The German government Overman team, formed of Overmen from Germany, Austria and Hungary. Its members were :
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Born in 1857, the leader of the German Overman team, fanatically loyal to Germany and the Kaiser. His powers included superhuman strength, speed and toughness as well as the ability to generate powerful bolts of electricity. He was a Dusseldorf steelworker whose powers manifested during an accident in late 1881. He immediately volunteered himself to the German government, and was soon appointed head of the new German Overman team, the Kaisers Guard. Although a fairly good leader with a sound knowledge of tactics, his arrogance and over-confidence occasionally caused problems, although his fanatical loyalty to Germany always stood him in good stead. He served his nation well and to the best of his abilities through two world wars, but like most of the rest of the Kaisers Guard he died in the Russian nuclear bombings of 1917.
In his prime Ubermensch was almost an idealised German, with short-cropped blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. Although he had no outstanding physical attractiveness something about him made him stand out from a crowd. He was married when his powers manifested, but as time went on and he devoted more of his life to the Guard, his marriage gradually deteriorated and although he and his wife never separated they lived almost totally separate lives by the end of WWI. By 1917 he was in his 60's, but still hugely strong and fit, having lost none of his presence and little of his stamina.
Ubermensch in Champions terms.
Born near Vienna in 1866. Her parents were staid farming types, but Elspeth always wanted more than that, and in 1880, at the age of 14, she ran away from home, in part in order to avoid a marriage she didn't want to the son of nearby farmer. She joined up with a travelling circus and soon became a magicians assistant and part of the lion-taming act. In late 1882 one of the lions ran wild while she was outside the cage, but the lion-tamer himself was still inside. Seeing the lion maul the lion-tamer and desperately wanting to do something for him, Elspeth suddenly felt some power rising within her and in front of the whole audience a beam of light shot from her, blinding the lion for long enough that the lion-tamer could be rescued. The show ground to a sudden halt, and as the crowd left the circus boss approached her with ideas on how she might use her new powers in the show. Two days later men from the German government arrived and asked her to join the Kaisers Guard. After talking to them for a while Elspeth agreed and sadly left the circus behind. However, she looked forward to her new life - she joined the Kaiser's Guard because it seemed a fun and interesting thing to do, not out of any great patriotic feeling. Originally she was fairly fun-loving, over-confident with a tendency to show off. As time went by and she had to suffer the Guards quasi-military discipline she became more subdued and serious. By the time WWI started in 1895 it was obvious that she was not aging. She was appalled at what she saw and had to do in the war and by 1897 she had become very disillusioned with the German government and attempted to desert. She was found and arrested by the rest of the Guard and tried for treason in a court-martial. After being found guilty she was sentenced to death, but on consideration her sentence was commuted to lifetime service in the Kaisers Guard. To prevent further escape attempts she was fitted with an explosive collar designed by Der Gehirn. With no choice she continued to serve in the Guard, but now she was an outsider, and all the joy had gone out of her life. After the war she was re-assigned to the German secret service, and worked in German Russia, again having to things she found repellant. Records indicate that she often suffered serious physical and sexual abuse at the hands of her 'keepers' during this time, and photographs show her becoming more drawn, haggard and apparently dead inside. Being a Roman Catholic she apparently did not consider suicide a way out. In 1915 WWII began, and she was assigned to the front, where she fought with an almost maniacal fury, apparently attempting to passively commit suicide. Unfortunately by this time she was too powerful to die easily. Then the Russians dropped their nuclear warheads, and at last she was freed by death.
Originally Lichtkranz was an attractive, if not very striking, girl of about 18 with long dark-blonde hair (usually tied back in a ponytail or plait) and grey eyes. Her basic appearance did not change much with time, but her general attitude and demeanour gradually became more and more despairing with time until her death in 1917. Her powers consisted to the ability to generate bright light as damaging lasers (either a single large bolt or a number of smaller bolts), or to temporarily blind a single opponent or people in a small area about herself. She could also illuminate an area about herself and was very fast and exceptionally difficult to hit in combat. Study of her powers before her death eventually led German scientists to the invention of the laser.
Lichtkranz in Champions terms.
An ex-policeman with fire powers. Born in the countryside near the Swiss border in 1850 Erich joined the Police at the age of eighteen, having a fairly successful career and rising to the rank of detective. He married a girl from his home town in 1869 and they had two children together over the next few years. He fully approved of the formation of the German Reich and gave it his full support. In 1881 he was involved in the case of an arsonist who was blackmailing farmers with the threat of fires. He set a trap for the arsonist, and laid in wait with a number of other policemen. When the trap was sprung they were horrified to discover that the arsonist was in fact an Overman with intrinsic fire powers. However, it was now too late to back out, so the Police attacked. They were decimated. Wanting to make an example the Overman grabbed Erich and flew up with him, apparently to drop him from a great height. However, Erich continued to fight, and managed to get in a lucky shot which killed the Overman. As he plummetted to the ground Erich thought he was about to die, but he felt the Overmans powers somehow leave the Overman and enter him, and flew safely down to the ground. He explained what had happened to his disbelieving superiors, and they called in the government, who invited him to join the Kaisers Guard. He willingly accepted, and joined under the codename of Fuerschwert (Firesword) early in 1882. He served the Guard well during WWI, although he was badly injured several times, and his detective skills made him a valuable asset during the German occupation of European Russia. Despite being in his sixties, he also served well during WWII and like the rest of the Kaisers Guard died in the Russian nuclear attacks of 1917.
Erich was an attractive, striking man of middle height and a slender build with dark hair and brown eyes. His powers consisted of an ability to generate huge gouts of flame tens of meters long, flight at up to several hundred kph and an almost complete immunity to fire of all kinds. He was also very fast and agile.
Feurschwert in Champions terms.
A psionic with healing powers and the ability to walk through walls, Hannah was born in 1866 in the city of Dortmund, the only surviving child of poor working-class parents. After suffering a very deprived childhood, in late 1881 she began to get the feeling she was reading people thoughts, and soon realised that she actually was. She also seemed to be getting much cleverer and strong-willed. Her father, a brutal, money-grabbing man, soon saw what was going on, and decided to make money out of these new abilities. He effectively sold her to a group of criminals who planned to use her for her own ends, but when they arrived to take her away, she quickly saw what was going on and ran off, unexpectedly finding she could walk through walls at the same time. She didn't go far, but hid, and returned after the criminals had gone. She found her parents almost dead on the floor, and as she bent over them in grief, suddenly another of her powers, the ability to heal, appeared and restored them to full health. Her father was enraged at what had happened, but after a few abortive attempts didn't try to take it out on Hannah or her mother. Hannah thought about what she should do; it was obvious these criminals wouldn't leave her alone and other people might try the same kind of thing. She decided to join the Kaisers Guard, and going to a nearby military base volunteered herself. After a small amount of bureaucracy was gone through, to get the government to accept her conditions that her parents be looked after, Hannah joined the Guard under the codename Geisterbild (Phantom). She served them loyally and well, as both the resident psionic and as a healer (she spent a lot of her off-time healing patients in hospitals) through two world wars, and died with the rest of the Kaisers Guard in the Russian nuclear attacks of 1917 (although she was not with the main army groupings she was in a field hospital which was caught in the blast radius). The only regret she had in her life was finding Lichtkranz after she deserted in 1897; when she saw what happened to her former friend in the years afterward she wished she had let her go, and never forgave herself for not doing so and never had a chance to make it up to her.
Geisterbild was short and fairly attractive but quite muscular with almost white-blonde hair and dark blue eyes. She was about 5'10" tall. She had a great respect for human life, always fought honourably (even when the foe did not deserve it) and had a dislike of crowds, as large numbers of stray thoughts tended to distract her.
Geisterbild in Champions terms.
Born in 1831 in Dresden, by 1882 Andrea was a widowed lower-class housewife, living alone with all her children long-since moved away. In the autumn of 1882 she began to suffer from what she thought was some kind of illness. As the winter progressed she became worse and worse until, one day in January 1883 while out shopping for food she had some kind of attack in a crowded street, frothing and ranting and completely losing control of her physical shape, changing into a series of monstrous forms for several minutes before collapsing. She woke up in hospital a week later, having suffered a series of these attacks, each diminishing in intensity while she lay unconscious. She felt fine, and seemed completely recovered from her ailment. Sitting beside her bed was a government representative. When she had regained coherence the representative told her the government would like her to join the Kaisers Guard and offered a number of useful benefits to aid in her decision. She considered for a while and then accepted. She practised her Overman abilities, discovering their limits and capabilities. She surprised observers by how calmly she took the whole thing, as though there was nothing to it; in fact she was just hiding her emotions behind a facade of calmness. She joined the Kaisers Guard proper in mid-1883, although because of her powers her presence was never too obvious. Andrea took the codename of Der Wind as her powers made as changeable as the wind. She served as a loyal member of the Guard for nearly thirty years. In WWI and its aftermath her powers proved very useful to the German government, especially in counter-insurgency work. Unfortunately, in 1911 she was ambushed in German-held Russia by a group of terrorists later identified as Bolsheviks and despite her powers sufficient force was brought against her that she was killed. Her death brought about one of the biggest anti-terrorist operations the Germans ever mounted, but despite that little more than rumours about her killers ever surfaced. She was buried with full military honours in Berlin.
Andrea in her unshapechanged form was a plain, care-worn woman, apparently in her fifties. Shapechanged she could appear to be almost anything. She was not a particularly social person, apparently satisfied merely to serve the German government usefully. She never complained and always followed orders.
Der Wind in Champions terms.
Born to a lower-class farming family near Regensburg in 1839, Günter showed promise at school, and despite his disadvantageous social background managed to gain entrance to medical school, qualifying as a doctor after years of studious work. After putting in time as an intern at a hospital, he returned to his home village and set up a medical practise there, marrying a local girl and eventually producing two children. He served as an Army medic in the Franco-Prussian war, developing a deep dislike for the French during this time. When all the various German states unified to form a proper German state Günter fully approved, as this was obviously the first step on a path towards German supremacy. In 1881 Günter first heard about Overmen, and was certain that they would aid in Germanies inevitable rise to power. Early in 1882 Günter was caught in an exceptionally heavy snowfall while on his way to visit a patient and lost his way. As it got dark he became certain he was going to die, and as the cold crept in and he started to become unconscious he felt a change come over himself. Some time later he woke up, and found that he had somehow changed into a hard black form which didn't feel the cold at all. Carefully he returned home, and when he got within sight of the village he realised he couldn't go home like this - they'd think he was some kind of monster. He strained to change back, and after a few minutes felt himself revert back into his human form. He made his way home, and after briefly telling his wife what had happened telegraphed the government, volunteering to join the Kaisers Guard. Several days later some people from the German government arrived to test his claim. In the intervening time Günter had been testing his new abilities, and was able to impress the government representatives with his strength and ability to shapechange. They signed him up on the spot, and the family soon moved the Berlin. Günter served the Kaisers Guard well in WWI, earning an Iron Cross. Although well into his seventies when WWII began he insisted on fighting and after a few battles, upon returning back to normal just after Christmas in 1915 his heart gave out and he died. He was buried in Berlin with full military honours.
In unshapechanged Overman form Günter was a 5'9" tall eyeless, noseless black humanoid with vast strength and resistance to damage and the ability to effectively ignore the outside environment. In his normal human form Günter was a completely average middle-aged man with slightly balding light brown hair, pale blue eyes, spectacles and a picky, pedantic manner. In general Günter was small minded, unimaginative and bigoted (especially against the French), although he followed orders well.
Karbonat in Champions terms.
A super-genius, responsible for many technological advances; was a young professor at the University of Berlin when suddenly had a massive boost in brainpower. Before he was fairly specialised in physics, but afterwards he soon mastered almost every field of physical science (he always harboured an irrational prejudice against the 'soft' sciences, including biology). His innovations soon came to the attention of the German government, and they offered him almost anything he wanted if he would work for them. He gladly accepted.
Over time he also became involved in politics and was responsible for ousting Bismark and also a lot of Germanies colonial policies. He was the only member of the Kaisers Guard to survive the Russian nuclear attacks of 1917, mainly because he was in Berlin at the time. As he grew older he retired somewhat from political life, concentrating on his studies in exile in Paris. He taught the young Albert Zerstoiten, and died of cancer (often suspected to have been induced by Zerstoiten) soon afterwards. Always ruthless, analytical and very loyal to Germany.
Der Brain in Champions terms.
Born in 1841 in a fishing village on the shores of the Baltic, Werner grew up the son of a fisherman and when he old enough followed his father out on the boats. In time he took over the family business from his father, married and had several children, all of them sons. In 1886 his boat, along with many others, was caught out in a huge winter storm and sank. However, rather than drowning Werner found himself somehow breathing the water. Desperate to find his sons, who were also on the boat, he found he was also able to swim at huge velocity. Although he found all his sons, by the time he reached them all but one was dead. He sped back to shore with all his sons, then went back and tried, unsuccessfully, to find the rest of his men. Taking his sons back to his home, he then left again but was not able to save any of the rest of his crew. The next day he found the remains of his boat, and found he was now strong enough to raise it and bring it home as well. Shortly after two of his sons were buried, government agents approached Werner, inviting him to join the Kaisers Guard. At first he refused, but as he got over his grief he saw where his duty lay, and agreed to join under the codename See Wolf. Although he had occasional doubts and arguments about what the Guard should be doing, Werner served them well. In WWI he was responsible for almost single-handedly capturing the entire Russian Royal Family as they attempted to flee to France, and he often assisted German Customs in apprehending smugglers of contraband, especially into the German-occupied parts of Russia. With the coming of WWII Werner was assigned to assist the German Navy where he was killed in action after being barraged with torpedos.
Werner was a huge, muscular bearded man with brown hair and eyes and a deep booming voice. Because of the nature of his powers in time he often operated away from other members of the Guard, but fought in a large number of land combats when it was necessary.
Seewolf in Champions terms.
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The uniform epaulettes signify both the member of the Guard and their position within it. Those members of the Kaisers Guard who wish to keep their true identities a secret also wear a black domino mask. Those who wish to wear a sword or gun attach these to their belt. |
