Izurich
TlalocCharacter Description
Name: Theodosius "Theo" Rautenbach
Gender: Male
Age: 26
Nationality: German
Appearance: A large shouldered man; Theo looks the part of the stereotypical burly German at a muscular 1.9 meters. Light brown hair in a overgrown crew cut helps hide the shrapnel scars that mar the left side of his temple. He possesses stormy grey eyes that are sit underneath thick eyebrows that seem dull but with a hint of intelligence within. His left hand is missing his ring and little finger at the first knuckles. [/hider]
Personal Effects: A few changes of clothing, An Iron Cross (2nd Class), Luger P-08, Trench Knife, and a personal journal.
Background:
What is your jobFormer Unteroffizier of the Imperial German Army; Militiamen
Backstory: A product of the Ruhr Valley; Theodosius Rautenbach was born the first child of five to a coal miner father and a school teacher mother. His young days were spent running lunch's from his childhood village to the mineshaft his father and uncles worked in. While never having left the valley proper; Theo didn't see much of a future outside the family businesses of mining. A mine collapse in 1910 however, took his father's legs and the lives of two uncles along with fourteen other miners. Despite being only a teen, Theo knew he had to help contribute to his family's situation and so he began to travel. Taking odd jobs and hopping trains; sending money back as he followed the jobs first across the valley; and then Germany.
An exciting and frightening journey for a young man but one he enjoyed. Soaking in the experiences and sights of the lands beyond hos hometown. So it was a adventurous and independent seventeen year old man the Army recruiters found when war was declared in 1914. The promise of steady pay and a patriotic fervor were all Theo needed to sign up.
Theo found quickly that the poster's and promises of the recruiting halls were a stark contrast from the trenches he found himself in. Made a machine gunner by virtue of his large size; Theo quickly found a distaste for the job. Not only because of the return fire and attention his gun brought but the carnage he had brought onto the field. Bogged down in Flanders; Theo's nightmares were filled with mud and twisted corpses as his waking moments were lit by the muzzle flashes of his Spandau.
He escaped Flanders in 1917 after a mortar round landed short. Ripping off his helmet and giving him a concussion serious enough to be transferred to the rear to recover. Upon recovering after a month in a field hospital; he was hastily bundled into a replacement unit slated to reinforce a new concept; the Stormtroopers. His new unit was stood up in time for the German's last counteroffensive in the spring. It was here that Theo earned an Iron Cross; taking a Canadian mortar section with only a pistol and knife despite being bayoneted in the attempt. A grenade however wounded him severely enough to be pulled out of the front; losing two fingers in the process. Infection nearly killed him; and it was in a Red Cross hospital that he heard of the war's end.
The inter-war period was a rough time for Theo. His previous existence of nomadic worker was untenable given Germany's current state. As a former soldier he was viewed as no better then the mobs of his former comrades that roamed the streets and roads; little more then bandits in tattered uniforms. However, his view of this militia was shared by several comrades; with Germany's military in shambles. They all but welcomed the government friendly militia's that battled the various anti-Weimar groups that embroiled the nation.
The irony of going from a war to a civil war was not lost on Theo. However, the somber man just saw it as a price his generation had to pay for the next one. Their generation of war would lead to a generation of peace...hopefully. It was this oddly optimistic, and yet cynical, man that found himself in Munich in 1923. One of his old captains had pressed a note in his hand and said; "They need dependable men like you my boy."
So here he was. A borrowed suit and his few worldly possessions the only showing of his time with the army and the militias.