DRAMATIS PERSONAE
BRITISH EMPIRE
Abigail Savage, officer in His Majesty's 8th Royal Tank Regiment, at least officially. a hermitic mage specializing in enhancing and reinforcing objects, specifically machinery, meaning she could have been a mechanic instead of a tank commander, but her farsightedness and ability to keep calm despite being yelled and shelled at proved otherwise. She was minding her own business commanding her Matilda II during the Battle of Britain when a Messerschmitt that had broken off from escorting Jerry's paras decided to be
incredibly rude and drop a bomb on her tank, blowing half her face (and nearly an arm) off in the process, though somehow sparing her eyes. She survived out of pure English spite, and managed to find her way to some friendly people from her side of the Masquerade to help her out. Turned out they were SOE, and they didn't have much difficulty convincing her to join SHADOCOM once things calmed down enough for her to actually do that. They even managed to get her a new face, and a new arm - even if the metal half of her face looks rather slap-dash. When the Siege of Britain finally stopped, she had grown rather attached to it, and decided not to part with it. She was more than willing to exchange the Valentine she temporarily had with an M3 Grant, though, which she has since named HMS Furious. She has spent most of her time since the Battle of Britain in North Africa, and has started to get along quite swimmingly with Emmanuelle.
Arthur Wood, werewolf from the south of Kent, though currently living in Maidstone. Arrested in 1937 for murdering a man he claimed was a "man-eater", promptly exonerated when this was proven to be true. After being freed, he went back to assisting his werewolf clan monetarily, which for him meant running the fairly successful tobacco shop in Maidstone. Like most other men of strong build and young age, he was entered into the King's Army upon the declaration of war, initially as a member of the Fifth Infantry Division. He had taken part in the defense of France, where it was discovered he was a werewolf, but the BEF was simply too busy to hand him over to the SOE at the time. Despite being used to fighting, he's nearly as new at this sort of thing as you are. As one can expect from a werewolf, he's a damned good close-range combatant. Since the Battle of Britain, he has stayed with the Fifth Infantry Division, having served with them in Norway, Northern Ireland, and most recently being pulled back to the UK from Madagascar.
BRITISH COLONIES AND PROTECTORATES
Ethel Beckett, 'officer' in the Rhodesian African Rifles, formerly the Royal Engineers. Also a mage. Her specialty is mostly illusory stuff and (especially) puppeteering/trapmaking, which would be fine to most mages, so at the least she isn't a true charlatan. She is, however, a con artist and a thief, having been arrested in June of 1940 for robbing whole crowds of people (mostly rich Englishmen, the only people gullible enough after the first few times) blind from Cairo to Cape Town before finally being caught in her home town of Salisbury. The Grand Lodge of Albion kicked her out, leaving her with the much smaller and younger Lodge of Central Africa, and His Majesty's constabulary gave her the age-old option of prison or the military. She, naturally, chose the latter - prisoners don't make money, and where else but her could her uncle get money for both his medicine and to actually pay his farmhands a decent wage? She was made an officer in the SOE, largely because at the time His Majesty's Armed Forces had few places besides there to put mages. Despite being in SOE longer than either Abigail or Shizuko, she has become Shizuko's 2IC due to her criminal past. Unlike many of SHADOCOM's members, Ethel has spent most of her time in special operations since the Battle of Britain, engaging in operations from Norway to St. Nazaire.
Indra Gurung, 2nd King Edward VII's Own Gurkha Rifles. A Mundane, but like a lot of Gurkhas, he doesn't seem all that surprised by the Masquerade. It will later come to the attention of both the Lodge of Albion and the British Government that the Lodge of the Himalayas (not an exact translation) wasn't nearly as forceful in its enforcement of the Masquerade as European lodges; for that matter neither were many similar organizations in central Asia. He's short, even by Nepalese standards, and somewhat long-faced. His English is good, mainly because he worked near the embassy in Kathmandu before joining the British Army. Very interested in football, but if you asked him to name any famous players in Europe he wouldn't be able to help you, let alone teams. He has, naturally, been serving mostly in North Africa along with the rest of his regiment.
Harbir Singh, Sikh Regiment, British Indian Army. A giant of a man at an easy two meters tall, with an equally impressive beard and an impressively maintained mustache. In many ways, he and Indra are opposites. Indra enjoys sports and physical activities, Harbir would much rather exercise his mind (though he is, according to Indra, an absolute monster at cricket). Indra is far from an avid reader, whereas Harbir will tear through almost anything printed he can get his hands on. Indra is talkative, Harbir is taciturn. Indra likes strong drink, Harbir (obviously) won't touch anything stronger than Turkish coffee. How they became friends is anyone's guess, but here we are. Rather notable is that he is relatively outspoken (by his standards) for his support of Indian independence whenever officers aren't looking. Has spent most of the war so far, alongside Indra, in North Africa.
DOMINION OF AUSTRALIA
Roy Thompson, 16th Brigade, Australian Army. He looks a little on the old side for a soldier, though not to the extreme degree Simon does. Unlike Simon, Roy is not a vampire, nor does he really have much magical capabilities to speak of besides a bit of the same sort of training used by the martial arts masters of China, though not nearly enough to be called a master at them. No, he's that rare sort of mundane that goes out to
hunt the things that go bump in the night. Much like the Hellsings hunt vampires, the Thompsons hunt werewolves, with one key difference. The thing is, at least in Australia the werewolf clans are largely self-policing, to a point. When things progress pass that point, the typical monster hunter is called in to assist since many things designed to hurt werewolves are as dangerous to the werewolf wielder as they are to the werewolf target. As a result, most werewolf hunters have a much more amicable relation to their 'prey' species than vampire hunters do. Usually. There are a few wierdos out there. Roy, thankfully, is not one of them, though he scared the crap out of Arthur when he first arrived. One of the more traveled members of SHADOCOM's more mundane members, having been in North Africa, Greece, Syria, Lebanon, and most recently Ceylon.
DOMINION OF CANADA
Doris Tremblay, No. 401 Squadron, Royal Canadian Air Force. A native of southern Manitoba, her ancestors were fur traders, then farmers, and finally proud owners of a whisky distillery that is respectably popular in the region. Her father had served in the Royal Air Force during the First World War, and returned with thoughts of little besides distilling whisky and putting as many kids into his wife as possible - Doris is the third of eleven children. What he saw in the clouds above the Western Front he never really told her, but whatever it was, it wasn't enough to deter her from joining the military as soon as the opportunity arose. She was initially barred from joining for being a woman, but it was only a few weeks before Britain declared war on the Masquerade-breaking Germany. Canada declared war with it, and thus Doris was entered into Canada's military. Like you, she has mostly spent her time over the skies of France and Western Europe, but you haven't seen her as much as that would suggest.
FRANCE
Emmanuelle Hebert, mage (technically) from Louisiana and (officially) from somewhere way off in French Africa, part of the Free French Army as a 'mage'. Technically she is a 'bokor' which, at one point, applied specifically to practitioners of the darker parts of the Haitian Vodou school of magecraft, then expanded to Vodou mages in general, then to Voodoo, Hoodoo, Vodu, and all sister religions. Her particular specialty is the wide variety of 'dry potions' used by bokor, including the two that nearly resulted in the Columbia Lodge dropping the hammer on the entire country of Haiti for necromancy (it was eventually revealed that one simply controlled the mind of the living, and the other simply puppeted the nerves in a controlled version of the way soy sauce makes an octopus dance). She apparently started learning poppetry simply because so many people asked her about voodoo dolls, which are really poppets and have little if anything to do with Voodoo. Like you, she saw the storm approaching Europe and left to join a European army, though she joined the French instead of the English and arrived within weeks of the invasion of Poland. When not working for SHADOCOM, she serves in a Free French mechanized infantry unit, primarily in North Africa.
Simon Bonheur, a vampire from the Maritimes who was old enough to be a grandfather when he was converted to a vampire in the City of Quebec. At the time, the only dynasties in the New World were in South America, and his own sire was far less interested in starting a dynasty than he was in making money any way possible. Quebec City at the time had a large population of clergymen and nuns, making it far too dangerous for vampires in a time when the Masquerade was still paper-thin. So, he and the 'young' Simon took to piracy. His sire didn't last long, but Simon took to it like a fish takes to water, and managed to last all the way from the buccaneering era to the end of the post-Spanish Succession period of piracy under many names, a few captains, and a handful of mercenary bands, always being careful to neither draw too much or too little attention to himself until the very end of the age. It seems he sensed the end coming and decided to live it up a little as Old King Simon, one of the more tactically gifted pirates of the late Golden Age, before he and his small fleet 'vanished into the jungles of French Guiana' (in reality, he managed to set up a decent-sized settlement, announced that he was a vampire, and left). Like many vampirates, he never sired until well after the age of piracy ended in the New World, and also like many vampirates, he never really kept track, either. After his pirate days, he wandered about North and South America, sometimes as a highwayman, sometimes a fur trader, once even commanding a slave ship before deciding he had not taste for the industry, and occasionally cozying up with the vampire houses of the New World at the time - the Pizarros, the Browns, the St. Claires, the Mathesons, and the like. When the Scramble for Africa started, he went right along with it and continued his trading endeavors in French West Africa, where he still was when the war started. After a brief stint in the Fusiliers-Marins, he has "joined" the SAS in North Africa, largely as a tag-along, and has participated in a number of night raids, mostly against targets where Germany and Italy's own supernatural forces were expected to be present.
POLAND
Weronika Kumiega, lieutenant in the Polish Air Force, and a witch who specializes largely in potioneering. Once attached to your squadron, she has since been moved to No. 303 Squadron RAF along with a slight majority of the Polish witch aces of the Battle of Britain, with a little less than half of the rest going to No. 302 and the remainder spread evenly throughout His Majesty's own other squadrons of witches. Her father had owned a shipbuilding firm with dockyards in Danzig and Gdynia, along with several other industrial firms throughout the area, inherited by him from a long line of industrial Poles dating back, so Weronika claimed, to the Hanseatic League era. She was made an officer largely because she was the only one who spoke English well enough to give and receive orders. However, she's a scholar, not a soldier - she was in Krakow when it capitulated to the Germans and managed to escape the country only because the Germans were not looking for witches. She hadn't even gone
hunting, let alone shooting at people, until she arrived in France. She got over this rather quickly, in your opinion. Like you, she has spent most of the recent years over France and western Europe, shooting down bombers, Messerschmitts, and Focke-Wulfs. One of your closer-ish friends, being one of the few military people you knew prior to SOE that you're still in frequent contact with.
SOVIET UNION
Marian Kaplani, sergeant, Red Army. Being an esper, she is technically part of an esper-only unit, whose designation the Soviet Union is still, for whatever reason, unwilling to share with the other Allies. And like most espers, her background is shrouded in mystery as much as it is shrouded in outright lies and half-truths. You do know a few things, at least - she is from Tbilisi, her parents both worked in factories in town and had before communism arrived in Georgia, her father now works as a diplomat and her mother does... something... and her esper ability was discovered slightly earlier than normal, but well within the usual parameters set by the Soviet government. Her service as an esper is a bit more sound - she has spent most of her time in the Urals practicing and perfecting her abilities, and her only real combat deployment so far was in a town called Rzhev.
UNION OF SOUTH AFRICA
Liselot Pistorius, a knightess of the Order of Saint John, the Protestant wing of the Knights Hospitaller, one of a handful from South Africa. Despite being here of her own free will, being white, and being a knight, she has a lot working against her, and not the least because she's a woman, which hardly matters these days what with how many witches are women (hint: it's all of them). Firstly, she's a Boer, secondly, she's from the highveld, thirdly, she's from a relatively not-well-off (not
poor, but not
rich; her situation is a lot like Ethel's but more so), lastly, a good chunk of her family (but not all of it) are members of the Ossewabrandwag. She isn't, of course, otherwise she wouldn't have been let out of South Africa, but it raises some questions from those higher up in the chain of command than you about things like loyalty. Not the first female knight - (Protestant) African colonies in particular had created a few dozen, more out of necessity than any feminist interests - female knights are, however, rare, more so than female mages. Decent at runic magic, specifically in relation to light, she is, however, far better with a sword and shield. Unlike the others, she has seen most of her action far from the North African theater, having spent most of her time in England and southeast Asia fighting against the Japanese - at her own request, as she would rather not think about South Africa or her family.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Shizuko Saitou-Williams, captain (yes, related to
that Williams family) in 74th Fighter Squadron United States Army Air Corps. You were barely a month old when your parents emigrated to California. At first, you got along pretty well with the other Asian kids in your area of San Francisco but, well, then Japan seized Beiping and things started to get a bit less than pleasant. Your family considered moving farther out into the Northern California countryside, but rising anti-Japanese sentiment in the area hampered that and they ultimately decided on the closer town of Stockton instead. When Britain began to call for every Englishman to do his (and her) duty, you signed up as soon as you heard they were accepting Americans for the 'Eagle Squadrons', not so much out of a sense of duty but as a means of getting the hell out of California before things got any worse. You were given an SMLE, a cavalry sabre, and some grenades, and told to kill German witches with the gun, stab German fighters with the sword, and blow up German bombers with the grenades. You were also in the process of getting your family to move to England to be closer to you, but Executive Order 9066 came before they could get the tickets. For the most part, you have stayed with No. 71 Squadron when not on SHADOCOM missions, mostly doing air operations over Europe. A Catholic.
- Oakwind Shield - With a wand in hand, Shizuko can now deflect anti-personnel grenades or thrown objects of similar mass on any non-critfail rolls. A full success will bounce it back, and a crit success will allow her to either catch and throw it or bounce it in a chosen direction. Can also be used to throw off aim of strikes in close-quarters combat with traditional weapons. Requires a free hand and a wand. (Defensive Wind 3/20)
- Trained Swordsman - All rolls involving using your sword have 1 less Difficulty.
- Disarm - Use wind magic to knock a target (or targets) weapon out of their hands. A crit smashes it into them hard enough to knock them flat, or pulls it into your own hands (player's choice)
- Machine Gun: 7.5/20
- Strength: 10/20
- Running: 10/20
- Broomhandling: 10/20
- My Brother's Keeper: All Difficult rolls that involve saving an ally have 1 less Difficulty, to a minimum of 0 Difficulty.
- Katana - A magical sword, gifted to you by Kenichi Matsuhito, the kendo trainer at SHADOCOM's Asia headquarters in Calcutta. Has a reversible wrap, stars & stripes on one side, pure black on the other.
