrophe (the details of which will come soon enough) in No Man’s Land, a tundra on the northwestern corner of the country, led Natale into a self-impose exile. He wandered around the continent for many years until he encountered representatives of the Brotherhood of Makuta, an organization from Okoto aiming to “inspire freedom of intelligence in our youth and exercise of knowledge for our future.” The representatives, led by a woman clad in red and black armor named Teridax, explained to Natale that the Makuta are on the run from Okoto, accused of illegal genetic experimentation. Natale remembered his home country of Marlina and offered to take the group and find them a new base of operations there in exchange for him joining the organization. The Makuta agreed to Natale’s offered and they set off for Marlina.

The Makuta were welcomed by Antaedymn, the current King of Marlina, and granted them the Luxtene (pronounced loo-TEN) Twin Towers to serve as their headquarters, where they reside to this day. Since then, Natale has gone on a number of misadventures, became best friends with a fellow Makuta named Madilim, gotten mixed up in a centuries-old conflict between two dynasties, and even had a run-in with a Time Lord once or twice. These last couple of sentences may have left more questions than answers, but information about all these and more shall come in due time.

Trivia

• Natale is named such because when creating the character, I really liked the name “Natalie” and searched if a male version of the name existed. A year and a half after introducing him to the world for the very first time, a friend of mine informed me that the word “Natale” is Italian for “Christmas” (something I should’ve known, coming from a mostly Italian family, but somehow did not).
• His wings are not part of his natural anatomy. They were added onto him soon after joining the Makuta. Natale specifically requested pain sensors to be added to the wings so he can easily tell whether or not he can still fly. Rule of thumb: If he can feel his wings, no matter how badly damaged, they are still usable.
• Unlike many of his fellow Makuta, Natale does not possess any elemental abilities. This is not a hinderance to him. Very few people born in Marlina (or other northern hemisphere countries) possess such an ability, while almost everyone who is born in Okoto (or elsewhere in the southern hemisphere) does.
• His figure stands at ~10.75″ tall, which, when scaled up, translates to somewhere over six feet if he existed in real life.