Multiple Settings The Bakker Case: A Lovecraftian Horror Story [12/12]

[EdwardDewey98]

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Preface

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The year is 1922. The Great War is long over, slowly becoming a fading memory. Prohibition is in full effect, alcohol being banned across the United States, and the mafia continues to grow in power. In Lovecraft County, life continues as normal. Or so it seems. Famous actress and singer Martha Bakker reports that her father, known magnate Theodore Bakker, has gone missing without leaving a single clue as to his whereabouts. The police seem unable to pick up a trail. Growing desperate, and losing trust in the police force, Martha decides it might be best to hire a group of volunteers and professionals to help her find her father. From hardy thugs, to Great War vets, to private detectives and even scholars and occultists as her father was quite fond of the occult himself. Their mission seems to be rather easy at first, but as the investigators continue to delve deeper and deeper into the case, it clearly becomes more than just a case of a missing person.

Information
Welcome to the recruitment thread for my upcoming roleplay! The Bakker Case is inspired by the literary works of Howard Phillip Lovecraft and by the many additions from writers such as August Derleth, Victor LaValle, Ramsey Campbell and many other authors behind the Expanded Cthulhu Mythos. The setting has many additions of my own, but ultimately tries to remain "faithful" to the overall mythos created by the authors.

You, the players, will be joining the investigation behind the disappearance of a known Belgian magnate and discover the terrible secrets behind this case and the horrors crawling beneath Lovecraft County. The players can create any character they want: An average Joe trying to gain a quick buck as a volunteer trying to do a good act, a private investigator with a shady past, a violent thug with deep knowledge of Arkham's seedy underground, a knowledgeable scholar with personal ties with Theodore Bakker, etc.

Character Creation

• Character Sheet •​

• Picture: (Preferably drawn art.)
• Name:
• Age:
• Ethnicity:
• Nationality: (Any of the existing nations of the era are valid.)
• Occupation:
• Gender: (Any gender is valid!)
• Orientation: (Any sexual orientation is valid! You can ignore this one if you want.)
• Bio: (This can be worked upon on a later date.)

• Character Example •


• Name: Marie Eveline Lubin
• Age: 31
• Ethnicity: Black
• Nationality: American
• Occupation: Occult Expert, Writer
• Gender: Female
• Orientation: Straight
• Bio: Born in the impoverished areas of New Orleans, Marie saw struggle first hand, enduring poverty, discrimination and an increasingly abusive household due to her fathers heavy alcoholism. By chance, or simply luck, the young Marie managed to find work at an early age on an occult shop owned by a known and beloved member of the community simply known as "Auntie Anouse", it was through her new employer that the young Marie learned how to read in exchange of keeping the shop clean, and it became apparent in her teenage years that Marie was a prodigy, being able to memorize esoteric writings with unnerving ease.

As a young adult, Marie developed an unhealthy interest with esoteric topics, using her free time to read old arcane grimoires, this greatly concerned her employer and mentor, who warned Marie that delving too deep into the dark side of the occult could only lead to her ruin, but Marie did not heed the warnings of her mentor - but instead of meeting a tenebrous fate, like many who delve into the unknown depths of the occult, Marie found wealth beyond her wildest dreams. One day, a rich white man came to the store looking for an specific tome, whose name was long forgotten, but by describing one of the pages, Marie was instantly able to locate the book in the shop. After a long conversation with the girl, the magnate, Theodore Bakker, wanted to take the young woman up north to study in the Miskatonic University, under the wing of known scholars of the occult, and she gladly accepted.​

Questions & Answers
Q: Can I play as a cultist for an Eldritch Deity?
A: Yes! There's hundreds of cults around various entities, and some beings like Nyarlathotep, who have hundreds of forms, have twice the amount of cults worshiping them. So you can be part of any of these cults.

Q: How much knowledge on the occult can our characters posses?
A: Depends, the average person would know nothing, while those with academic studies into literature or history might know a few things. We would have to talk about it in private.

Q: Will there be combat? Can we use guns, swords or magic to fight enemies?
A: While it won't be the focus of the Roleplay, there will be combat. You can use whatever you want to fight the eldritch as long as it is appropriate for the time era, though "magic" will have to be discussed in private.

Q: Since the Roleplay takes place in 1922, will my character experience discrimination based on their race, sexuality or gender?
A: You can make whatever character you want. There will be bigoted NPC's but they will never be shown under a positive light and will not use harmful language.

Q: Wasn't Lovecraft a horrible person? Isn't making a roleplay based on his writings in poor taste?
A: He was a terrible human being and it is undeniable that his hatred influenced his writings, some would even say it influenced the core of his mythos. But it is also undeniable that Lovecraft's creations influenced what we know now as Cosmic Horror, and his works have transcended his own hate and has influenced writers and storytellers of many races and backgrounds, like Victor LaValle, a black author who found a clever way to use Lovecraft's racism as a way to further expand one of Lovecraft's most hateful works in the The Ballad of Black Tom. Ultimately I believe that Lovecraft's work has transcended Lovecraft as a person and while he, like the cosmic horrors he created, will forever haunt his works, I still believe we can all enjoy the mythos written by him and those who contributed afterwards.

If you have any questions, feel free to ask down bellow!​

Players
Update Jun 12 of 2022: Adding two more free slots. Only 3 free slots remaining!

Update June 16 of 2022: We have officially fill all slots for the RP, thank you everyone for showing interest in my little horror RP! The thread will be up when all character sheets are completed and posted here.

• Albert Leahman by Humble1
• Atlas Ward by Lillian_4
• Alton Cooper by AriAriAbabwa
• Artem Bondarenko by joshuadim
• Brian Demonte by Vexumin
• Dominik 'Dom' Kästner by Infab
• Edelweiß Alphi Morganach by Mook-LandStrider
• Ira Hielscher by FloweryMuffin
• John "Jay" McDonough by Zillamaster55
• Ruth “Yancy” Jansen by BriiAngelic
• Dr Sylvia Arnold by Nuclear Magician
• Unknown by Firelie

 

[EdwardDewey98]

Update Jun 12 of 2022: Adding two more free slots. Only 3 free slots remaining! To those interested, feel free to send me a DM to save you a spot!

 

[BriiAngelic]

Name: Ruth “Yancy” Jansen
Gender: Female
Age: 29
Ethnicity: Dutch
Nationality: American


Occupation: Moonshiner, Hired help for evading the cops
Orientation:
Bisexual, leaning far more to women as she won’t take a man she can easily manipulate to bed.
Occult Knowledge: Nil
Weapon: Bolt-Action Rifle, Hidden knives

Bio:
Ruth unlike a great deal of her relatives was born and raised in the states. As a first generation immigrant she still holds some of her original culture to the Netherlands. Despite this she’s recognized the ease of letting herself be “Americanized” and accepted the bastardization of her surname now going by “Yancy”. She often follows the letter of the law while ignoring the spirt of it finding her way to the life of comfort in this land. It’s her own personal motto that “Papa didn’t raise no fool”.

With her mother and father barely managing to scrape by after the outlawing of their family’s brewery she quickly began to look into work to help support the family. Being a widower already at the young age of 25 she didn’t have many opportunities for honest work. Let alone work that would keep the three afloat. However she had her background in brewing to fall back on.

It may be illegal but it was still widely coveted, and a dime was a dime. She made her own little corner of the market in no time earning the money to keep herself and her family living large. Having experienced discrimination in her own right she also took a fancy to helping the local coppers turn themselves in circles becoming hired help for some unsavory fellows.

Too few took a woman at anything other than face value but their mistakes were her lifelines.

After all it was the mistake that allowed her to do in her abusive late husband.
​

 

[Nuclear Magician]

Name: Dr Sylvia Arnold
Age: 33
Ethnicity: Caucasian Nationality: American
Occupation: Historian/Theologian/Occultist
Gender: Female Orientation: Bisexual
Bio: The child of two wealthy Stanford academics, Sylvia grew up with a great deal of privilege and high expectations of her future. Given the best tutors and driven at every turn to seek greatness, her family had every expectation that she would one day join her parents in the lofty halls of high academia.

Through her parents' academic work, Sylvia was first confronted with the knowledge that humanity was not, had never been, the masters of this world. Expert theologians and occultists, her parents were often called upon to study the most obscure and exciting arachnological discoveries. Sylvia grew up being chastised for playing with centuries-old totems and fetishes, all while her parents tried to hide their smiles as she peppered them with questions. And it was one of these that eventually took them from her. A small tablet of rough black stone, carved with symbols from an unknown language. So easy to overlook, so inconsequential. So deadly. Even now, Sylvia wasn't sure what exactly had taken her parents. Creeping darkness, hoards of flies and locust, men wrapped as if by dreams, things from which her mind rebelled. Each blended into the next in her memories, hazy except for one thing. Her mother's voice, soft and afraid, begged her daughter to stop. And then, silence.

That silence haunted her as she was taken in by elderly aunts. Haunted her as she tried to forget that night, to move on. Haunted her as she studied, graduated and began her own research into the occult, the faiths of those now long since departed. Haunted her as she became a doctor and began earning a name for herself.

But then the Bakker case came along. Though the details were vague, what was there proved unsettling and familiar. Despite her best efforts, Sylvia found herself making arrangements, using the excuse of researching a new book to arrange a sabbatical. Because she simply had to know.

 

[Zillamaster55]

Name: John "Jay" McDonough
Age: 36
Ethnicity: Irish-American
Nationality: American
Occupation: Farmhand, Mechanic, Hunter, Part-Time Paranormal Investigator
Gender: Male
Orientation: Gay

Bio:
Born in Chicago to two Irish cobblers, John spent much of his childhood working beside his mother and father in their small cornerside shop. As he grew older, John soon began to take over responsibilities for his parents, who's wavering health finally gave way to tuberculosis when he was just 17. From then, John continued to run the store, keeping the thought of his parents close to him. He had close acquaintances assist him in the busy day to day, some of whom stayed with him for years.

Working diligently in the store or doing his damndest to get into one of the numerous prestigious colleges in Chicago, John had ambitions of becoming a big fashion designer, selling shoes and clothes across the nation, perhaps even the globe. All of that changed in 1917. His letter came, his number was called, and he stepped in line with thousands upon thousands of other men like him who were destined to go "Over There"....

...and "Over There" he went. Straight into some of the most brutal fighting the United States Marine Corps had seen yet. And despite the machine guns, bombs and artillery, John witnessed something far more horrifying than the carnage of man's inhumanity to man.

During a gas attack, John had rushed to man an unoccupied machine gun to counter the oncoming Hun. And then he saw it. A writhing, unfathomably motile ball of wriggling tentacles, shifting eyes and gnashing teeth slithered effortlessly through the yellowy gas, dragging several Germans into itself with ease.

That was the last thing he saw before waking up in a military hospital, blinded in his left eye. Immediately after this, upon returning home, John sold his store. He poured himself into his studies, drifting from library to library to try and understand just what the hell that thing was.

Soon, he became obsessed with the paranormal. Something had awoken inside him, his dreams filled with the same vision playing over and over again. Called once again to duty, John has set forth across the nation to try and find the truth.

 

[AriAriAbabwa]

Name: Alton Cooper

Age: 27

Ethnicity: Caucasian

Nationality: American

Occupation: Unemployed; former mafia member

Gender: Male

Orientation: Whatever you want it to be

Bio: Alton Cooper is ex-mafia, having escaped their grasp by the skin of his teeth and living under veils of secrecy. All anyone knows is that he's been in the good graces of higher-ups within the criminal underbelly and is not afraid to throw their names around. He rarely ever talks about himself; nobody knows about what he's gone through or any other place in his past. But if there's at least something anyone could find out, it's that he supposedly died four years ago...

Not everything is as it seems...
Stage Name: Doris O'Niell
Real Name: Alma Cooper

Age: 27

Ethnicity: Caucasian

Nationality: American

Occupation: Host of radio show

Gender: Female

Orientation: Whatever you want it to be

Bio: Alma Cooper, going by Doris O'Niell on the radio, is the host of the recently popular broadcast Thrilling True Tales With Doris O'Niell, which recounts real stories submitted by people about uniquely sensational situations they've experienced!

From playing up the Great War as if it was some exciting, adrenaline-filled journey to spinning tales of organized crime as a crazy joy ride, Alma's always had a knack for hooking an audience. It's the thrill that comes with Doris' broadcasts that gained a cult following.

Unknown to her listeners, a few of the stories told came from Alma herself; not everybody has an intensely gripping experience to share, so it seemed natural that she could go out of her way to land herself in sticky situations for the sake of content. As such, episodes like The Speakeasy Shooting or Caught Between Two Gangs have aired with astonishing success in viewership. None are the wiser that she implanted herself in those situations... or that she may have had a hand in escalating said situations for more thrilling content.

So when the radio came on and shared news that Martha Bakker was hiring a group of individuals in search of her father, Alma's instincts kicked in. A missing magnate that even authorities couldn't reach? Whoever or whatever was behind Theodore's disappearance must have been powerful—and dangerous. Alma couldn't count on anyone who turned up to share their experience with her radio, and so there was only one way to get a firsthand account of the search: to infiltrate join them.

Using her quick thinking, she reassumed one of her previous aliases, the one used for The Speakeasy Shooting: "Alton Cooper," supposedly ex-mafia who barely escaped by the skin of his teeth. With his knowledge of how the criminal world worked and "connections" to a mafia boss, he'd make for a good fit in the group, getting into the places that police wouldn't ever see.

And all she had to do was get a haircut, a change of clothing, and fix the pitch of her voice.

Spoiler: Other Pictures

 

[joshuadim]

• Name: Artem Bondarenko

• Age: 26

• Ethnicity: Ukrainian

• Nationality: Russian Empire (Formerly); Stateless

• Occupation: Soldier(Formerly); Vagrant

• Gender: Male

• Orientation: Straight

• Bio:
Born in a small, isolated village in the Kharkov Governorate region of Ukraine, Artem was raised in one of the last, tiny bastions of the old faith in the Slavic world. Rather than worshiping Christ and the Abrahamic God, he was taught the blessings and worship of Perun, Svarog, Veles, and the other gods of old. Having a tightly knit community such as the one he was born into meant that their traditions had survived and lasted throughout the centuries despite the proselytizing of their surroundings. And despite the attempts to bring God into their lives, the state left them well enough alone because of their isolation from the rest of the populace. This did not mean that they were immune to the whims of the Empire however as the Great War broke out.

Artem, being an able-bodied male of military age at only 18, was conscripted into the Russian Army and found himself thrust into the outside world that introduced itself with artillery, shellings, and death. And as calamity befell upon the Russian Empire, Artem was introduced to a new horror. On August 6, 1915 he was part of the garrison to defend against a German onslaught at Osowiec Fortress, and was befallen with chemical weapons introduced by the Germans as mustard gas and chlorine was sent drifting towards him and his comrades' positions. None were safe from the poisoned air as men coughed up their lungs, or had their skin melt, save for Artem as he cowered by himself, somehow having been spared from such a fate.

And once it passed, even though nearly everyone had been affected, they still had to fight the coming German offensive. And so Artem, being one of the few left capable of leading led the charge against the German lines. In what would be known as the "Attack of the Dead Men", the Germans fled in terror as the horrifically mangled and tortured bodies of Russian soldiers charged without fear or care for their own safety, buying time for Russian soldiers in the region to fall back from the 14 battalions that had been placed by the Germans.

Artem had been left scarred by the event, having seen good men be reduced to bloody messes falling apart from such horrible weapons, and yet he was the only one to never have to go through that. Why had he been spared from such a fate? Had something protected him? These questions straddled him with guilt and led him to drink to forget as best as he could. And as the Empire fell apart with civil war, Artem left to find greener pastures much to the dismay of family and friends back in his home village. He found himself traveling to the United States as an immigrant, taking on whatever odd jobs he could to barely stay afloat and fund his drinking.

As he had some minor fame from his experience in the Great War, this caught the attention of Martha Bakker as she extends an invitation to him for a job to find the missing Bakker. Needing money, it was inevitable that he would accept.

 

[FloweryMuffin]

• Name: Ira Hielscher

• Age: 23

• Ethnicity: German

• Nationality: American

• Occupation: Writer

• Gender: Female

• Orientation: Bisexual

• Bio: Ira and her twin Eien, having been born into a wealthy, only held the potential value they could bring if they were to be married off. Having been born blind, Ira had to constantly endure the resentment her parents harboured for her inherent lack of use. She made peace with as soon as she started realizing the other downside of blindness: the noises. The screeches. The things that lurked below the earth, below the very foundations of her home, within the walls of her room. She often wondered if the people she passed by on the street were all human, or if there were other things brushing past her daily.

Having been practically discarded as a member of higher society, but still having the means to do so, Ira led a reclusive lifestyle in which she took to writing her own experiences, the strange way in which she understood the world, with the help of her sister, whom acted as a scribe, taking the name of the Schiller brothers. The work they published was just enough to fund Ira’s newfound interest into the occult, in search for what could be a solution to end the dubious hallucinations, or at the very least gain an understanding of what it was that she kept hearing.

The Bakker Case having occurred, coincidentally, at the same time as the disappearance of Eien, Ira was quick to write an inquiry about the case Theodore Bakker to his daughter, Martha. With that began Ira’s involvement with the case.

 

[Vexumin]

• Name: Brian Demonte

• Alias: Kelepher

• Age: 21 years old

• Ethnicity: Italian

• Nationality: American

• Occupation: Private Investigator

• Gender: Male

• Orientation: Asexual

• Bio:

Brian Demonte is the adopted son of the renowned private eye, Kelepher. Before his adoption, Brian was a street kid, parents killed when he was still very young. He could still remember the smell and the red of their blood as it slowly spread across a cobbled street. His parents did not get justice for what had happened. The man responsible never caught. As a kid, Brian had some rather impressive skills of observation. He usually used it to get the attention of others or deduce where they were heading, if they were in a rush, and what he could do for them in a pinch to earn a bit of money.

His life changed when he encountered Kelepher. Didn't take Brian long to figure the man out. From the soot on the soles of the mans shoes and hints of it on his shirt, the gloves hanging from his coat pocket and the No.1 Folding Pocket Kodak camera currently held in the mans hand. Brian had always had an interest in cameras, but obviously never had the money for it. Kelepher had been walking from the direction for a recent house fire. A fire in which there was the death of a three person family. A man and his wife and kid perished in the fire.

Brian could still remember telling Kelepher about a good spot where he could get the photos developed and on the cheap. Brian had always gone there to learn from the man running the business, much to the fellows dismay at times. However, he does get a small finders fee when he refers someone to the shop. From then on, Kelepher had an eye on Brian, studying the kid until he made the offer to teach him.

In order to teach Brian the trade of a private eye, Kelepher needed him about at all times and he needed an excuse for why he was learning from the pro. The simplest option was to proclaim that he was his son. Kelepher had an issue with releasing personal information. His real name had all but slipped into nothingness with time. He didn't even have interest in romantic relations, believing them too invasive and a risk to his career. However, that was no ones knowledge but his own, so he could make the excuse that Brian was his bastard son, claimed after the death of his mother. An easy story to spin on their behalf.

For the following eight years, Brian had trained in a variety of skills in order to hone his perceptiveness. Whether it was shadowing Kelepher or even participating in an internship with a mortician in order to learn how to identify certain wounds and causes of death. There was so much that he had learned, but his greatest mystery came from the disappearance of his adoptive father. One day, Kelepher suddenly went missing.

The private eye had participated in a joint case with another private investigations company. A case that he never returned from. Kelepher had kept Brian in the dark about the details of the case, feeling that something had been off about the whole situation. News had arrived that even the investigator from the other company had mysteriously vanished. For the next few years after, Brian has solved his own cases, both simple and complex, juggling those with his personal investigation into the missing persons case of Kelepher, whose name and company he had thus inherited.

By 1922, a request had come for the renowned Private Investigator, Kelepher, and Brian would answer the request under his fathers name.​

 

[Humble1]

Name: Albert Leahman

Age: 36

Ethnicity: Ashkenazi Jew

Nationality: US, New York

Occupation: Bookseller, shopkeeper, forger, fence

Gender: Male

Orientation: Open to negotiations

Bio: Leahman describes himself as "just another Jewish kid from the shtetl," and that's certainly where he started. An immigrant from Russia at the age of four, Leahman ran the streets of New York City's Five Point district, even joining a gang affiliated with Monk Eastman for a time.

Eventually, one of Leahman's petty scores brought him into contact with a seller of used books. Leahman quickly realized that the market for rare (and forged) books was hot and that a wise young man could exploit it. He refashioned himself as a book hound; a scrounger of estate sales and auctions looking for anything in demand among collectors (or anything that could be doctored to look interesting.) He eventually joined a few cousins to open "Leahman Brothers Rare and Antique Books."

Leahman is a dapper, almost dandy man in a sharply pressed suit, polished shoes and a straw boater. His idol is Arnold Rothstein, whose motto may as well be, "do bad, but look good." He has a perpetual half-smile that tells you that he knows this is all a sham, and he knows that you know it's all a sham, but we all have parts to play, don't we?

Leahman's personal specialty is esoteric works - "esoteric" being the respectable, educated cousin of "occult". If you want a work of neo-platonic hokum with a side of ersatz kabbalah mysticism, there's no better source for ancient tomes that just happened to fall off the back of a truck than Albert Leahman. This naturally brought him into contact with Theodore Baker. Occult-minded collectors with deep pockets being exactly Albert's favorite sorts of people, they established a friendly working relationship. Theodore's disappearance has been a blow to Leahman (and his bottom line) and Albert is willing to put his normal business on hold to help find him.

 

[EdwardDewey98]

Nice cast of player characters thus far!

Update June 13 of 2022: We still have 2 open spots!

 

[EdwardDewey98]

Update June 16 of 2022: We have officially fill all slots for the RP, thank you everyone for showing interest in my little horror RP! The thread will be up when all character sheets are completed and posted here.

 

[Lillian_4]

•Name: Atlas Ward

• Age: 26

• Ethnicity: Irish-English

• Nationality: English

• Occupation: The Head Archivist,

• Gender: Male

• Orientation: Bisexual

• Bio: Atlas was born in Oxford to an English Literature professor for a father and a writer for a mother. The Wards are a rather extensive clan whose livelihoods have always been intrinsically intertwined with words, whether they are scholars, writers, booksellers, or even book restorationists. The Wards were descended from a well-known bard, who traveled extensively through Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and the Isle of Mann, during which he swore he had an encounter with the Fair Folks, managing to escape with his life, though no one would believe him. From that experience, he began to seek out those with similar stories of the unexplainable for evidence, passing this practice down to his descendants, hence creating the Archives, mandating all his descendants continue on as archivists. During the height of the Great Famine in the nineteenth century, the Ward Clan migrated to England with their Archive, where they would settle in Oxford, a city steeped in history and stories.

Atlas grew up knowing he would someday inherit the Archives, but possessing a curious temperament and incessant wanderlust, he used the excuse of collecting statements to travel as much as possible while slacking off his familial duties. Even during his years of schooling at university, he would take every break to visit a new location. However, this would all come to an end during the Great War, when he was conscripted to fight for England in 1916. During the war, he experienced the horrors of trench warfare, managing to move his way up from a mere foot-soldier to an intelligence officer thanks to his quick wits, allowing him to escape physically unscathed from the rest of the war.

After the war, he found he matured, finally taking his duties as an Archivist properly while finishing his schooling. Though he had not lost his wanderlust, and at the insistence of a good friend he made from his time in the Great Wars, he made his way for the states, intending to collect statements there and expand the reach of the Archives. Though he has collected many statements, he had never encountered the inexplicable, and he wondered if he ever would. Perhaps in the states, he finally would.

 

[Infab]

Dominik 'Dom' Kästner




Age: 30 (October 31st, 1892)

Ethnicity: Caucasian (German)

Nationality: German Empire (Formerly), German Republic (Formerly), American

Gender: Male

Orientation: Bisexual (Female Preference)

Occupation: Soldier (German Empire) (Formerly), Railroad Worker (Formerly), Motorcycle Messenger

Biography:

Dominik's past is a fairly common story, attributed to several other children born in 1890s Germany. His parents were factory workers, father working with steel while mother worked with textiles. It was a life he never wanted to be part of, as stuffy, hot factories never really appealed to the boy. Books captured his imagination far more. The works of Jules Verne, H. G. Wells, and other authors. Perhaps, if he hadn't been pulled into the path of the soldier, he might have became a writer and crafted tales of his own.

The devotion to one's country can sometimes blind men in various ways. It certainly blinded the young Dominik, as he enlisted to serve in the Imperial German army. And the consequences of his actions would soon present themselves to him in the form of the war to end all wars. From 1914 to 1918, Dominik fought. He killed. He bled. He watched friends die. And he even took part in the Kaiserschlacht as one of Germany's Sturmtruppen, an elite group of shock troopers. He fought hard. As hard as anyone really could fight. But it just wasn't enough.

Germany lost the war, its empire shattered and reduced to a fraction of what it once was. And with it went Dominik's patriotism. Germany was far from as mighty as he had believed it had been. In the aftermath, he couldn't find good paying work in his rapidly changing homeland. And it was unlikely that any of the neighboring countries of Europe would take him in as one of their own. So, he set his sights further to the west. The great 'land of opportunity', America. Despite having been an enemy before, they would welcome him with open arms. Hopefully.

The welcome wasn't warm. The war had a lasting impact on American sentimentality when it came to Germany, and often he was mistreated simply because he was German. But he eventually found work, laying rails for one of the many railroad companies in the US. But he soon found the work hellish. Low wages, long back-breaking hours, and with the continued mistreatment he had been plagued with since he first set foot on America's shores. He would soon quit the occupation, and moved back to New England. There, he found another job. Motorcycle messenger. Motorcycles he had been familiar with thanks to the Great War, so it wasn't hard to prove himself worthy enough for the job. And the men he'd be working for didn't seem to care that he was German. His luck was changing, or so he thought.

Fate seemed to have something a bit different in store for him.​

 

[Mook-LandStrider]

"Ad astra per aspera"​

•Name: Edelweiß Alphi Morganach
Age: 27
Ethnicity: Scotts German
• Nationality: German Empire (Formerly), British Empire, Mexico
• Occupation: Archeologist
• Gender: Female
• Orientation: Bisexual
• Bio:
Edelweiß has had a very interesting and constantly busy life. Born in Hamburg, Germany she didn’t stay there long. Her family consisting of a linguist mother and an archeologist father who for the last several years had been at the head of an expedition in Central America. During her early childhood she was raised in Scotland before moving to North America. At the age of 6 her father came up from central Mexico and stayed in the states for two years. Unknown at the time, her father had returned from his expedition to bring Theodore Bakker and Miskatonic Univeristy several objects he had found in Central America.


During this time Edelweiß had grown close to Martha, the two becoming childhood friends before she had to leave to join her father in Central America. This time, she stayed close to her father as the family set out for a basecamp where the expedition had uncovered an Aztec temple to a rather unknown minor deity. Over the following years Edelweiß had been an active participant in the dig, getting close and holding many of the artifacts. Much to her joy she found something she had become rather good at; glyphs. With the start of the Mexican Revolution the exploration had all but ground to a halt. It was in these slow years that rather than risk Edelweiß with the current situation her father sent her back to the states to study at Miskatonic University.


While at the university she had the ability to explore in depth many of the things she had discovered back in Central America. With the start of the Great War not much had changed on the American shores, the signs and tales of war far off, beyond her concern. What was her concern however was the attitude and feelings of her father. With the situation in Mexico continuing to escalate and the outbreak of war in Europe it was decided that she was to remain in school until she was finished with schooling and had time to prepare herself for what could be a different political landscape upon her return to Mexico.


Over the following years she remained at the university, studying and taking classes to pass the time. While she wasn’t exactly a party animal she did occasionally go out and sneak into a few bars and even once disguised herself as a man to get inside a bar that barred women from drinking with the men. This changed when the US entered the war, the men went away and all her fun seemed to go with it. Turning to other forms of entertainment she took up her fathers offer for an old friend to teach her how to defend herself. By the end of 1918 she was about as prepared as she could be for whatever lay ahead in their exploration. With the end of the Great War she finally set sail to rejoin her father in Central Mexico.


Luckily for everyone involved the expedition didn’t run into any issues and following the closure of the Mexican revolution everything was back running at full speed. With significant progress made things were beginning to look up for the 1920’s and as 1922 came around they had made a few discoveries, a few key ones that thanks to her schooling Edelweiß was able to recognize. Before she could continue her study on the glyphs she received a letter for her family. The news of Theodore's disappearance seemed to trouble her father but in the end it was decided that she would go in person as per her fathers wishes.

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[Firelie]

• Picture:
• Name: Masao Itō
• Age: 56
• Ethnicity: Japanese
• Nationality: Japan (Formerly)
• Occupation: Drunk (Formerly Vice-Admiral in Imperial Japanese Navy)
• Gender: Male
• Orientation: Heterosexual
• Bio: Born in 1866, Masao was born into a well off family known for its involvements in the Japanese military. His mother was distant and his father borderline abusive, but that wasn't that uncommon among households like this. Masao was whipped into shape to continue the family legacy as a navy admiral and he took to the role quite well. During his teenage years he took quite well to it as well. He had a very successful career, most of it spent as a Captain among the Japanese Ironclad Fusō. Masao fought on the side of the imperial Japanese army for thirty or so years, married, and had children.

It was in 1914 did Masao Itō witnessed something that would change his life. He was on the sea on the Fusō, embroiled in conflict against the german colonies. It was the middle of the night when a disturbance was reported to him. Something, it was the best he could describe it, rose from the waters. It was impossible to describe, and it stoked something primal and terrifying within him. Masao didn't know what happened that night. Everything felt jumbled from that point, and his crew felt the same way. There was a sharp uptake in insubordination and chaos on the ship. Defying orders, Masao headed back for Japan. The direct failure to follow orders was enough to earn him a discharge from the service, but the state of the crew only solidified the fact. The imperial government tried to push the event from the public eye by letting go of all the affected sailors and paying for their silence.

Masao's life changed drastically. Humiliated he was forced out of the family, disallowed from seeing his wife and kids, not that he cared much. The event at sea left him a broken man, drunk on the streets living paycheck to paycheck from the imperial Japanese government. He tried hard to push the event from his mind, but about three years into his drunken vagrancy he was contacted by a certain Theodore Bakker, interested in what he saw. Masao travelled across the sea to personally see the man and was paid handsomely for the retelling of his story. It was only a couple years later when he was contacted of the mans disappearance. Whether it was out of honor or chasing a fresh pay, Masao enlisted in the search to find him and once more travelled across the sea.