Die Ikonoklasten! (WEIMAR SUPERS)
Die Ikonoklasten were a supers group in interwar Germany. Unlike many
other supers and mystery men all over the world, they did not take part
in the second world war. They went their separate ways in 1940.
Bauhaus artist Oskar Schlemmer was very inspired by the group and created strange and beautiful costumes for the members.
(back row) Ouroboros: Seen by the public as the leader of the Iconoclasts, but the truth is that the group was largely leaderless for most of its life.
Ourobos had a name once, but he has decided to forget it. “I was a searching soul” is all he ever said about the man he used to be. “I would devour everything I could get my hands on to get outside myself. Laudanum, hashish. I once defeated a blood-sucking mandrake root with my pocketknife and ate him in the nameless field from which he sprung”. At other times he will mention licking mold off ancient vellum, or snorting the powder of Ibn-Ghazi. At some point something must have worked, some wondrous drug or chance combination made him Ouroboros, aspiring totality loosely tethered to a human form.
The least of Ouroboros' powers was conjuring up constraining silver hoops from his essence and use them to ensnare his enemies. These constraints were almost unbreakable.
Ouroboros' greatest power and weakness was his omniscience. His mind was literally everywhere, projected through time, space and astral barriers. As such Ouroboros knew everything.
However since he was a generalized presence, it became harder and harder for him to focus on one particular place (what we would call the 'here and now'). When he was able to utilize his knowledge, Ouroboros could provide startling insight into matters past, present, future as well as knowledge outside these categories. However at several crucial instances he was too far gone to be of much use.
In 1938 Ouroboros finally tore his consciousness free from his body, and it is likely that it is now dissipated across all possible existence.
ABILITIES:
Prowess: 3
Coordination: 4
Strength: 2
Intellect: 7
Awareness: 9
Willpower: 6
POWERS:
Flight: 4
Detection: Cosmic, Emotion, Magic, Spirit: 9
Environmental Awareness 9
ESP: 9
extra: Dimensional
Binding: 8
Postcognition: 9
Precognition: 9
extra: Danger Sense
Stamina 8, Determination 1
SPECIALITIES:
None
QUALITIES:
I see all!
Three steps ahead
CHALLENGES:
Where is my mind?
(middle row, far left and right) Links/Rechts (Left/Right): Twin robots created by the ever-inventive Eisenkopf. They served as man-servants and, in a pinch, backup to the team. A persistent question among the team members was whether they were sapient or not. Eisenkopf argued they were not, and that since he had built them he ought to know. Glöckner would mutter something about 'emergent properties of vibrating coils', and Ouroboros would occasionally answer something along the lines of 'almost as a general rule'.
ABILITIES:
Prowess: 3
Coordination: 4
Strength: 7
Intellect: 1
Awareness: 2
Willpower: 1
POWERS:
Life support: 10
Links and Rechts are robots, and as such have no physical needs.
Damage Resistance: 5
Stamina 8, Determination 4
SPECIALITIES:
Electronics, Mechanics
QUALITIES:
I am a good machine
Unflappable
CHALLENGES:
Taken for granted
How much is really going on in there?
Frau Knüppel (Mrs. Cudgel): Through the highly speculative science and art of temporal photography, this picture shows both the first and second Frau Knüppel (Lady Baton).
The first was Heike Schneider, widow of a police officer killed in a brawl between communist and conservative thugs. Heike took the loss of her husband hard, at one point even hallucinating a few hour-long conversation with Maximilien de Robespierre. She became obsessed with violence as a democratizing force, and wearing a home-made costume, she struck out from the shadow at what she perceived as threats to democracy. Interestingly enough that includes all the politically-motivated thugs of the Weimar period. Heike (or rather Frau Knüppel) quickly gained a reputation for striking out (and crushing skulls) when she came across political intimidation.
Frau Knüppel was a sometime-sister in arms to the Iconoclasts, rather than a full-time member. She added much-needed directness and purpose to the other members often convoluted and ornate understanding of the world.
Frau Knüppel was killed in a pitched battle with national socialist storm troopers, but the body was never found. The second Frau Knüppel (Marie Amsel) was little more than a nazi mascot, and was only very briefly on the quickly disintegrating Iconoclasts roster. Interestingly, the second Frau Knüppel was found dead backstage at the Wintergarten theater in Berlin in 1943 (less than a year before the theater was bombed by allied forces). Her head had seemingly been caved in with her own trademark weapon. This, along with unsubstantiated anecdotes about escapees from the DDR being helped by a mystery woman armed with a large club, lend credence to the idea that someone has taken up Frau Knüppel's mantle.
Frau Knüppel (1st)
ABILITIES:
Prowess: 6
Coordination: 5
Strength: 5
Intellect: 4
Awareness: 5
Willpower: 6
POWERS:
Strike 8
Extra: In the hands of anyone else The Club is a Strike 4 weapon.
The Club is a gadget, and a simple wooden baton with a lead core. In the hands of Frau Knüppel it's a weapon without compare.
Stamina 10, Determination 5
SPECIALITIES: Investigation, Stealth Expert, Weapons (blunt)
QUALITIES:
The woman without fear
Striking from the shadows
CHALLENGES:
Enemies everywhere
The shortest distance between two points is a blow to the head
Frau Knüppel (2nd)
ABILITIES:
Prowess: 3
Coordination: 4
Strength: 3
Intellect: 2
Awareness: 2
Willpower: 2
POWERS:
Strike 4
Stamina 5, Determination 4
SPECIALITIES:
Performance (acting)
QUALITIES:
Nazi darling
Looks the part
CHALLENGES:
Impostor
(front row, left) Glöckner (The Bell-Ringer): Glöckner used to be Ulrich Gertsch, bellringer at a small rural church “just like my father and his father before him”, and he might have died contentedly as a bellringer.
There was one spring morning though where the colors seemed richer, the sky wider and the world deeper than ever before. Ulrich climbed the steps to the bell tower slowly, because everything felt important and brief. He emerged into the light of the rising sun, and began pulling the bell-rope.
The bell chimed across the valley until a deeper tone rose from all the earth's corners to incorporate it and envelop all things. This was the endless reverberation of the Creator's voice, of that first FIAT LUX. It proved to Ulrich that there was endless depth to the world, endless spheres to amplify the God-Sound.
The sound faded again, but the certainty it had brought stayed with the man who had been Ulrich Gertsch. That identity had been burned away, and Glöckner had emerged. He learned to scorch the cruel with vibrations and to share the joy, the wonder and the terror of the God-Sound.
In 1923 Glöckner reached out via radio to 'extraordinary beings' across Germany to come together to spread peace and enlightenment to 'this wounded world'. Many wondrous people and creatures answered his call, and more joined in a
ABILITIES:
Prowess: 2
Coordination: 5
Strength: 4
Intellect: 5
Awareness: 6
Willpower: 4
POWERS:
Sonic Burst 7
extra: Blast, Sense (sonar)
Emotion Control 6
limit: sound-based
Stamina 8, Determination 3
SPECIALITIES:
Peformance (music)
QUALITIES:
The world resonates with purpose
I have heard God
CHALLENGES:
Too kind
Tungol: Abra was a princess from the orgiastic and ever-writhing steppes of Saturn. Due to a crime she will not discuss, Tungol was deemed unworthy of her flesh: Her spirit roamed the star system, until it found a suitable home in the body of dancer (and playwright under pseudonym) Babette Kluge.
While the two got along famously, Abra was shocked to discover that, as human consciousness is a function of the body, Babette's brain had absorbed her and she was unable to leave. The double consciousness called Tungol was born. The name was Babette's idea.
Tungol answered Glöckner's call in 1923, in the hope that a group of extraordinary beings might be able to change the world through example and art. Babette considers dance, when properly choreographed and contextualized (in a story which must contain both the recognizable and the surprising) to be a tool of startling and transformative change. Abra just rejoiced in having a body again, and together they transcended the limitations of the human body and the saturnian mind. Neither of Tungol's components were particularly fond of fighting villains and goons, but Babette recognized that until Germany saw relative peace, her dance and theater would be seen mainly as entertainment.
ABILITIES:
Prowess: 3
Coordination: 7
Strength: 3
Intellect: 4
Awareness: 5
Willpower: 5
POWERS:
Spinning 8
extras: Air Ram, Fast Attack, Spinning Drill, Tornado
Stamina 8, Determination
SPECIALITIES:
Performance (dance) Master, Performance (writing).
QUALITIES:
Unearthly grace
CHALLENGES:
Two egos, one head
Reluctant fighter
Die Verheiratete (The married (couple)): In his later years, alchemist Heinrich Khunrath came to believe that the Prima Materia which he sought was not the source of spiritual perfection for mankind, but rather the seed of a new human race. These new people would be ready to correlate and use all human wisdom, but without the burden of original sin. Man's role in the world would be to discover this material, and then stand back.
After years of study he thought he had discovered this clay of creation by letting a certain animal putrefy in his athanor. His notes are very incomplete, but it seems that the animal was a bird which he believed to be a bird-of-paradise (birds which were at the time believed to be inhabitants of the terrestrial paradise itself). From this noble rot two human beings were born, a man and a woman.
Khunrath was not a rich man, and in order to continue his experiments he had received a large sum of money from a local noble. Kunrath imagined this to be a gift from a patron interested in science and progress, whereas the nobleman saw it as a loan, and possibly one he regretted. We know from the two creatures, Er and Sie (He and She) that rough men entered the alchemist's study just as the emerged. In the tragic fracas which followed, several people died, including Heinrich Khunrath. Most of his notes were lost in the fire.
The couple lead a harsh life on the roads of Europe. They often helped those in need when they could, but as often had to flee from the superstitious or the overly curious. They claim to have spent a whole decade as prisoners in Louis Pasteur's basement. This has never been verified though.
Through the years the two have not aged a day, and seem to be functionally immortal. When Glöckner hatched the idea of a group of 'extraordinary beings working for the enlightenment and liberation of Europe', they decided that this was part of their purpose.
ABILITIES:
Prowess: 4
Coordination: 6
Strength: 6
Intellect: 6
Awareness: 6
Willpower: 6
POWERS:
Immortality (10)
Regeneration 5
extra: Re-growth
Super-speed 3
Stamina 10, Determination 2
SPECIALITIES:
Occult Expert
QUALITIES:
Perfect specimen
The future of mankind
CHALLENGES:
(Er): We must help, despite their fear and ignorance
(Sie): They aren't always worth it.
(Both): Even the great feel small in their company.
Eisenkopf: Emil Lothar was the best engineer at Krupp, and was involved in the manufacture of both submarines in Kiel and artillery in Essen. Emil was always pushing for more audacious features and often had to be reigned in by more conservative (and often uncomprehending) colleagues. In a never-published autobiography he described himself as 'a titan among pygmies'.
Quite apart from being unfulfilled creatively, Emil began to see things at Krupp he did not like. Building weapons of war was one thing. A necessity one might say. However the forced conscription of Belgian factory workers in 1916 revolted and disturbed him. This was nothing less than slavery!
After the war things returned to a semblance of normalcy, but left a sour taste. Emil no longer trusted his bosses and began working on several personal projects in secret.
When the Rote Soldatenbund (a communist militia) occupied the factories in Essen as well as much of the demilitarized Rhineland, Emil took it as his cue to get out. He 'liberated' a lot of materials as he did so.
Emil's first invention was something he had planned for a long time, a helmet to 'enhance my already substantial intellect to a peerless level'. The finished helmet covered his entire head, and made him look like 'a heathen idol for a modern age'. With the aid of this 'iron head', Emil invented several staggering gadgets, including several personal weapons, a jetpack and two robots (Links and Rechts).
In 1923 Emil answered Glöckner's call for 'extraordinary beings', and quickly became the group's armorer and knowitall. He found the others to be challenging, infuriating and quite stimulating.
ABILITIES:
Prowess: 4
Coordination: 4
Strength: 3
Intellect: 8 (6)
Awareness: 5
Willpower: 5
POWERS:
Gadgets: 8 (6)
extra: Arsenal (3)
Iron Head:
Ability boost (Intellect) 2
Right Hand
Strike 7
Left Hand
Force Blast 7
limit (for all Gadgets): Ability-linked (Intellect)
Stamina 8, Determination 1
SPECIALITIES:
Electronics Master, Mechanics Master
QUALITIES:
Smartest man in the room
Defender of freedom
CHALLENGES:
“I honestly don't expect you to understand”
Courted by governments and arms manufacturers
Sinistra: Aneta Bartunek was a thief, and a very good one. At the end of the nineteenth century her name was known from the Baltic to Vienna. She always seemed to give the authorities the slip, no matter badly the deck was stacked against her. Some said that she had sold her soul to the devil.
According to her daughter Sinistra this is absolutely true, but she was what her mother used to bargain with. As she tells the story, her mother was being pursued by irate villagers and hunting dogs one time, and her capture was certain.
That was when Velnias strolled out between two trees, playing his accordion. The exact place of this meeting changes with each telling, but the other details remain the same. The old devil's shiny horns, his skin as black as that of a cachalot, and the accordion. The villagers stopped, bewildered. Then they begain dancing to Velnias' jaunty tune.
Now, Velnias is not evil, like the Christian devil, but he is a trickster and enjoy making humans play the fool. “I will help you now” he said to Aneta, and his smile was pale as the moon. “I will even make the child you are carrying a better thief than even you. But she will be mine with hide and hair”.
Aneta agreed, since she knew she wasn't pregnant. Velnias lead her past the dancing peasants and to safety on the other side of the forest. Nine months later Sinistra Bartunek was born. She had the power to become invisible and turn objects and people invisible too. As soon as she was able she struck out on her own, leaving her mother to her habitual crimes. Their paths continue to cross though, and they have often been on opposite sides in conflicts.
Sinistra believes that she is beholden to a devil or pagan mischief-maker, and sometimes she feels that it is easier to transgress against the law as well as her own principles. When push comes to shove she usually comes down on the side of good though.
ABILITIES:
Prowess: 5
Coordination: 5
Strength: 3
Intellect: 5
Awareness: 4
Willpower: 4
POWERS:
Invisibility: 6
extra: Invisibility Ray
Stamina 7, Determination 5
SPECIALITIES:
Acrobatics, Stealth
QUALITIES:
Princess of thieves
“I know a guy...”
CHALLENGES:
I belong to the devil. Right?
“'Sigh' Hello, mom”.
Fremde (the Foreigner/Stranger): In June of 1929 the Iconoclasts were in deep trouble. Kabouter, little men from deep within the Algäu Alps in Bavaria had made their way to the surface and were disrupting mining operations and train lines, as well as throwing large rocks at churches (the little heathens hate the sound of church bells). When our heroes attempted to stop them, the kaboutern turned out to be every bit as strong as the folktales claim, and quite numerous to boot. Soon Glöckner was the last man standing, as the kaboutern were unwilling to get too close to the man with the bell. They began pelting him with rocks, and in his despair Glöckner called out “ist da jemand?” (“is anyone there?”). To his surprise a deep and bemused voice answered in the affirmative.
The creature that stepped out of nothing at all was almost as broad as two men and had an expressionless face of tarnished metal. It strode towards the kaboutern and with no perceptible effort turned the battlefield into an impossible kaleidoscope where distance and perspective became weapons against the hordes of little people. Together the two drove the kabouter back under the alps.
The stranger was just that, foreign to our world. Its German vocabulary was very limited, but Eisenkopf devised a system of communications where numerical values were used to express intent and attitude. More specific concepts proved too difficult to 'translate'.
Die Fremde was only a sometime member of the group, as it would inexplicably disappear from time to time, sometimes for for months. When the Iconoclasts disbanded, the mystery surrounding their otherworldly ally was as impenetrable as ever. Ouroboros would probably have known something about Die Fremde, but chose to keep silent.
ABILITIES:
Prowess: 4
Coordination: 4
Strength: 8
Intellect: 4
Awareness: 7
Willpower: 4
POWERS:
Damage Resistance 4
Spatial Control (compress distances) 6
extras: Stretch Distances, Twist Space, Deflection, Spatial Anchor, Spatial Disruption, Spatial Shock
Stamina 12, Determination 1
SPECIALITIES:
None
QUALITIES:
Friend from Beyond
CHALLENGES:
“Your ways are strange to me”
Communication breakdown
(Note: I wrote this on G+ several years ago. I am pleased with it, and use the blog as a way of saving it).
Bauhaus artist Oskar Schlemmer was very inspired by the group and created strange and beautiful costumes for the members.
 |
| A rare group photo. |
(back row) Ouroboros: Seen by the public as the leader of the Iconoclasts, but the truth is that the group was largely leaderless for most of its life.
Ourobos had a name once, but he has decided to forget it. “I was a searching soul” is all he ever said about the man he used to be. “I would devour everything I could get my hands on to get outside myself. Laudanum, hashish. I once defeated a blood-sucking mandrake root with my pocketknife and ate him in the nameless field from which he sprung”. At other times he will mention licking mold off ancient vellum, or snorting the powder of Ibn-Ghazi. At some point something must have worked, some wondrous drug or chance combination made him Ouroboros, aspiring totality loosely tethered to a human form.
The least of Ouroboros' powers was conjuring up constraining silver hoops from his essence and use them to ensnare his enemies. These constraints were almost unbreakable.
Ouroboros' greatest power and weakness was his omniscience. His mind was literally everywhere, projected through time, space and astral barriers. As such Ouroboros knew everything.
However since he was a generalized presence, it became harder and harder for him to focus on one particular place (what we would call the 'here and now'). When he was able to utilize his knowledge, Ouroboros could provide startling insight into matters past, present, future as well as knowledge outside these categories. However at several crucial instances he was too far gone to be of much use.
In 1938 Ouroboros finally tore his consciousness free from his body, and it is likely that it is now dissipated across all possible existence.
ABILITIES:
Prowess: 3
Coordination: 4
Strength: 2
Intellect: 7
Awareness: 9
Willpower: 6
POWERS:
Flight: 4
Detection: Cosmic, Emotion, Magic, Spirit: 9
Environmental Awareness 9
ESP: 9
extra: Dimensional
Binding: 8
Postcognition: 9
Precognition: 9
extra: Danger Sense
Stamina 8, Determination 1
SPECIALITIES:
None
QUALITIES:
I see all!
Three steps ahead
CHALLENGES:
Where is my mind?
(middle row, far left and right) Links/Rechts (Left/Right): Twin robots created by the ever-inventive Eisenkopf. They served as man-servants and, in a pinch, backup to the team. A persistent question among the team members was whether they were sapient or not. Eisenkopf argued they were not, and that since he had built them he ought to know. Glöckner would mutter something about 'emergent properties of vibrating coils', and Ouroboros would occasionally answer something along the lines of 'almost as a general rule'.
ABILITIES:
Prowess: 3
Coordination: 4
Strength: 7
Intellect: 1
Awareness: 2
Willpower: 1
POWERS:
Life support: 10
Links and Rechts are robots, and as such have no physical needs.
Damage Resistance: 5
Stamina 8, Determination 4
SPECIALITIES:
Electronics, Mechanics
QUALITIES:
I am a good machine
Unflappable
CHALLENGES:
Taken for granted
How much is really going on in there?
Frau Knüppel (Mrs. Cudgel): Through the highly speculative science and art of temporal photography, this picture shows both the first and second Frau Knüppel (Lady Baton).
The first was Heike Schneider, widow of a police officer killed in a brawl between communist and conservative thugs. Heike took the loss of her husband hard, at one point even hallucinating a few hour-long conversation with Maximilien de Robespierre. She became obsessed with violence as a democratizing force, and wearing a home-made costume, she struck out from the shadow at what she perceived as threats to democracy. Interestingly enough that includes all the politically-motivated thugs of the Weimar period. Heike (or rather Frau Knüppel) quickly gained a reputation for striking out (and crushing skulls) when she came across political intimidation.
Frau Knüppel was a sometime-sister in arms to the Iconoclasts, rather than a full-time member. She added much-needed directness and purpose to the other members often convoluted and ornate understanding of the world.
Frau Knüppel was killed in a pitched battle with national socialist storm troopers, but the body was never found. The second Frau Knüppel (Marie Amsel) was little more than a nazi mascot, and was only very briefly on the quickly disintegrating Iconoclasts roster. Interestingly, the second Frau Knüppel was found dead backstage at the Wintergarten theater in Berlin in 1943 (less than a year before the theater was bombed by allied forces). Her head had seemingly been caved in with her own trademark weapon. This, along with unsubstantiated anecdotes about escapees from the DDR being helped by a mystery woman armed with a large club, lend credence to the idea that someone has taken up Frau Knüppel's mantle.
Frau Knüppel (1st)
ABILITIES:
Prowess: 6
Coordination: 5
Strength: 5
Intellect: 4
Awareness: 5
Willpower: 6
POWERS:
Strike 8
Extra: In the hands of anyone else The Club is a Strike 4 weapon.
The Club is a gadget, and a simple wooden baton with a lead core. In the hands of Frau Knüppel it's a weapon without compare.
Stamina 10, Determination 5
SPECIALITIES: Investigation, Stealth Expert, Weapons (blunt)
QUALITIES:
The woman without fear
Striking from the shadows
CHALLENGES:
Enemies everywhere
The shortest distance between two points is a blow to the head
Frau Knüppel (2nd)
ABILITIES:
Prowess: 3
Coordination: 4
Strength: 3
Intellect: 2
Awareness: 2
Willpower: 2
POWERS:
Strike 4
Stamina 5, Determination 4
SPECIALITIES:
Performance (acting)
QUALITIES:
Nazi darling
Looks the part
CHALLENGES:
Impostor
(front row, left) Glöckner (The Bell-Ringer): Glöckner used to be Ulrich Gertsch, bellringer at a small rural church “just like my father and his father before him”, and he might have died contentedly as a bellringer.
There was one spring morning though where the colors seemed richer, the sky wider and the world deeper than ever before. Ulrich climbed the steps to the bell tower slowly, because everything felt important and brief. He emerged into the light of the rising sun, and began pulling the bell-rope.
The bell chimed across the valley until a deeper tone rose from all the earth's corners to incorporate it and envelop all things. This was the endless reverberation of the Creator's voice, of that first FIAT LUX. It proved to Ulrich that there was endless depth to the world, endless spheres to amplify the God-Sound.
The sound faded again, but the certainty it had brought stayed with the man who had been Ulrich Gertsch. That identity had been burned away, and Glöckner had emerged. He learned to scorch the cruel with vibrations and to share the joy, the wonder and the terror of the God-Sound.
In 1923 Glöckner reached out via radio to 'extraordinary beings' across Germany to come together to spread peace and enlightenment to 'this wounded world'. Many wondrous people and creatures answered his call, and more joined in a
ABILITIES:
Prowess: 2
Coordination: 5
Strength: 4
Intellect: 5
Awareness: 6
Willpower: 4
POWERS:
Sonic Burst 7
extra: Blast, Sense (sonar)
Emotion Control 6
limit: sound-based
Stamina 8, Determination 3
SPECIALITIES:
Peformance (music)
QUALITIES:
The world resonates with purpose
I have heard God
CHALLENGES:
Too kind
Tungol: Abra was a princess from the orgiastic and ever-writhing steppes of Saturn. Due to a crime she will not discuss, Tungol was deemed unworthy of her flesh: Her spirit roamed the star system, until it found a suitable home in the body of dancer (and playwright under pseudonym) Babette Kluge.
While the two got along famously, Abra was shocked to discover that, as human consciousness is a function of the body, Babette's brain had absorbed her and she was unable to leave. The double consciousness called Tungol was born. The name was Babette's idea.
Tungol answered Glöckner's call in 1923, in the hope that a group of extraordinary beings might be able to change the world through example and art. Babette considers dance, when properly choreographed and contextualized (in a story which must contain both the recognizable and the surprising) to be a tool of startling and transformative change. Abra just rejoiced in having a body again, and together they transcended the limitations of the human body and the saturnian mind. Neither of Tungol's components were particularly fond of fighting villains and goons, but Babette recognized that until Germany saw relative peace, her dance and theater would be seen mainly as entertainment.
ABILITIES:
Prowess: 3
Coordination: 7
Strength: 3
Intellect: 4
Awareness: 5
Willpower: 5
POWERS:
Spinning 8
extras: Air Ram, Fast Attack, Spinning Drill, Tornado
Stamina 8, Determination
SPECIALITIES:
Performance (dance) Master, Performance (writing).
QUALITIES:
Unearthly grace
CHALLENGES:
Two egos, one head
Reluctant fighter
Die Verheiratete (The married (couple)): In his later years, alchemist Heinrich Khunrath came to believe that the Prima Materia which he sought was not the source of spiritual perfection for mankind, but rather the seed of a new human race. These new people would be ready to correlate and use all human wisdom, but without the burden of original sin. Man's role in the world would be to discover this material, and then stand back.
After years of study he thought he had discovered this clay of creation by letting a certain animal putrefy in his athanor. His notes are very incomplete, but it seems that the animal was a bird which he believed to be a bird-of-paradise (birds which were at the time believed to be inhabitants of the terrestrial paradise itself). From this noble rot two human beings were born, a man and a woman.
Khunrath was not a rich man, and in order to continue his experiments he had received a large sum of money from a local noble. Kunrath imagined this to be a gift from a patron interested in science and progress, whereas the nobleman saw it as a loan, and possibly one he regretted. We know from the two creatures, Er and Sie (He and She) that rough men entered the alchemist's study just as the emerged. In the tragic fracas which followed, several people died, including Heinrich Khunrath. Most of his notes were lost in the fire.
The couple lead a harsh life on the roads of Europe. They often helped those in need when they could, but as often had to flee from the superstitious or the overly curious. They claim to have spent a whole decade as prisoners in Louis Pasteur's basement. This has never been verified though.
Through the years the two have not aged a day, and seem to be functionally immortal. When Glöckner hatched the idea of a group of 'extraordinary beings working for the enlightenment and liberation of Europe', they decided that this was part of their purpose.
ABILITIES:
Prowess: 4
Coordination: 6
Strength: 6
Intellect: 6
Awareness: 6
Willpower: 6
POWERS:
Immortality (10)
Regeneration 5
extra: Re-growth
Super-speed 3
Stamina 10, Determination 2
SPECIALITIES:
Occult Expert
QUALITIES:
Perfect specimen
The future of mankind
CHALLENGES:
(Er): We must help, despite their fear and ignorance
(Sie): They aren't always worth it.
(Both): Even the great feel small in their company.
Eisenkopf: Emil Lothar was the best engineer at Krupp, and was involved in the manufacture of both submarines in Kiel and artillery in Essen. Emil was always pushing for more audacious features and often had to be reigned in by more conservative (and often uncomprehending) colleagues. In a never-published autobiography he described himself as 'a titan among pygmies'.
Quite apart from being unfulfilled creatively, Emil began to see things at Krupp he did not like. Building weapons of war was one thing. A necessity one might say. However the forced conscription of Belgian factory workers in 1916 revolted and disturbed him. This was nothing less than slavery!
After the war things returned to a semblance of normalcy, but left a sour taste. Emil no longer trusted his bosses and began working on several personal projects in secret.
When the Rote Soldatenbund (a communist militia) occupied the factories in Essen as well as much of the demilitarized Rhineland, Emil took it as his cue to get out. He 'liberated' a lot of materials as he did so.
Emil's first invention was something he had planned for a long time, a helmet to 'enhance my already substantial intellect to a peerless level'. The finished helmet covered his entire head, and made him look like 'a heathen idol for a modern age'. With the aid of this 'iron head', Emil invented several staggering gadgets, including several personal weapons, a jetpack and two robots (Links and Rechts).
In 1923 Emil answered Glöckner's call for 'extraordinary beings', and quickly became the group's armorer and knowitall. He found the others to be challenging, infuriating and quite stimulating.
ABILITIES:
Prowess: 4
Coordination: 4
Strength: 3
Intellect: 8 (6)
Awareness: 5
Willpower: 5
POWERS:
Gadgets: 8 (6)
extra: Arsenal (3)
Iron Head:
Ability boost (Intellect) 2
Right Hand
Strike 7
Left Hand
Force Blast 7
limit (for all Gadgets): Ability-linked (Intellect)
Stamina 8, Determination 1
SPECIALITIES:
Electronics Master, Mechanics Master
QUALITIES:
Smartest man in the room
Defender of freedom
CHALLENGES:
“I honestly don't expect you to understand”
Courted by governments and arms manufacturers
Sinistra: Aneta Bartunek was a thief, and a very good one. At the end of the nineteenth century her name was known from the Baltic to Vienna. She always seemed to give the authorities the slip, no matter badly the deck was stacked against her. Some said that she had sold her soul to the devil.
According to her daughter Sinistra this is absolutely true, but she was what her mother used to bargain with. As she tells the story, her mother was being pursued by irate villagers and hunting dogs one time, and her capture was certain.
That was when Velnias strolled out between two trees, playing his accordion. The exact place of this meeting changes with each telling, but the other details remain the same. The old devil's shiny horns, his skin as black as that of a cachalot, and the accordion. The villagers stopped, bewildered. Then they begain dancing to Velnias' jaunty tune.
Now, Velnias is not evil, like the Christian devil, but he is a trickster and enjoy making humans play the fool. “I will help you now” he said to Aneta, and his smile was pale as the moon. “I will even make the child you are carrying a better thief than even you. But she will be mine with hide and hair”.
Aneta agreed, since she knew she wasn't pregnant. Velnias lead her past the dancing peasants and to safety on the other side of the forest. Nine months later Sinistra Bartunek was born. She had the power to become invisible and turn objects and people invisible too. As soon as she was able she struck out on her own, leaving her mother to her habitual crimes. Their paths continue to cross though, and they have often been on opposite sides in conflicts.
Sinistra believes that she is beholden to a devil or pagan mischief-maker, and sometimes she feels that it is easier to transgress against the law as well as her own principles. When push comes to shove she usually comes down on the side of good though.
ABILITIES:
Prowess: 5
Coordination: 5
Strength: 3
Intellect: 5
Awareness: 4
Willpower: 4
POWERS:
Invisibility: 6
extra: Invisibility Ray
Stamina 7, Determination 5
SPECIALITIES:
Acrobatics, Stealth
QUALITIES:
Princess of thieves
“I know a guy...”
CHALLENGES:
I belong to the devil. Right?
“'Sigh' Hello, mom”.
Fremde (the Foreigner/Stranger): In June of 1929 the Iconoclasts were in deep trouble. Kabouter, little men from deep within the Algäu Alps in Bavaria had made their way to the surface and were disrupting mining operations and train lines, as well as throwing large rocks at churches (the little heathens hate the sound of church bells). When our heroes attempted to stop them, the kaboutern turned out to be every bit as strong as the folktales claim, and quite numerous to boot. Soon Glöckner was the last man standing, as the kaboutern were unwilling to get too close to the man with the bell. They began pelting him with rocks, and in his despair Glöckner called out “ist da jemand?” (“is anyone there?”). To his surprise a deep and bemused voice answered in the affirmative.
The creature that stepped out of nothing at all was almost as broad as two men and had an expressionless face of tarnished metal. It strode towards the kaboutern and with no perceptible effort turned the battlefield into an impossible kaleidoscope where distance and perspective became weapons against the hordes of little people. Together the two drove the kabouter back under the alps.
The stranger was just that, foreign to our world. Its German vocabulary was very limited, but Eisenkopf devised a system of communications where numerical values were used to express intent and attitude. More specific concepts proved too difficult to 'translate'.
Die Fremde was only a sometime member of the group, as it would inexplicably disappear from time to time, sometimes for for months. When the Iconoclasts disbanded, the mystery surrounding their otherworldly ally was as impenetrable as ever. Ouroboros would probably have known something about Die Fremde, but chose to keep silent.
ABILITIES:
Prowess: 4
Coordination: 4
Strength: 8
Intellect: 4
Awareness: 7
Willpower: 4
POWERS:
Damage Resistance 4
Spatial Control (compress distances) 6
extras: Stretch Distances, Twist Space, Deflection, Spatial Anchor, Spatial Disruption, Spatial Shock
Stamina 12, Determination 1
SPECIALITIES:
None
QUALITIES:
Friend from Beyond
CHALLENGES:
“Your ways are strange to me”
Communication breakdown
(Note: I wrote this on G+ several years ago. I am pleased with it, and use the blog as a way of saving it).
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