Ernst Isengrim
radioteeth2
- Created
- 1 year, 2 months ago
- Creator
- voughtcorsair
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Profile
Dutiful • Outspoken • Sincere
Self
Isengrim is an old soldier. He joined the war at seventeen, and it ended when he was nineteen going on fifty- after a brief jaunt around the country, he's decided to start anew in Berlin, a city of unheard-of opportunities and a cultural marvel. Although he can't seem to escape the shadow of his past just yet, and hiding lycanthropy in a bustling city is a challenge in and of itself, he's making new friends and slowly building a life for himself.
"I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow."
Likes
- cognac
- meat, cheese
- forest, hunting
- wolf form
Dislikes
- confusing social situations
- tripe, brains
- being stuck in the city
- the smell of smoke
Skills
- cooking
- shooting
- driving cars
- hunting
Fears
- going back to war
- explosions/fire
- falling ill
- losing friends/family
Strengths
- physically strong and difficult to injure
- naturally charming and makes friends easily
- skilled survivalist
- proficient in fighting & firearms
Weaknesses
- transforms into a wolf on the full moon; cannot turn back until dawn
- generally lost, easily distractible and melancholic
- will defend people he cares about- to the point of violence
"We are forlorn like children, and experienced like old men, we are crude and sorrowful and superficial—I believe we are lost."
Body
Ernst is fairly tall, lean, and has a relatively androgynous build. Despite the fact he cannot medically transition, he likes his body well enough- it has carried him through years in the mountains, and survived the war. He has scars on most of his body- some from being too close to an exploding hand grenade, others from general wear and tear throughout his life, and a bullet wound in his shoulder. The most noticable are generally those on his face and forearms, but there's also a long-healed bite wound on his upper right bicep. His skin is naturally fairly pale, but he's tanned from a life outdoors, and he has faint freckles across his nose and shoulders. His right eye is a greenish blue, but his left has sectoral heterochromia, where it was injured by shrapnel, and is partially yellow. His nose is strong and has a slight bump where it was broken. There is a small scar on his mouth, and his smile is slightly lopsided. His hair is a charcoal color, not quite black, and there's a grey streak. As a wolf, he has some grey patches of fur over older scars, others are still quite visible, and his fur is mainly black. His throat and belly are a rusty orange, with cream-colored patches. He stands just above the shoulder of an average person.
Clothes
Ernst's wardrobe is comfortable and durable- but not particularly fashionable. His clothes are notably well-made and meticulously clean, but quite worn. The mainstay of his wardrobe in the colder months is a 1915 Prussian greatcoat, and he almost always wears blackened jackboots. He wears combinations of button-down shirts, vests, sweaters, trousers, etc., almost always preferring natural and muted colors, and layering as much as possible. At work, he tends to dress a tiny bit more formally, but there's not much of a deliniation between work and home clothes. Underneath his clothes, he wears an off-white "binder" that doubles as an undershirt- it is a thicker fabric that compresses and smooths his chest, sewn by himself.
Items
Ernst keeps a small wooden box in his nightstand that contains his identification tags, iron cross, and a few trinkets left behind by dead friends. He has a Gewehr 98 and a pistol taken from an American soldier- one of which he always has. He has installed a false wall in his closet out of paranoia and has a collection of bloodstained tarpaulins from dressing animals he's hunted, along with a variety of cleaning supplies, cognac, and a well-stocked first aid kit. He doesn't have many possessions, but collects things here and there.
Mannerisms
Ernst smokes almost constantly, and drinks a bit much at times. Both habits were picked up in the army. He tends to scratch behind his ear or pull at his hair when thinking, and he tends to have a habit of acting just slightly...off- a bit too animal, baring his teeth or growling under his breath. If possible, he prefers to stay halfway between wolf and human forms.
Early Life
Ernst was raised in Rothaargebirge (the Rothaar Mountains) in Germany, on the border of Hesse and Rhineland-Westphalia. His parents were foresters, and lived mainly in a cottage in a heavily forested area, away from major civilization. As a young child, he came down with a severe illness, and, when no treatments proved effective, his parents elected to ask the local werewolf (Wolfmother_ to change him rather than seek out treatment in a larger city. Save for Ernst's close brush with death and a rather painful transformation process, his childhood was near perfect.
He received a basic education, and spent most of his time practicing transformation and following game- as a result, he has an incredibly easy time shifting between wolf and human forms and is a skilled hunter. His formal schooling was minimal, but his mother homeschooled him to an extent, and provided him with plenty of books to keep him occupied in his free time. As a young teen, he often ventured out to the villages closest to the forest, in order to make friends and learn a little more about the world around him. Ernst's transition coincided with becoming more comfortable in his wolf form. His parents accepted his identity with little questioning, assuming it must be some kind of blessing, and his mother sewed him his first chest binder. He has not medically transitioned. If asked, he would name his identity as something close to transvestitin.
Great War
Ernst joined the war at age seventeen (towards the end of 1916), intentionally, as he was uncertain if he was listed to be drafted due to his birth sex. He managed to skirt around medical examinations through family friends and convincing others to simply overlook it- desperate as the army was, it wasn't a particularly difficult task. He was assigned to an infantry unit and the Battle of Vimy Ridge was one of the first conflicts he saw, instilling in him a deep-seated mistrust of Canadians. Otherwise, the year or so spent as an infantry man was unnotable- a few small injuries here and there, but nothing more.
Russia ended its participation in WWI in the early part of 1918. With the influx of troops from the Eastern Front, certain units were able to rotate back from the frontlines for training- including Ernst's. They were trained as stosstruppen, or shock troops, near a facility that held POWs- these are some of Ernst's clearest memories of the war. Here, he met Otto, and became close to him. After training was completed, he was thrust into an entirely new state of chaos, often being the one to care for or look out for the other creatures. Recently promoted to Corporal, he took an unofficial place on the chain of command, being Otto's most trusted confidante. It gained him some respect from the other men in his platoon, but some scrutiny as well. Changing Otto into a werewolf is the only time he's ever done so. Near the end of the war, he was injured by a hand grenade during a skirmish- it was a miracle he survived, although he has significant scarring on his face and almost everywhere else. He spent the last weeks of the war in the hospital, struggling to survive, pumped full of morphine- he has an aversion to hospitals, illness, and drugs, but made lasting friends with his nurse, Sigrid Fischer.
Weimar Berlin
He is a bartender and lives in a third-floor, rundown flat near work. He had attempted to return home immediately after the war ended, but found that it was suffocating and miserable- he was one of few young men to make it back, and the silence of his neighbors felt like they wished he had perished to, to at least make it fair. In light of this, he flees to Berlin, where he reconnects with Otto and the two continue their rocky, on-and-off relationship. Never one for making things overly complicated, he enjoys the simple pleasures in life- drinking, fighting, the attention of men. After a while, he and Otto work together to heal themselves and their relationship, and find themselves settling down into an almost domestic routine- something that both of them find hilarious. He finds a home in Berlin, and the forest Grunewald is wild enough to keep him happy.
In the '30s, as political violence and unrest becomes more and more common in Berlin, he finds himself caught up in various fights, some in the wrong place at the wrong time, others as he tries to stop them. Eventually, his luck runs out- he was never meant to die a peaceful death, and even werewolves can be killed. But even after his death, Otto claims to see a wolf like Ernst out of the corner of his eye, following him, warning him of trouble. The wolf disappears sometime after WWII, its work done.
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