Alberich Kreuzer

Johann „Alberich“ Kreuzer
Splat: Genius

Catalyst: Neid

Foundation: Rogue

Virtue: Temperance

Vice: Envy

Quote: "...or to say it with the words of my old rommate: NEED MOAR DAKKA!!!!"

Childhood and school
Johanns family owned several apartments and houses and the rent alone all but guaranteed the Kreuzers a modest but secure lifestyle. The small construction-company ‘Kreuzer and Söhne’ was their ticket to a life in modest luxury. His mother left suddenly, shortly after Johanns seventh birthday, because his father Richard was still the man she had married ten years before, exactly the same: Partying, playing soccer, trying to shirk his responsibilities and generally expecting the world to conform to his needs, just as he had during their time at the university. Richard honestly tried his best to care for his son after that, but had often trouble finding the right approach to fatherhood. Since his kindergarten days Johann was always the runt of the litter, spending his childhood trying to catch up to his bigger peers. When he started going bald at the age of sixteen, in addition to the usual troubles of puberty, he figured his social life was pretty much over. Seeing his father come home with some new beautiful conquest at his arm every few nights only increased Johanns insecurities.

Post-graduation
Johann majored in Engineering, because he figured it was basically applied physics and he always liked the subject in school. This was his chance to prove he was better than his father, to build a carer of his own instead of relying on the work of his ancestors. The second best thing that happened to Johann during his time at the university was that one of the profs decided a paintball-match would be the best way to give his students some practical experience with pneumatic systems. Going into the woods and shooting people with a heavily modified paintgun, was so much more satisfying than Counterstrike! The best thing that happened to Johann was Christine, studying in exchange for serving 7 years in the army. marksman extraordinaire, attractive in a girl-next-door way and even more importantly made Johann feel comfortable enough to exhibit some wit and gallantry. The two started dating after a year and things looked well for a while. Even if Christine told him otherwise, Johann still thinks that he got dumped has nothing to do with his emotional baggage and everything to do with the full head of hair and sixpack of the teammate, she hooked up with two months later. Johanns jealousy and passive-aggressive comments turned any remaining friendship between him and Christine into a decaying ruin. Johann changed teams and focused his entire energy on getting his selfmade paint-minigun working, so he could bury his rival under a barrage of paint during the next match. For a while he convinced himself that using an unwieldy weapon, that malfunctioned half of the time and barely outpaced a regular paint-gun at the best of times, was a noble and righteous way to fight for his love. When reality finally caught up to Johann and he realised that wining a paintball-game wouldn’t repair his lost relationship, he was devastated. He flunked out, half a year before graduation and returned home to take over ‘Kreuzer and Söhne’.

Catalysing
For the three years, Johann was content to let life pass him by and wallow in self-pity because the entire universe had decided to screw him over. If only he’d inherited his fathers good looks or had been better socialized during his formative years, everything would have been fine. And Johann would probably have continued, staring miserably at the rest of the world having fun if one of his father hadn’t forced him to try out for a local theatre-production, in an attempt to lift Johanns spirits. Playing a small role as a bitter English nobleman was nice, especially having people pretend to bow before him. But the real fun was devising the special effects: Getting a few low-grade-explosives isn’t difficult if you are in the construction business. Johann spent the next months devising fake muskets and cannons, constructing smokebombs and similar crude pyrotechniques. Johann was hooked and started a serious career as a pyrotechnic an, offering his services to independent films. After a while he started, organizing his own small shows at Renaissance fairs and similar festivals under the name of “Alberich” like the dwarven King and weaponsmith. After a while Johann started wondering whether he could build an actual weapon. Since production and ownership of gunpowder-weapons fell under very strict laws, he kept to weapons that weren’t reglemented by the government, medieval Siegeweapons mostly. Trying to weaponize a laser began as a kind of hobby, but when he somehow succeeded in smashing a target to bits with a miniature explosion he tried to find an explanation for it. The engineers and physicist on the various message boards where Johann posted the videolog of the session called it a hoax, causing an explosion with such a weak laser was impossible. Victor didn't waste time arguing and tried to act like a proper scientist and replicate the effect. After his second sucess at replicating the effect ended with a much bigger explosion, he took some time to find a testing-ground away from innocent bystanders and enough room to minimize the risk to himself. After a month of searching he set up shop in an abandoned quarry. Johann spent weeks first trying to replicate the effect and after he succeeded, to keep whatever was causing the explosion and resulting flash of light, going long enough to study it. After three more month Richard gave up on dragging his son away from his new obsession, the boy was obviously on to something and a good father should know when he wasn't welcome. By the time Johann figured out that his little scienceproject worked by creating a miniature sun that sunsequuently went nova, he had reduced an area the size of a footballfield to molten glas. His plans to demonstrate his discovery at the next SciFi convention would have probably ended in a fiery explosion if the Peerage hadn’t found Johann thanks to the flood of spitefull emails he sent to all who ever doubted his work inviting them to witness his homemade 'fusion reactor'. Convincing the paranoid Johann that they had his best interest at hearts took some major effort and liberal use of Epikrato. Johann spent the next year fighting his inner demons and learning the tricks of the trade, trading the blueprints of his first invention for those of other geniuses. When two of his internet-buddies from America disappeared suddenly, Johann decided it was hight time to get back to work. It was time the new and improved Alberich graced america wirth his presence.

Personality
Constant worry that people might not respect him, has turned Johann into a miserable man. Always on the lookout for signs of contempt, he tends to find them no matter what people actually think abbout him. The only time he is truly happy is when he's on stage or blasting things into smithereens. Nothing is as satisfying as the power to reduce everything into molten slag and blasted ruins. He has no actual desire to unleash death and destruction upon humanity (it's about the explosions not the screams, after all) but he isn't above slahing the tires of someone who really offends him. One of his biggest concerns is proving to his peers that his days of mad raving and elaborate revenge schemes are over, and he is trying to concetrate on less destructive scientific pursuits.

Sheet: Alberich