- Name: Dietrich Schiffer Kreuzotter, Erbprinz to the Duchy of Eppenkampf (formerly Hamburg)
- Age: 27
- Gender: Male
- Appearance: There is something cherubic in Dietrich's features, something youthful, a gentleness and softness that lingers in the face at least, the body a thing of lean, supple strength. Towheaded and blue-eyed, Dietrich seems the perfect model of the white supremacist's wet dream, about as Aryan as it gets. His features are even and symmetrical, his skin flawless and ruddy, his teeth white and straight. He should be handsome, and truth be told, there is a beauty there... but something about it is mannequin, lifeless, as though the nearness to absolute perfection makes any slight variance from the norm all the more glaring. Sure his eyes are a glorious blue but... but there's no light in them, no sparkle, no life... or perhaps just a bit too much gray in them so they don't shimmer properly, maybe it wouldn't be noticeable... if Dietrich only blinked a bit more. Sure his teeth are white and straight and his smile is perfect but... but aren't they just, perhaps a bit... too sharp, not filed, not garish or ghoulish, just not... right, or maybe that's just a light trick, maybe that's just the set of his jaw. Sure his movements are smooth, graceful even, like a gymnast or a dancer, but must he move about so quietly? Sure he's well proportioned enough, not too tall, not too short, not to broad, average without mediocrity, but... but if he were just a bit shorter, he'd be easier to ignore, his presence not quite so... robust. And if he were just a bit taller, if he'd only loom a bit, it'd be so much easier to justify the... the fear, the bile that rises in the back of the throat, the shrinking feeling that twists the gut into messy knots....
- Faction: Songbirds (Talon Cell OR Hammond Cell, if you care for his presence, Dietrich is versatile, a sharp tool and a dangerous one. Some would rather keep such an individual close, though its equally possible that one might rather apply the skills he offers to a particularly important mission. Dietrich's loyalty runs straight and true, even if the rationale behind it doesn't always seem... healthy.)
- Background: The Federal Republic of Germany died in the fires of the Cataclysm, just another casualty in a list that spanned billions. Yet as the embers cooled and the ashes settled, something startlingly atavistic arose in its wake. As the old world burned, the commercial conglomerates that dominated so much of the old German economy, died quick, painful deaths, and the balance of power shifted. In the new, harsh landscape, the agritech and biotech companies, old stand-bys and start-ups alike, found new might in local markets. No longer would they bow and scrape for federal funding, now rich and poor alike came with begging bowls in hands. No one needed coin in this new world, but all needed genetically modified crops that could thrive in blighted landscapes and a bevy of drugs to combat the plagues sweeping over Europe. Soon entrepreneurial zeal gave way to political ambition, and within a decade, the rotting corpse of Germania, already teaming with new life, had been divvied up into dozens of counties, duchies and petty kingdoms, each a corporate fiefdom. No one can quite recall when CEOs became 'dukes' and Directors became 'princes,' but within a century, a new aristocracy emerged, fat and thriving off of a greatly reduced population well ensnared in a myriad of interlocking dependencies. Within two hundred years of the old world's collapse, the people of these new German States more closely resembled their ancestors from a millennia past than they did the generation before the Cataclysm.
From this odd blending of deadly decadence and scientific zeal, a viper was born, an heir to a throne built on the products of test tubes and centrifuge machines, where the pipet was far more lethal than any number of swords. Dietrich doesn't speak of his times in the high places so much, fully aware that his current comrades would not find such reminisces... appealing. Only Talon knows the whole of that particular story, and only because Dietrich thought the telling of it... instructive, because that history informs his current skill set. Dietrich is quite the shot with a variety of firearms, because the memories of the 'Great Hunts' are still fresh, how to aim with calm precision in the midst of high speed chaos, how to hit a target regardless of distance, regardless of whether or not it ran or turned to fight, regardless of the pitiful sounds it made, the feeble begging and bartering. Yes... those old days were instructive indeed. Father did so love to hunt, with rifle, pistol or blade.
Dietrich proved an apt student, and absorbed every lesson the Germanic City States had to offer, the value of information and the art of acquiring it, how to separate the flamboyant and amateurish plotters from the true web weavers and threats, how to waltz to Wagner or automatic weapon's fire, how to identify the key logs and dependencies, the points of pressure and stress and how... how to press ever so gently, and make magic. By the time Venture Horizon's influence spread into Europe, the Germans welcomed them with open arms. Attachment to a mega corporation meant better resources, more contacts, more markets. Autonomy was a thing to be earned subtly, especially when there was no profit to me made in clamoring for independence. No, one didn't fight a distant and mighty king with pointless martial struggle, that was a waste of blood and a waste of bullets. No, one drew such a mighty figure into one's confidence, supported them, exalted them, fed their arrogance, and poisoned their wine. Decades of infighting among the Germanic States had given its masters an odd sort of social intelligence.
By this time, Dietrich was well into his young manhood, and found this brave new world full of opportunities for a clever young noble skilled in every act of duplicity imaginable and ready to get his hands a bit... bloody. Dietrich's work in support of his father and the family company earned him a reputation of sorts, and lead first to work for the Germanic states as a whole, and in time for the great Venture Horizon itself. Any sensible corporate overlord could appreciate the boy's knack for disassembling worrisome organizations, alliances and terror cells. He was a hound of sorts, given a task and the set off to do what came naturally. Within a year, word of the dead-eyed company man had spread through continental Europe like a sort of folk tale, a story of a cleaner, an operator, a ghost, a viper with a mile-wide smile....
Perhaps Dietrich would still be in Venture Horizon's employ if the dice, had fallen in ever so slightly a different manner. But as fate would have it, it did not take long for Dietrich's work to bring him into contact with a person he would come to find intensely interesting, someone he would come to love.... Oh not the rutting, sensual sort of lust that often apes as love. No... not a physical thing at all really, after all, the young woman seemed more or less as fuckable as the sun, but just as glorious. Dietrich had seen a hundred men live and die for this cause or that, but only this once, had he met someone who truly seemed to enjoy her work, a fellow artist. She was little more than a name in a number of documents at first, a terrorist, but one who fought under a dozen different banners, her only steady allegiance seemingly to violent, immediate change. She was a dancer, her ballroom all the world and her symphony the anguished cries of the powerful and self-satisfied. She was Durga, she was Kali, violence incarnate, and for the first time... Dietrich could dig it.
So he died.
It was simple enough to arrange, really, a bit of rather common subterfuge to erase himself from Venture Horizon's immediate notice. The family was a bit more difficult to placate, but Father was blessed with an abundance of children, and the thought of a black sheep inheriting the family's holdings did inspire a bit of healthy competition among his rather lackluster siblings, a few stabbings yes, but over all a net positive. From there on, it was a simple matter of sevens. Seven weeks to track his new goddess' location, seven days to infiltrate her camp, seven hours to subvert her guard, all to enjoy a simple, private seven minute conversation. In that seven minutes, Dietrich won himself a place among his idol's entourage with a dowry like none other: the dossiers, whereabouts, and contact points for every militant, dissident group in Eurasia, courtesy of Venture Horizon's Intelligence Department.
For nearly seven years, Dietrich has served his goddess, bearing no official title yet always serving with the slightest simper, as though all of this were some private joke between he and his beloved, bloody zeitgeist, his Valkyrie, his angel of death, his Talon. Dietrich is hers and hers alone, her chief intelligence office, her grand inquisitor, her spy and soldier, her personal, smiley, creepy ************. To this day, his motivations are the subject of much debate among the faithful. What inspired his conversion? Boredom, disillusionment, some new found noble purpose? Perhaps it's as simple as 'why not?' Perhaps artistry of a certain sort begets further artistry? Perhaps they should ask fewer questions....
- Personality: "Come into my parlor," said the spider to the fly, "Come into my boudoir," crooned the snake with mouth spread wide....
"You wish to know me, mein fruend? Very well, do you know what my favorite thing is, in all the world? You, the smell of you, the feel of you. Your vitality, your beauty, the sound of your laughter, seeing you reach the greatest heights of your potential, seeing you surpass all limitations and boundaries, seeing you dance on the bones of your former gods and masters, seeing you victorious! Victorious over them, victorious over me! I love you, that pathetic mewling cry you make as my hands peel away the rot from you, as they show you the magic that can be made with sewing needles, wire, and a strong enough battery; the bitter, powerless tears; the desperate, panting breaths; the screams of utter, abject terror.... I'm not saying the sight of you pissing yourself in the most acute sort of horror arouses me, that would be weird.... But my, my it does come rather close"
"But mein kleiner bruder, do you know what I hate most, more than anything? You, that moment where you cease having anything useful or amusing to say and yet your lips continue to move, your sense of security, safety, your desire to stagnate and wallow in your own mediocrity, your tendency to always choose the safest path, your pride, your smug self-assurance... all of these things and so much more... make me yearn to rip your throat out with my teeth.... Heh, but there are better ways, more reasonable ways, slower ways to deal with such things. It's always about delaying that utterly sublime moment of gratification, makes the release all the sweeter... thank you."
"Do such words frighten you, disturb you, repulse you? It matters little really, you do not have it in you to touch the place where I live, it is not for you, does not belong to you. If the lion cares little little for the opinions of the sheep, how much less does the viper care for the quibbles of the mouse? We do so enjoy watching you scurry though, so content in the knowledge of your own righteous self-importance, so blissfully unaware of how quickly, how painfully it could all end. Yet I cannot name you worthless, you are my universe after all, mein schicksal... what other purpose does the predator serve than to better the stock of the prey? So let us dance, and sharpen one another, kleiner bruder. Go and scurry so sweetly."
