Chris Zuschauer

Christopher Farend Zuschauer

Born on a farm in Kansas, Chris was a curious and intelligent, if sometimes awkward young man. He lived with his father and grandfather, his mother dead from lung cancer caused by pesticides while he was three years old. However, his story does not truly start with him, but his great grandfather.

Family history

Jaeger Zuschauer was a young German immigrant to the United States shortly before the First World War. He was drafted into the army on short notice after the U.S. entered the war, and was shipped to the trenches early on. Jaeger catalyzed as a Grimm during a mustard gas attack on his section of the trench, and conceived of a marvelous idea: if he could equip every man on the trench with a small flying machine, they could all leap across the No-Mans land, and kill every mustard gas spewing, artillery shell dropping bastard on the other side! Encouraged by this mad plan, he saved as many scraps as he could, but was only able to build one such machine. Undaunted, he attached it to his back, and flew over the battlefield, only to be confronted by another Genius with a similar idea. After a brief, awkward and unsuccessful aerial duel, he landed in his original trench and decided to dedicate himself to protecting his army from strange inventions. He became known as The Charger by Allied forces, was covered up hastily by the Invisible College before he made headlines and eventually came back to the U.S.

Disheartened and haunted (literally) by the horrors the First World War, Jaeger tamped down on his Inspired impulses as best he could and bought a farm in Kansas. He married, had a son, and died in bed from tiny Lemurian heart-monkey-worms chewing through his internal organs (he had been noticed by a Mechanist having a bad day, who decided to off the Rogue Grimm instead of recruiting him).

Ralph Zuchauer, the son, was a farmer and inventor who discovered his father’s legacy and catalyzed as a Neid. He recognized that The Charger was a pretty good way of gaining recognition quickly when the Second World War broke out, and promptly became a Nazi punching hero and member of the Peerage. Renaming his father’s invention the “Jetpack,” he tried to introduce the lightweight flying machine to the public at large through war reporters, but was stopped by his fellow peers before he embarrassed himself. They talked him through a crash course of the Invisible College’s philosophy, and when the war was over, the Neid left for home and tried to abandon his inspiration, as his father before him.

Ralph came back with dead friends, night terrors and a severe drinking problem. He managed to have a child with someone else’s wife, and raised the son as his own, keeping the world of Inspiration a secret as best he could.

Johann Zuchauer lived a normal life, helping others as best he could with a meager knowledge of farm equipment and medicine. He married, had a son, and lost his wife to his own mixture of pesticides. He broke down and became a Klagen, swearing to help others as best he was able. Ralph recognized the symptoms, and gave his son the full inside view of the inspired world and enough training to build his own jetpack and armored suit. Johann joined the Navigators and Iridium Sentinels as soon as possible, and became The Charger, the third man to fly across the sky and do battle with strange and terrible things. He kept that up for twenty years.

Then we get to Chris. Chris was inquisitive and friendly by nature, and with his family history it was practically inevitable that he catalyze as a Staunen. He did so on his 21st birthday, a few months before Ralph, unable to deal with the memories of his dead collaborative any longer, committed suicide with a simple noose. Johann, far less able to keep secrets than his father, couldn’t prevent Chris from finding his great grandfathers blueprints for the original jetpack, and catalyzing as a Staunen on the spot.

So instead, Johann pulled together every recorded bit of tragedy and terror from his family history, and put Chris through all of that in a single night of old films, horrific journal entries and war stories. It was too much for Johann, whose memories kept drifting back to his dead wife and Ralph’s funeral, so the Klagen put on his own jetpack, activated the farm’s self destruct (forty-eight hours later, eight acres of land melted), bade his son farewell and flew off into the early morning sky.

Chris put together his first wonder, a simple motor bike, in silence as he considered his future. He decided to go see the world for himself, and spent the next year on the road, eventually joining the Navigators. Chris was exposed to some of the weirder parts of the world, and built his other wonders at that time, taking up the family legacy as The Charger.

After getting tired of sleeping in the rain and starving whenever he couldn’t find work, Chris decided to settle down. As it happened, a Navigator outpost in Northern Georgia had just become free, as the previous operator was dead and all her wonders had exploded. So Chris saddled up one last time and drove across two states in two days.

Appearance

Chris is tall, gangly, has short blonde hair and is horribly burned. He has dark, disgusting and irregular burns that mottle the skin of his entire body. Chris tried mixing up a batch of mania enhanced jet fuel in a kitchen sink, and it exploded, burning him and the abandoned motel he was staying in. Only a convenient rainstorm kept him from dying.

He wears a leather jacket at all times, two pairs of jeans when biking and one pair of jeans otherwise.

Goals

Chris wants to live up to his family legacy as a superhero of sorts, do a thesis to increase his Inspiration, contact some old and fairly odd acquaintances, learn martial arts and find out just what the hell happened in Georgia. It might happen a second time, after all.

Before any of that, however, he wants to earn some cash and stock up on food. Chris has faced starvation, and it made a deep and lasting impression on the young man.

Sheet:Chris Zuschauer