Lead a youth with superhuman powers and all-too-human problems in the world of our interwar Germany.
REVENGE: An interwar Germany superhuman quest
- Thread starter DanBaque
- Start date
- Historic
- Created
- Status
- Ongoing
- Watchers
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- Recent readers
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- Threadmarks
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Statistics (8 threadmarks, 8.3k words)
User Total DanBaque 8 -
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PROLOGUE: ONE (BIRTH)
New
DanBaque
Let's Have Fun
- Location
- Occupied Catalonian Countries
- Pronouns
- He/Him
REVENGE
an interwar Germany superhuman quest
an interwar Germany superhuman quest
The wreckage of total war is not a nice place to be. It is even worse when it is that of the losing side. But mostly people choose to keep going, because it remains better than the alternative.
They continue to live, to struggle, to love. Or, at least, to marry. With pensions still very much insecure and weak, it remains a burden on children's backs to support their parents. Marriage is the key to future economic safety, to say nothing of the present.
In this world it was that a man and a woman found, if not love, companionship. They had made the choice to live together, and to bring forth more life into the world. They are called Hans Kraft and Greta Bauer. They are your parents. What blessing did you give upon them, that they might raise, in the year 1913!
Your father was called on soon after your birth, and the war's penury made you sickly. Never rich, your family struggled and so did you. Those four years left you a tad weaker than you would've been, less physically imposing. The following five years were hardly better.
But we are getting ahead of ourselves. In you, as in many, was hidden the seed of brilliance. You might shine more than others. Or perhaps you will have another destiny behind you. One dark and hushed, feared and obscure.
Either way, that destiny will need a name and title. You will be known, though your story has only just begun.
You were raised first by your mother, and your parents' parents. But that was a sad tale. Your mother had little time to give you, with shifts increasing at her factory's work and her exhaustion always palpable. Your grandparents died one by one, so that when you reached the age of seven you only had your parents. Your father, who you had so rarely seen in the first four years of life, returned dour and unhappy. Your mother chided him, and they quarreled, but reconciled over shared passions.
They turned to drink.
Your life turned grey. You lived lonely, half a wild street child, half afraid at home. Hans and Greta had become neglectful from their shared joy, and cared only occasionally about you. When they cared, it was often with shouts and clips of the hand. You learned to be wary of the belt, and though you ought to have been inured to it, you shied from violence.
Primary school was your grand opportunity. Newly free, thanks to the republic, you entered it at age six with eager eyes. It bullied out your hopes and dreams. The teachers proved more willing to use their switch than your parents their fists, and your fellows jeered at you. Even here you were the odd one out, the ratty one who could best be picked on.
You fought, of course. It was inevitable that you would try force against your harassers. But this was not just a generation of cowards picking on the weakest. It was a generation raised by those drunk on violence. Even those sober still remained hungover, and grasped it freely. You were badly beaten, time and again, and learnt that resistance was futile. It was easier and less painful if you ignored it and turned your head, if you let them have their way.
But you never gave up hope. That, you refused to. And you were right not to, in the end.
Who is that weak, suffering child? Where do you come from, resilient beast?
[] Plan J
- [] A boy
- [] Joachim Kraft
-[] Card-carrying SPD members, of protestant faith
- [] The Ruhr
[] Plan H
- [] A girl
- [] Helmine Kraft
- [] Devout catholics, politically liberal
- [] Munich
[] Write-in
- [] Gender
- [] Name
- [] Parents' upbringing
- [] Region
Hello everyone and welcome to a superhuman quest set in interwar Germany! The intention with this is to be a heavily character-centered quest with some basic story beats planned out but not decided and of course heavily dependent on votes. It may be a little until the superpowers arrive, but rest assured they will, with the end of the prologue.
I am running this quest on both SB and SV as a test, counting votes all together. Please feel free to ask any questions you want! This first vote will probably run about 24 hours.
Oh a new quest
Theaxofwar
Definitely not a Bunny Cat in disguise.
- Location
- Standing right behind you
[X] Plan H
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[X] Plan Z
- [X] A girl
- [X] Zelda Kraft
- [X] Jewish, politically Left wing
- [X] Berlin
- [X] A girl
- [X] Zelda Kraft
- [X] Jewish, politically Left wing
- [X] Berlin
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I hope this is okay as a write in
- Location
- A place
[X] Plan X
- [X] Girl
- [X] Helga
- [X] Jewish, Politically Liberal
- [X] Berlin
- [X] Girl
- [X] Helga
- [X] Jewish, Politically Liberal
- [X] Berlin
DanBaque
Let's Have Fun
- Location
- Occupied Catalonian Countries
- Pronouns
- He/Him
It's fine yeah, though it'd come with everything involving it in the period, and it's a little amusing to see an enby with the name 'Christian' writing-in a Jewish option.
Well, no spoilers, but the character will be 18 in 1931.
Last edited:
- Pronouns
- They/Them
I mean it's ironic for a reason
[X] Golden Left Hand
- [X] Male
- [X] Jacob Kraft
- [X] Protestant , Politically right
- [X] Munich
I think by the time we reach 18 the Nazi rise to power would be very hard to stop with the SPD being handicapped by Stalin wanting the KPD to cooperate with the Nazis to ensure Germany either is unstabilize or a Soviet puppet.
This will probably get me crucified by the Community but I think we should get our guy to join a right wing party and throw our support on a sane leader and try to sap as many of Hitlers supporters as possible into our camp so that when Hindenburg decided to pisk the new Chancellor for Germany they would instead choose the one we threw our support in.
(But I am willing to support other choices)
- [X] Male
- [X] Jacob Kraft
- [X] Protestant , Politically right
- [X] Munich
I think by the time we reach 18 the Nazi rise to power would be very hard to stop with the SPD being handicapped by Stalin wanting the KPD to cooperate with the Nazis to ensure Germany either is unstabilize or a Soviet puppet.
This will probably get me crucified by the Community but I think we should get our guy to join a right wing party and throw our support on a sane leader and try to sap as many of Hitlers supporters as possible into our camp so that when Hindenburg decided to pisk the new Chancellor for Germany they would instead choose the one we threw our support in.
(But I am willing to support other choices)
- Location
- Reno
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[X] Plan Z
PROLOGUE: TWO (CHILDHOOD)
New
DanBaque
Let's Have Fun
- Location
- Occupied Catalonian Countries
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[] Plan H
- [] A girl
- [] Helmine Kraft
- [] Devout catholics, politically liberal
- [] Munich
YOU, Helmine Kraft, are six when you enter school in 1919. You are fourteen when you leave it in 1927. The eight years in between are as formative to you as they are to all your companions, but you only share part of your experiences with the rest.
Living in Munich, you of course live through the chaos of the commune and the bloodletting afterwards. But what most strikes you is the economic uncertainty of the years following, the constant fear for work or food, the inflationary crisis. You are too young to understand why inflation is ultimately a good policy that the people of Germany agree with, that resistance to the occupation of the Rhineland is necessary. You only understand that money has become a plaything, but meat remains scarce.
This hardly helps you grow big and strong, and your fellow girls tease you for it at school. But you are hardly a complete wallflower, and you do find friends. You giggle with them after Sunday Mass and play with them in the afternoons. More often than not, you search them out rather than remain at home, where your parents have grown worse.
It is a sad thing of the time that corporal punishment is normalised and agreed with, even by the most loving parents. But you do not have that luxury. While Hans and Greta both increasingly seem to care for each other as friends and partners, you are an odd one out in the family. You do not know why, as a child, and indeed it is ultimately irrational. As the years pass, and no further children come, labor and expectations are thrust upon you. No warmth comes with them.
With time, you learn better than to rebel. You will snap, or plot, but you are a child. Once you run away, only to be brought back by hunger. You are belted thoroughly for that. You begin to look forward to adulthood, that inner hope of yours never quite dying. Perhaps in part this comes from your parents' ideals.
Much as they are self-evidently worthless to you, the hope of truth and happiness and freedom to live remains ingrained.
When you are ten, you suffer another blow. Having finished grundschule (elementary school), you and your friends are split up. The increasing solidity of political catholicism in Bavaria convinces your parents to send you to a religious school for your advanced studies, one that only some of them come with you to.
There you learn a lot. The first thing you learn is discipline. No matter how much you disliked your past school-teachers, they are amateurs compared to the nuns. Perhaps that is in part due to belief: these women hold their educational mission firmer to their hearts, and live in such cloisters as would terrify you.
Other girls, your fellows, still rebel. They play behind the teachers' backs, daydream, and act out. You do not. Your spirit is ebbing. You have come to wonder if there is really anything more than submission to God and authority both.
As you are learning what is proper for a wife to do, household tasks, and theological matters, your father gets into an accident. He is made lame for months, and you are pulled out of school. The money is needed at home, and so are your arms. You take up odd-jobs, children's jobs, and slave over your ungrateful father when at home. When you return to school, your friends and classmates have graduated and you feel alone.
Your last year in school is worse than all the rest. You have been pushed further behind your companions, though most of them you will not really miss. You have been pushed into uncertainty, and surrender again to authority. You obey the nuns and pray each night for a way out.
Then you graduate. The future is all before you, open but narrow. There is only one choice before you, and that is marriage. But that is for the future.
First, the present. In your childhood, now changing to adulthood, you evolved and became a true person, a union of id, ego, and superego. And you learnt something about yourself.
What path did your journey take you towards most?
[] Education: With all your hard work, you excelled in your studies. You made friends with swots, and talked to each other about the strangest of matters- literature, algebra, Max Plank.
[] Sociability: Thrown into the deep end, you learnt to act. Perfect before the teachers' eyes, you held forth a charisma that found you hangers-on always and invoked the jealousy of many.
[] Physicality: So what if you were small? You could be fast, you could be sharp, you could jump and skip and run with the best of them. In these modern days even women can be athletes, and perhaps you could be one.
Who made butterflies crop up in your belly, and cause you to blush at the oddest of times?
[] Boys, when you see them sweating at work and playing with balls, speaking only rarely and oft chaperoned.
[] Girls, so innocent and so wicked at turns, laughing with you at a joke or kneeling beside you at prayer.
[] No one. Frivolity? Another aspect of your strangeness? Chasteness is a virtue you have no trouble with.
5 votes on SB and 4 on SV for an overall majority for 'Plan H', though 'Plan Z' might've won given another day, who knows. Had some early time so wrote just now. Feel free to vote for the options jointly or separately. Hope to write again in about 26 hours, and if not perhaps the day after.
- [] A girl
- [] Helmine Kraft
- [] Devout catholics, politically liberal
- [] Munich
YOU, Helmine Kraft, are six when you enter school in 1919. You are fourteen when you leave it in 1927. The eight years in between are as formative to you as they are to all your companions, but you only share part of your experiences with the rest.
Living in Munich, you of course live through the chaos of the commune and the bloodletting afterwards. But what most strikes you is the economic uncertainty of the years following, the constant fear for work or food, the inflationary crisis. You are too young to understand why inflation is ultimately a good policy that the people of Germany agree with, that resistance to the occupation of the Rhineland is necessary. You only understand that money has become a plaything, but meat remains scarce.
This hardly helps you grow big and strong, and your fellow girls tease you for it at school. But you are hardly a complete wallflower, and you do find friends. You giggle with them after Sunday Mass and play with them in the afternoons. More often than not, you search them out rather than remain at home, where your parents have grown worse.
It is a sad thing of the time that corporal punishment is normalised and agreed with, even by the most loving parents. But you do not have that luxury. While Hans and Greta both increasingly seem to care for each other as friends and partners, you are an odd one out in the family. You do not know why, as a child, and indeed it is ultimately irrational. As the years pass, and no further children come, labor and expectations are thrust upon you. No warmth comes with them.
With time, you learn better than to rebel. You will snap, or plot, but you are a child. Once you run away, only to be brought back by hunger. You are belted thoroughly for that. You begin to look forward to adulthood, that inner hope of yours never quite dying. Perhaps in part this comes from your parents' ideals.
Much as they are self-evidently worthless to you, the hope of truth and happiness and freedom to live remains ingrained.
When you are ten, you suffer another blow. Having finished grundschule (elementary school), you and your friends are split up. The increasing solidity of political catholicism in Bavaria convinces your parents to send you to a religious school for your advanced studies, one that only some of them come with you to.
There you learn a lot. The first thing you learn is discipline. No matter how much you disliked your past school-teachers, they are amateurs compared to the nuns. Perhaps that is in part due to belief: these women hold their educational mission firmer to their hearts, and live in such cloisters as would terrify you.
Other girls, your fellows, still rebel. They play behind the teachers' backs, daydream, and act out. You do not. Your spirit is ebbing. You have come to wonder if there is really anything more than submission to God and authority both.
As you are learning what is proper for a wife to do, household tasks, and theological matters, your father gets into an accident. He is made lame for months, and you are pulled out of school. The money is needed at home, and so are your arms. You take up odd-jobs, children's jobs, and slave over your ungrateful father when at home. When you return to school, your friends and classmates have graduated and you feel alone.
Your last year in school is worse than all the rest. You have been pushed further behind your companions, though most of them you will not really miss. You have been pushed into uncertainty, and surrender again to authority. You obey the nuns and pray each night for a way out.
Then you graduate. The future is all before you, open but narrow. There is only one choice before you, and that is marriage. But that is for the future.
First, the present. In your childhood, now changing to adulthood, you evolved and became a true person, a union of id, ego, and superego. And you learnt something about yourself.
What path did your journey take you towards most?
[] Education: With all your hard work, you excelled in your studies. You made friends with swots, and talked to each other about the strangest of matters- literature, algebra, Max Plank.
[] Sociability: Thrown into the deep end, you learnt to act. Perfect before the teachers' eyes, you held forth a charisma that found you hangers-on always and invoked the jealousy of many.
[] Physicality: So what if you were small? You could be fast, you could be sharp, you could jump and skip and run with the best of them. In these modern days even women can be athletes, and perhaps you could be one.
Who made butterflies crop up in your belly, and cause you to blush at the oddest of times?
[] Boys, when you see them sweating at work and playing with balls, speaking only rarely and oft chaperoned.
[] Girls, so innocent and so wicked at turns, laughing with you at a joke or kneeling beside you at prayer.
[] No one. Frivolity? Another aspect of your strangeness? Chasteness is a virtue you have no trouble with.
5 votes on SB and 4 on SV for an overall majority for 'Plan H', though 'Plan Z' might've won given another day, who knows. Had some early time so wrote just now. Feel free to vote for the options jointly or separately. Hope to write again in about 26 hours, and if not perhaps the day after.
- Pronouns
- She/Her
At no point did Stalin want the KPD to do that
[X] Sociability: Thrown into the deep end, you learnt to act. Perfect before the teachers' eyes, you held forth a charisma that found you hangers-on always and invoked the jealousy of many.
As fun as punching the 3rd Reich is convicting people not to join it ultimately undermines their cause more and we can't just defeat them we ultimately need something to replace them.
As fun as punching the 3rd Reich is convicting people not to join it ultimately undermines their cause more and we can't just defeat them we ultimately need something to replace them.
- Pronouns
- He/Him
[X] Sociability: Thrown into the deep end, you learnt to act. Perfect before the teachers' eyes, you held forth a charisma that found you hangers-on always and invoked the jealousy of many.
[X] No one. Frivolity? Another aspect of your strangeness? Chasteness is a virtue you have no trouble with.
[X] No one. Frivolity? Another aspect of your strangeness? Chasteness is a virtue you have no trouble with.
- Pronouns
- They/Them
[X] Education: With all your hard work, you excelled in your studies. You made friends with swots, and talked to each other about the strangest of matters- literature, algebra, Max Plank.
[X] Girls, so innocent and so wicked at turns, laughing with you at a joke or kneeling beside you at prayer.
[X] Girls, so innocent and so wicked at turns, laughing with you at a joke or kneeling beside you at prayer.
[X] Education: With all your hard work, you excelled in your studies. You made friends with swots, and talked to each other about the strangest of matters- literature, algebra, Max Plank.
[X] Girls, so innocent and so wicked at turns, laughing with you at a joke or kneeling beside you at prayer.
[X] Girls, so innocent and so wicked at turns, laughing with you at a joke or kneeling beside you at prayer.
[X] Sociability: Thrown into the deep end, you learnt to act. Perfect before the teachers' eyes, you held forth a charisma that found you hangers-on always and invoked the jealousy of many.
[X] Boys, when you see them sweating at work and playing with balls, speaking only rarely and oft chaperoned.
[X] Boys, when you see them sweating at work and playing with balls, speaking only rarely and oft chaperoned.
Theaxofwar
Definitely not a Bunny Cat in disguise.
- Location
- Standing right behind you
[X] Sociability: Thrown into the deep end, you learnt to act. Perfect before the teachers' eyes, you held forth a charisma that found you hangers-on always and invoked the jealousy of many.
[X] No one. Frivolity? Another aspect of your strangeness? Chasteness is a virtue you have no trouble with.
[X] No one. Frivolity? Another aspect of your strangeness? Chasteness is a virtue you have no trouble with.
- Pronouns
- She/They
[X] Sociability: Thrown into the deep end, you learnt to act. Perfect before the teachers' eyes, you held forth a charisma that found you hangers-on always and invoked the jealousy of many.
[X] Girls, so innocent and so wicked at turns, laughing with you at a joke or kneeling beside you at prayer.
[X] Girls, so innocent and so wicked at turns, laughing with you at a joke or kneeling beside you at prayer.
[X] Sociability: Thrown into the deep end, you learnt to act. Perfect before the teachers' eyes, you held forth a charisma that found you hangers-on always and invoked the jealousy of many.
[X] Girls, so innocent and so wicked at turns, laughing with you at a joke or kneeling beside you at prayer.
[X] Girls, so innocent and so wicked at turns, laughing with you at a joke or kneeling beside you at prayer.