#id2mars

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Day 13 — Karinne Ulm

Karinne,one of the apprentices in the Thought Watch in Karm. She awoke to her powers when she was around 12 (she’s now 14), and decided to apply for the Watch, where she’s been keeping up with her studies and honing her psychic skills. She’s actually one of the very few Watchers with additional abilities—in her case, mild telekinesis—and as such, she’s also been getting lessons with Doctor Braun, as well as taking part in his trials. (Contrary to captured Waisen, volunteering in the Watch does buy you certain privileges. Such as being a participant in a trial and treated with dignity, rather than jailed and treated like a guinea pig.)

Karinne is one of the first people who befriended Emmerich Ziegler when he arrived in Karm. Partly she sees him as a big brother, but she also has somewhat of a crush on him, two reasons that make her particularly resentful of Aske. She’s also good friends with Annis Maarten and Rickert Hoffstaater, two other secondary characters in The Silent Wall.

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Day 22 — Annis Maarten

Annis, Class 8 Seidr, and Emmerich Ziegler’s partner in Karm. She is first seen when she comes to pick him up at the Karm-Westertor railway station, on his first day in the capital, and quickly sets the boundaries, a.k.a. “don’t give me that gallantry soup, or I’ll break your fingers”. She was also ordered to organise the “hazing attack” on Emmerich at HQ, although she didn’t like the idea—and quite a few Watchers liked it even less after Ziegler sent them to the infirmary. 

At the time of Emmerich’s assignation to main Headquarters in Karm, she was the only available Watcher with a high enough ranking Seidr to be paired with him, having recently lost her own partner, Margrit (the latter isn’t dead, but was blinded and suffered serious respiratory burns when she was caught in a Waisen-led mustard gas attack). Annis didn’t exactly resent him for that, since it wasn’t his fault anyway and she knows how to stay professional, but the first few weeks of their partnership were somewhat rocky, especially as she didn’t know how to work with his other powers, the one over matter.

Annis is usually cool and composed, with a streak of matter-of-fact, wry wit. Stressful situations won’t make her lose her means of action, but she’ll definitely become grumpier (and with a tendency to threaten with murder the people she’s worried for... like Emmerich after his antics at the firing range or with Aske at Julsnacht). She learnt to grow a thick skin early enough in life, after her parents moved back to Karm: while they are both Varsan, her mother’s mother was from the southern colony of Amarr, and Annis has inherited her darker hair, skin and eyes. The Watch in general doesn’t care—what matters to them is one’s psychic power—but outside of it, she does get at least a few remarks about her being of “mixed blood” (as a colony, Amarr and its people are considered as "losers” by those who’re too stupid to realise they’re all human beings).

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Day 21 — Korden Metanevski

Korden, main pilot of the Heimdall bomber aeroplane in The Silent Wall, and officer in charge of the crew in which Kittin Wattinger is a member.

He’s usually pretty laid-back and accepting of the various antics of his crew, and tends to be a confidante to most of its members. Being the only son of a famous general grants him certain privileges, which he uses to get his crew preserves and other ‘luxury’ items when they’re deployed on base. (This also allowed him not to get executed after the stunt he pulled in Ius. The crew received semi-illegal orders involving bombing civilians targets such as schools and hospitals, and decided beforehand that should the rumours be true, and should they indeed receive such orders, they’d refused to follow. Banishment to Daemmering and other backwater air bases ensued, until the Watch dug them out to make them test the Heimdall, with all the risks it involved.)

Korden is best friends with Servan Brueger, his co-pilot, and sees Kittin as the little sister he never had.

(Also, drawing beards on chibi is... well. That was interesting.)

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Day 20 — Ian nei Arnwn

Ian nei Arnwn / Ian Thorne, Guide Master of Arran. Although as an Aequi, he’s skilled in manipulating all four forces, his preference and his strength clearly lie with viri, and from very early on, he was interested in the human body. (Partly for himself, and partly to help Ido when they were in their teens.) His research convinced him that kaaru was entirely hereditary, not just a power that happened in random individuals, and that there could be a way to ensure his own brand of power, rarer and rarer, could be saved by preserving the bloodlines carrying it. 

Traditionally, Aequim do not marry nor have children—a custom born from a rule stating that Guides specifically shouldn’t have families that could be used as leverage against them, and that evolved into most Aequim doing the same, so that they wouldn’t be ruled out as future Guides later. The result was unavoidable. So, in a manner that would soon become his trademark, young Ian said “screw this, we’re dying, let’s try to do something about it for a change”, and proceeded to hatch a plan with Renata Rialann: they’d marry, have the kids they wanted anyway, prove that kaaru was hereditary by having a couple of little Aequim, and get Reni out of her very patriarchal family while they were at it. 

Along the way, Ian also found allies that helped him ensure his position as a Guide before anyone could oust him due to ‘but but he’s married!’, and keep things as is—let’s say his allies have a vested interest in his research about the ‘helix code’ (a.k.a. DNA), and want to keep an eye on what he’s doing without necessarily thwarting it.

At the time of the stories, he is indeed still Guide Master, married to Renata with whom he’s had two children (one an Aequi as well), and the Church rather dislikes him due to his marriage being pretty much an open relationship (so yeah, he also has other, less legitimate children... including potential Aequim... and Renata may or may not decide to want a child from another character during the course of the main story, I haven’t decided yet). There were also a few assassination attempts on him, but they didn’t go very well for the would-be assassins.

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Day 19 — Ren nei Pawel

Still Ren, but later in the stories, once he has “reconciliated” his two personae, and once Kheril and a few more people have knocked some sense into his head... sort of. He does retain a devious streak that some people don’t like nor approve of, but has been trying to get better at... well, behaving like a human being, and having other relationships than just being lonely or hurting people.

Seen here as wearing an apprentice’s uniform at Arran, and trying his hand at wielding sankari, tricky dual Kellenin weapons with three blades. I’m not entirely sold on the design yet, since I’m trying to figure out how such a type of weapon can actually work, but the general idea is to use them for parrying/deflecting blows, and for inflicting light but numerous wounds to wear the opponent out—suited for people who aren’t necessarily strong, but are fast and nimble, which is his case. Obviously not something you’d bring to a fight against someone with a two-handed sword, though, unless you’re confident you can dodge out of the blade’s way, I guess.

(Yeah, he was told that he couldn’t use his psychic powers to fight, so he decided he’d learn to fight the regular way. He’s still partly a cheater: at this point, he’s so used to using Seidr to fuel his moves that it’s a reflex, and not using it at all would be akin to cutting his own arms and legs, or forgetting how to walk... but that’s a very grey area, and one where it’s difficult to catch him red-handed since it’s so easy to mistake it for “he’s very agile and well-trained”.)

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Day 17 — Emmerich Ziegler

Can’t believe I’m only drawing him now.

Emmerich, who didn’t start in the series with a missing eye and half his face burnt—that is a gift courtesy of Aske, who... didn’t like his face (yes, Aske can be that kind of arsehole).

At first, Emmerich was an orphan kid from Stetz who developed psychic powers when he was 11, and volunteered to join the local Watch. Over the years, he also demonstrated another kind of power, allowing him to affect matter (although this demands lots of energy, and he’s the only one who can do this, so he had to learn by trial and error here). This led the Watch in Karm to ask him to join them once he had finished his full training, and so he went to the capital when he was 19, where he was partnered with Annis Maarten. There, he started to investigate a terrorist cell by the name of Saemmling, which led him on the trail of Aske; fascinated by the latter’s pyrokinetic and telekinetic abilities, Emmerich became obsessed with the Waise, and with fighting him again.

This happened at long last, but not for the best when Emmerich was concerned (re: his face, and a couple of other things). After that encounter, his obsession grew intertwined with anger and resent, and this started his descent into darker sides of his persona.

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Day 16 — Skjoeld

One of the Waisen in the terrorist cell “Saemmling”, in which he’s been operating along with Aske and Skygge. Saemmling is a larger group than just a few people, but its members usually meet in small clusters, with only one amongst them knowing people in the other sub-cells, to prevent the Watchers from getting information about them too easily through torture or mind scanning.

Skjoeld never uses his real name. He’s originally from Valburg in the north of Varsa, where he lived with his little sister Gerda. The local Watch suspected him of being a Waise, and tried to smoke him out (literally), only he was out on that night, and Gerda, who was alone in their flat, died in the fire. Skjoeld fled to Karm after that, determined to join one of the terrorist cells and wreak havoc as much as he could before being caught.

He actually somewhat likes Aske, as much as he resents him for his antics—the younger Waise is the one who taught him to use the roofs efficiently (in other words, Aske taught him Parkour XD), thus allowing him to save himself more than once.

Skjoeld very rarely takes an active part in his cell’s meetings: his role there is to actively shield them from any Watcher’s area scan, so he’s much more focus on what happens outside their mental channel than inside it.

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Day 15 — Fredrick Wittger

A young chemist working on compounds at Mirochilov’s weapons factory, Fredrick is Ren’s best friend in Karm. Well, his only friend, to be honest. Both met in elementary school, when they were 9, although they lost sight of each other a couple of years later, when Fred’s family, become wealthier, moved to another Sector. Due to his father’s income, Fredrick was able to study at a local Hauptschuele, where he learnt physics and chemistry and got a technician’s diploma. Even though he’s meant to inherit the family business, his father still demanded he works for at least a few year, so that he wouldn’t forget their roots and where they started. This is how Fredrick landed a job at the factory—not as an assembly line worker, of course—and, surprise, surprise, realised Ren worked there as well.

Fred’s an overall positive character. He’s much more outspoken, smiling, and extrovert than Ren, and he was the one who took the first step to befriend him (twice). While Ren’s true nature pushes him to constantly question their friendship, and to wonder whether Fred just keeps him around to make himself feel better (including picking up the tab when they have lunch outside), the truth is that Fred genuinely likes him, and tries to encourage him. He was a little jealous while when Ren got the job at Aschen, but never to the point of rejecting him or doing him harm.

I came to realise that, for a long time, I had a problem with this character, and couldn’t put my finger on a reason. I did remember, though, that in the first version of the story, some 20 years ago, Fredrick was in fact a traitor. That was when the Heimdall project didn’t have a name, and was an illegal side project rather than a military one; someone betrayed the workers, causing the ruin of the whole endeavour and forcing Ren to run away, and that person was Fred. That version of things never had a place in my Eien reboot and I scrapped it—I just happened to keep some lingering memory of Fred’s first role, hence mly reluctance with him.