From Changeling Venue

The Valkyrie is approved. Oh, dear God.

Overview

Alias(es): The Hauptmann, The Ace, Lady of the Soaring Blue, Wings of Steel, Dr. Liesel Weiss

Real Name: Gruppenkommandeur (Wing Commander) Hauptmann (Captain) Reinhilde von Dieter

Age: 93

Defining Quote: "Tragen Sie ein Schale." Literally: "Wear a cup."

Concept: Tin soldier/icequeen uber-bitch

Physical description: The Valkyrie's mask is of a young woman with flinty, chill blue eyes and a pale, hard Germanic beauty. For work, she is the picture of a professional predator, tending toward immaculately tailored, pinstriped power suits, with super-short skirts, severe, slicked-back hair and sky-high stiletto heels, lashings of strong black eyeliner and mascara with brazen red lipstick. When flying, she generally wears fleece-lined double-breasted brown leather jackets, with slim-fitting leggings, knee-high brown boots, goggles and a scarf. In the company of other Lost, when in an official capacity, she almost always dresses in a distinctly military-looking uniform of black and red, with black gloves and a tilted wedge hat. The sleeves are long, and the neck is high, to hide the distinctly doll-like gap-lines where her neck joins her shoulders, and her arms join her wrists.

Her mien differs only minimally, with a slight waxy sheen to her skin, perfectly neat, 'painted on' makeup and precise, economical movements. Her long blonde hair, parted poker-straight on the right, hangs, precisely waved, over the left side of her face - which is marked by a long, deep, savage-looking scar that runs from her forehead, presumably through her eye (although, due to the constant presence of a black eyepatch over the socket in question, we can only conjecture what lies beneath), and down her cheek, almost to the jawline. Her one visible eye is generally slightly yellowed and bloodshot, and her teeth and fingertips are faintly stained with nicotine - all indicators, her detractors whisper, that the Valkyrie doesn't wear her horribly poisonous lifestyle quite as well as she'd have others believe.

Mantle: The Valkyrie brings with her a blast of cold so intense that it sucks all of the oxygen out of the air around her, leaving any close-standing changeling momentarily faint, before more oxygen immediately rushes in to fill the void. A drift of blizzard - swirling snow in a small, private howling wind - enshrouds her, and grass crackles with hoarfrost in her wake. The touch of her skin is icy, and stinging.

Relevant Mechanics: Under construction

Character Livejournal: Under construction

Flavour Quotes, Snippets and Extracts

Brent: "What do you want with her, anyway, Dun? She is one cold bitch."

Chris: "...which is Brent's generic term for any woman who doesn't succumb to the fabled Donewitz charm."

Reynaldo: "Ninety-nine per cent of the female population..."

Brent: "I just don't go for girls three time stronger than Arnold Schwarzenegger."

Corinne: "Translation: I can't handle autonomous women."

- from A Distant Soil, by Colleen Doran

"Be bold in what you stand for, and careful what you fall for." - Ruth Boorstein

"You don't manage people; you manage things. You lead people." - Admiral Grace Hooper

"A woman is like a teabag - only in hot water do you realise how strong she is." - Nancy Reagan

"[In politics] If you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman." - Prime Minister Magaret Thatcher

"People call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat or a prostitute." - Rebecca West

"Enemies are so stimulating." - Katharine Hepburn

From the movie, Aliens:

Pvt. Hudson: "Hey, Vasquez. You ever been mistaken for a man?"

Pvt. Vasquez: "No. Have you?"

Character Information

In her human demeanour as Dr. Leisel Weiss, ballbreaking divorce attorney - the most feared in NSW, known for representing only women spurned who are seeking to utterly eviscerate and unequivocally ruin their husbands - and slightly eccentric proprietor of Elfriede Private Skyways, she is an object of some local media attention, being something of a Sydney 'character'. She has a fully-fleshed life's story for this identity, as the heiress granddaughter, educated abroad, of wealthy German immigrants fleeing Nazi Germany to Australia in the '40s. She is known for being something of an adventuress, flying solo all over the world. When not at work, consulting with clients regarding how best to destroy their ex-spouses, she is notoriously reclusive and difficult to pin down, for those who don't know how, and she is known to be aloof to romance. All of her papers and certificates put her age at 32, though it is a subject of some discussion that she appears considerably younger.

Elfriede Private Skyways caters to anyone who can afford it, but the Valkyrie's primary market is Lost requiring transport by air; her prices are exceedingly competitive, and she more than caters to her changeling brethren's...unique requirements. Indeed, the choice of name - Elfriede - is in itself a coded welcome to Lost clientele; elfriede is an old German word, literally translating to 'elf-strong' and figuratively to 'empowered by faeries'.

The Valkyrie herself is a formidable and intimidating figure. Ice-cold of voice and ice-cold of eye, she is the classic bitch fantasy taken to nightmarish extreme, straight-backed and set-jawed, leather riding crop ever tapping, tapping, tapping against her thigh or the palm of her hand. She is almost never heard to raise her voice, as is common of people who are accustomed to being listened to. Her hatred for the Fae is so palpable, that one can almost see the icy cold rolling off her waxen skin on the rare occasions when she speaks of them, and pencils have snapped in her fingers. There is no doubt that when the Fae return, the Valkyrie will be ready, and waiting.

It is known that the Valkyrie flew with the Germans in WW2, with several squadrons under her command. It is whispered that she is a war criminal, a pitiless monster, but it's not something she speaks of, and any man or woman brave enough to dare the gimlet glare of those ice-blue eyes is probably too smart to want to. One thing is for certain, however; the Valkyrie is a tactician of such detached brilliance it staggers the non-military mind, and if it has wings, she can fly it.

She smokes like a chimney, drinks like a fish, and swears like a sailor (although generally incomprehensibly, unless an onlooker happens to possess a modicum of German obscenity). Her lifestyle is classic of the unique level of self-abuse only practiced by grizzled octogenarian (and older) military veterans, and, by all scientific laws, should probably have killed her by now. Yet somehow, she keeps going. If questioned about her longevity, she makes no reference to her phenomenally long Durance, and simply answers, without humour, "I think perhaps Death, he is frightened of me, nein?"

This may be a joke.

Or simply mind-bogglingly laconic arrogance.

No-one's entirely certain.

Known History

Basic Timeline:

• Reinhilde von Dieter, born 1914.
• Entered the Luftwaffe (which would not actually be named such until 1935, and at the time was called the Reichsluftfahrtministerium) in 1933, aged 19, as a fighter pilot. Exhibited such tactical brilliance and prodigious talent as a pilot that in the following decade, she climbed the ranks with lightning speed. At 21 she was an Oberleutnant, and a Staffelkapitan, with command of her own Staffeln (Squadron). By the age of 25, she had attained the rank of Hauptmann, and commanded a Gruppe.
• In the Blitz of 1941, during a routine bombing run, her Stuka was shot down over London. The young ace was horribly injured in the crash, and blacked out instantly upon impact, only to wake up in Arcadia, in the workshop of a steampunk tinker/mechanician. He had snatched her from the mangled wreck of the Junkers Ju 87, put back together what he could of her, and rebuilt the rest. The great Lord he served had a love of flying machines, and so he had brought the crack pilot to the Fair Lands to afford him amusement. The Valkyrie lived as his toy and entertainer for many years, finally escaping in 1990, to a world that, she would learn, now hated and feared her for having been party to one of the greatest atrocities the Western world had ever witnessed. Her mother and father, aunts and uncles were dead and gone, and her sweetheart was dying slowly, clouded by Alzheimer's, poor and alone, in a nursing home in France. She visited him just once; in his dementia and confusion, he knew her for exactly who she was, but believed her a dream, a vision of the girl he had loved in his youth. Haunted by the life that had passed her by, and knowing that she would be wanted in Europe, she travelled to Australia, there to build a new and water-tight identity.
• The Valkyrie has been a member of the Freehold of Sydney for over a decade and a half now, and a very prominent and militant member of its Winter Court contingent. In the war against Summer, she planned and executed many successful skirmishes, and is often credited with being the reason more of the Winter courtiers were not lost to the swords of the more martial Summer. From those bloody conflicts comes her reputation as a kith-killer, and the distrust in which most of the Gift's Summer courtiers still hold her. It was on the strength of that uncompromising militantness that she was named Winter Queen, when Shivva abdicated the role. It was the belief of the former Queen that only the Valkyrie, her long-time lieutenant and decorated war leader, had the strength to maintain the peace she had made. So far, she has done so with an iron fist, severely punishing any who would disturb the peace, and mercilessly putting down any who would conspire against the treaty.

Current Activities: Under construction

Merit Details: Under construction

Background: Under construction

Motley

Allies

Enemies

Character Inspirations

• Ingrid Weiss, Tom Strong, America's Best Comics
• Diana Palmer, The Phantom (comics and film)
• Dr. Elsa Schneider, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
• Nina, the medical malpractice lawyer, Scrubs season 4
• Wilhelmina Slater, Ugly Betty
• Seven of Nine, Star Trek: Voyager
• Capt. Frankie Cook, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
• Madame Hydra, Marvel Comics
• Black Widow, Marvel Comics

Soundtrack

Apologies for the fanvids: sometimes the original clips simply aren't aren't available.

• Short Skirt/Long Jacket - Cake
• Women in Uniform - Skyhooks
• Maneater - Hall & Oats
• Compulsory Hero - 1927
• Overburdened - Disturbed
• I'm Alive - Disturbed
• Blood of Heroes - Megadeth
• High Speed Dirt - Megadeth
• Screaming From The Sky - Slayer
• Play God - Spineshank
• Daughters of the Queen - Pantera
• Valhalla - Pantera
• It's Happening Again/Never Again - Eric Bogle
• Cold As Ice - Foreigner

Quotes

• "You do not have to like me, but you will respect the laws of this House. You will comport yourself like a gentlecreature while you are within my walls, and you will observe the rules that I have set down governing your conduct and behaviour. And you will do this because if you do not, I will remove my hospitality from you, every one of your brothers and sisters here ensconced will be given five minutes - each - to beat you with the implements of their choice, and then I will shoot you point blank, and I will throw you out into the Thorns myself. The bathrooms are down the hall on the left...please, enjoy your stay." - The Valkyrie, standard orientation speech to visitors to the Citadel, her safehouse in the Hedge

• "Pretty German girl speaks her mind! Baron Hotcock respects! Little Man respects too, yes?" *LOOMS* - Baron Hotcock von Hugenstein, proceeding to terrify a Fairest who happened to criticise the Valkyrie's temperament within his hearing.

• "She is a formidable woman...I do not believe there is a word better used to describe her than formidable." - Tris

• "The wages of war are paid in vengeance upon the other's hide. When even, like now, all can be forgotten. Take care not to overcompensate, or recompense will be waged both brutally and precisely." - Vestigere the Usurper

• "A rather brutal woman. I've witnessed her in combat many a time. It was enough to know not to face her head-on. Poison would likely be the safest way of dealing with her, provided you succeed, of course." Khamûl

Rumors

• The Valkyrie once shot Vestigere the Usurper in the face, and walked away
• The Valkyrie shot Baron Hotcock Von Hugenstein, for trying to get fresh
• The Valkyrie will shoot you, if you look at her the wrong way
• The Valkyrie likes to go drinking with Ogres, because they're the only people who can keep up with her
• The secret to thawing her out lies in copious amount of alcohol; after a night on the Schnapps, she's almost human
• It is rumored that only one man has ever managed to make her smile. Baron Hotcock Von Hugenstein is said to be that man.
• I once heard that The Valkyrie tossed a man from her plane as a form of punishment for treating her like an underling....
• The Valkyrie was at the ceremony where Joe Gillman was crowned the new King of Summer. At the moment of his coronation, a mysterious spear appeared in her hand as if from thin air. Could it have been the black spear, in the hand of a Winter Queen? Scandal!
• The Valkyrie has had her appearance copied by Robert Peterson, which is the only reason she knows his name.
• Some of the Summer Court of Sydney believe that The Valkyrie only joined the Winter Court in order to have someone interesting to fight against. One day, they say, she'll realise that she's on the wrong side - and on that day, Winter might regret sharing all their secrets with her.
• No-one's seen her in months,
• That's because she's a myth! An elaborate construct of Mirror Contracts and lies, there is and never was a Valkyrie; she was 'created' by the Winter Court as a boogeyman to demoralise the legions of Summer during the Ten Year War and, now that the War is over, she has gone right back into the ether of balderdash from which she was conjured.

OOC Information

Disclaimer: This character is, quite frankly, terrifying. She's a cold, hard-arsed bitch of the highest order who could probably make John Rambo bleat a pitiful, "Yes, ma'am," and step meekly out of the way. If you play with me, it is extremely likely I will, at some point, get up into your personal space and scream at you in German (those with German pocket dictionaries are welcome to consult them, but most of the words I'll be using won't be listed, since they're profane). However, if at any point this makes you genuinely uncomfortable, please inform me out of character immediately and I'll have Valk wander off in search of another poor soul to terrorise into anal incontinence. This game is about people having fun together, and while it is a mature content game, no player should have to endure IC conditions which affect his/her happiness and sense of security OOCly. Also, obviously, the opinions and behaviour exhibited by this character in no way reflect those of the management.

Player: P. Saunders.

Venue: The Court of Iron and Twine

Domian: Harbour of Darkness, Sydney, Australia