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Erika Dev Diary

Heil dir im Siegerkranz,  and stand to attention for the 13th Dev Diary and Erika Wilhelmina von  Stahlberg! The reach of the deutsches Kaiserreich is far and wide, and  from these lands hails a woman who exemplifies all things German and  disciplinarian.

It  is the winter of 1918. The lands south of Königsberg are raked by  frozen winds, and amidst one such winter storm, a baby girl is born into  a minor Junker family. The child cries quietly and is swaddled up in  blankets before being handed to the awaiting arms of Maria Margrethe von  Stahlberg, where she immediately quietens in the presence of her  mother. A servant hurries to dispatch a message to military officer  Johann Friedrich Otto von Stahlberg informing him of the birth of his  daughter. A week later in the local Lutheran church, the child is  christened Erika Wilhelmina von Stahlberg.

Erika’s  earliest memories are those of listening to her mother recount their  family history with pride, tracing their lineage through the history  books, and admiring the medals of her forefathers that bedecked the  mantelpiece. She recalls her father’s rare visits with gifts from  foreign lands and her mother’s insistence on feeding him well with  lavish feasts with great fondness, regarding them as her most treasured  memories. And they were the most peaceful, too.

The  Weltkrieg takes Otto before Erika reaches her third birthday, and with  him the von Stahlbergs’ family pride. Soon the coffers begin to dry up,  family lands and heirlooms are pawned off, and Junker relatives step in  to offer the barest amount of charity to keep mother and daughter fed,  clothed, and housed. At one point in her adolescence Erika has to lower  herself to manual work; an experience that’s as humbling as it is  humiliating for someone of her status. And through this all, she has to  deal with her mother’s growing fondness for alcohol, locking herself up  in her bedroom with the curtains drawn, and in a constant refusal to  engage with her daughter in any way whatsoever.

So  she finds respite in education; a means to distance herself from her  mess of a mother and live up to her father’s memory. Erika pushes  herself to excel at every task, no matter how menial or ambitious, and  her teachers praise her diligence and dedication to her studies. Be it  Latin or Polish, fencing or equestrian, there’s no subject that she  dares to take lightly.

Her  schooling isn’t the only burden placed on her shoulders, though, and  she spends countless hours reaching out to her mother and sobering her  up, and carrying out family business in the hopes of reclaiming the  family’s prestige. Eventually her efforts to pull her mother from  alcoholism pay off, and it’s in the summer of 1930 that Margarethe  secures a place for them in the estate of another Junker family and  restores the von Stahlberg name to its rightful place amongst its peers.

Erika  allows herself to have a moment of vulnerability in her room, the  realisation of years of effort almost too much for her to bear. But the  restoration of order and rejoining her place in society leaves her  wanting to spread this stability to all aspects of her life, and indeed  society in general.

As she nears the end  of her secondary education, she begins to look for a suitable place to  continue her education. Erika initially looks to the south of Germany,  but a sudden gift from her mother sees her with an enrolment in the  International School of Geneva. The household’s coffers have been  depleted again, and although Erika is initially furious at her mother’s  actions, she comes to accept it as a token of remorse and guilt.

The  school opens up a plethora of opportunities for Erika. She rises to the  position of student councillor by virtue of her disciplinarian  tendencies and effective enforcement of order, and sets herself from her  peers through her hard work and grades. It’s also there she that finds a  young Japanese aristocrat whom she initially follows as a servant would  to her lady, but this simple bond grows deeper as they discover  themselves to be kindred spirits. Around the school the pair are  nigh-inseparable, and despite unkind whisperings that Erika is Yuki’s  personal attack dog, their friendship remains quite steadfast.

Erika  presents herself as the strict disciplinarian, but beneath that heart  clad in iron, she is still a young woman with a fractured childhood and a  yearning to make up for years lost to hardship. The path to her opening  up to you will be arduous and fraught with missteps, but the journey is  well worth being gifted with a genuine smile.

Dev diary art brought to you by the wonderful ButteryIcarus, Hansa, and RuneRaven! Thank you all so much!

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we can date huey long right

I don’t know about that now

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It is a mistake to fancy that horror is associated inextricably with darkness, silence, and solitude. Sometimes, the image is enough.

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Our girls may be newcomers to our world, but they went through heavy filtering and edits to ensure that you could have characters you could relate to and aesthetically appreciate. Even in this one picture, a lot of time was spent to ensure their portraits reflected their character.

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There’s no Dev Announcement this week

But, in the words of Buttery~

“RAVIOLLI RAVIOLLI THERE WON'T BE A FUCKING LOLI!!!“

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Hansa’s Guide to the Edelweiss Franchise, c. 2036

Or, how capitalism ruins us all.

Edelweiss Hearts

Edelweiss Hearts: Chain of Memories

Edelweiss Hearts II

Edelweiss Hearts II: Final Mix

Edelweiss Hearts 358/2 Days

Edelweiss Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance

Edelweiss Hearts HD 1.5 Remix

Edelweiss Hearts HD 2.5 Remix

Edelweiss Hearts HD 2.8: Final Chapter Prologue

Edelweiss: Biohazard Edelweiss Zero Dawn

Edelweiss: Andromeda

Super Edelweiss Odyssey

Edelweiss: Battlefront II

Edelweiss and the Will of the Wisps

Edelweiss: N Sane Trilogy

Edelweiss vs. Capcom: Infinite

Edelweiss: The After Years

Edelweiss Tactics

Edelweiss Default

Edelweiss Second: End Layer

Dissidia Edelweiss

Dissidia 012 Edelweiss

Edelweiss Trigger

Dragon Quest Edelweiss: The World Tree's Woe and the Blight Below

Edelweiss XIV: Stormblood

Edelweiss Racing 3D

Edelweiss RPG: The Legend of the Seven Stars

Edelweiss Hoops 3-on-3

Edelweiss: Samurai Legend

Edelweiss: Attack on Earth

Pingu no Waku Waku Edelweiss

Edelweiss Harmonics

Edelweiss Summoner, The Unsung Heroes

Edelweiss Ends with You

Edelweiss Prime 4

Edelweiss XIV: Heavensward

Edelweiss Record Keeper

Edelweiss: The Masquerade and after a YEARS of anticipation;

Edelweiss Hearts III

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Dev Diary - Pham Ti Hang

Pham Ti Hang / Helene Pham is our third and final female MC, and she’s the centrist in the middle!

Pham Ti Hang was born in December 1918, in Tonkin, the capital of French Indochina, as the French Republic fell into the fires of mutiny. Her father, an interpreter, was able to secure a comfortable life for the Pham family under the French administration, and after her birth the Germans. However, under demands from the government of Deutsch Ostasien, all native employees of the government had to Germaize their names and their offsprings. As a result, Hang grew up with another identity: *Helene Pham. *    Hang was an intelligent child, and quickly learned German from colonial schools, as well as French from her father’s old dictionaries, which he kept alongside a number of other charts and maps procured by the French colonial government. But her parents insisted on privately teaching her Vietnamese, believing that even as German subjects, they should not lose sight of where she came from.

By the mid 1930s, syndicalist elements among the Vietnamese population began to fester. While OstAsien still held control over the territory, Hang’s parents feared they might be engulfed in the conflict. Resigning as a translator, Hang’s father moved the family to Singapur in 1934.

Hang spent three years in the bustling capital, seeing ships from across the Kaiserreich enter and exit the ports. Wanting to enter journalism to travel across the world with the great ships, whether as Hang or Helene, she convinced her parents to send her to the Geneva International Institute. Now on the final leg of a trip that took her around almost half of the world, Hang hopes that this is only the beginning of her adventures.

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I’ve never seen Hellsing, for which Imicus will likely never forgive me, but Hansa’s off topic art is still fantastic, and truly badass, worthy of both characters!

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SYNDICALIST PROPOGANDA REEEEE

Many thanks to /u/VerySpookyPizza

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Before and after - lets play spot the difference! Reblog with your observations!

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Bio for Zhu Yijun, winner of the OC Contest!

In honour of our winner of the OC contest, Omega, here is the profile of his award winning character, Yijun! Thanks again for this fantastic character!

Name: 朱怡君 (Zhu Yijun, or Yijun Zhu in western naming conventions)

Nationality: Han Chinese (specifically looking to rep Nat. China)

Ideology: Three Principles of the People/Mínshēng Syndicalism (Would be represented in game as Radical Socialist. Essentially a more agrarian version of socialism, based off the social conditions of rural southern china, and influenced heavily through Georgism. Would be pretty heterodox to typical syndicalism, but Yijun doesn’t really care what the damn French have to think about it, this is what her family has fought and died for.)

Appearance: Yijun, due to both already coming from a western-minded family, and due to living in France for most of her adolescent life, has adopted a western wardrobe. As a testament to her father and of her political beliefs, Yijun will often wear the sky blue that was once the color of the National Revolutionary Army uniforms. A typical outfit for Yijun might consist of a matching sky blue cardigan and skirt, with a white blouse, or it could be a light blue dress. Yijun typically does not wear a hat in everyday wear, instead keeping her long, back-length black hair free and straight. Yijun does have short bangs, and her hair comes around both of her sides along with her back.Her brown eyes are not bispectaled, nor does she typically wear any form of jewelry on her. Yijun’s most defining facial feature is a small, x-shaped scar on her left cheek, which she obtained during the fall of Wuchang and her escape from the city.

Much like the socialists she met in France, Yijun has took the habit of wearing an armband in everyday wear here in Geneva. Instead of the the typical red armband, Yijun instead wears a blue armband with the white sun of the Kuomintang. Yijun wears it as a visual reminder to herself that the Xinhai Revolution has not died yet, and she will be the bridge to carry it from her father’s generation to her own. It also serves as an immediate indicator to others that she is Chinese, but does not identify with the current Chinese government, along with indicating that she is a socialist (although not European-style syndicalism).

Personality: Yijun’s experiences as a child during the collapse of Kuomintang rule in Southern China, along with the visceral anger of losing most of her family in the resulting chaos, had fundamentally broken Yijun. What had once been a sweet, loving, and caring girl has been replaced with an unyielding, if tranquil, fury. It is hard for Yijun to focus on anything beyond her feelings of pain and guilt, and thus she has tried to erect barriers around herself to keep anyone from getting close to her. In effect, in Geneva, Yijun is simply afraid of getting too close to her fellow students, preferring to just focus on her studies in the background of whatever relationship drama is unfolding around her. That is not to say Yijun will not talk if approached to, but she will seem cold and distant; it could easily be misread that she simply thought everyone was beneath her, but it's actually because Yijun just doesn’t know how to connect with other people anymore, and is too afraid to try to again.

Yijun isn’t one to be quick to anger; her life experiences has made her simply let go of personal slights that may have gotten under other people’s skins. However, when it comes to truly important topics that Yijun holds close to her heart, like the legacy of her father and brothers, the way Germany, Japan, and other powers conspired to ransack her home again, or someone upholding truly reactionary thought; her anger towards that individual will be hard to subdue. Yijun is not one to easily forgive nor forget, but to anyone in Geneva who manages to open her shell, she will also prove to be a most loyal friend as well.

Yijun’s main interests, in an academic setting, is history, particularly the history of China. As part of her education back home, she is well-versed in some of the classic literature of her homeland, where she particularly identifies with the legends of both Hua Mulan and the Ming loyalist Koxinga. Asking her about her country’s history is one of the easiest ways to get her to open up, as she could spend hours detailing minute details of various peasant uprisings against corrupt and decadent emperors. However, that fascinations ends on anything related to the Qing: they are nothing more than foreign bandits that had, and now thanks to Germany, continue to plunder from China and keep it in a feudal dark age. Saying anything positive about the Manchu dynasty is perhaps the easiest way to get her to explode.

Yijun also has a budding interest in writing as well. Most of her writing, beyond schoolwork, has been unfocused short stories about whatever was on her mind at the time she picked up her pen. She even admits they’re not really all that good, but its something to do so that she doesn’t go mad when her mind keeps focusing on what happened ten years ago. Yijun has mused about the idea of writing an “alternative history” novel like that American novel she found in a Paris library, It Can’t Happen Here! However, she doesn’t know what to do with it, beyond a general desire to “fix” the Xinhai Revolution so that it was never betrayed by foreigners. A quirk related to her writing is that she only will do stories in her native Mandarin, with traditional hanzi characters. To Yijun, the symbolism and the artistic calligraphy of the characters adds a dimension to the writing that Latin-based scripts lack, but it also means that most students at Geneva simply have to take her word at what she’s writing.  

Biography:

[NOTE: This is based off of publicly revealed but not yet implemented lore for China, so if you’re wondering if some of these references aren’t making any sense, this is why. I got my source from here: http://cs.servegame.com/kaiserreich/thread-2204.html. However, it was down the last time I tried to access it, so you may need to wayback machine it]

Yijun was born in bumbling city of Guangzhou on June 1st, 1918; the youngest of three and the only daughter. Her father, Zhu Tao, was from Wuchang, and personally witnessed the Wuchang Uprising in 1911, the initial Tongmenghui resistance to the Qing dynasty. Ever since that fateful day on October 10th, the Zhu family’s fate would be tied to the successes and failures of what would eventually become the Kuomintang.

Yijun’s brothers, Qiang and Huang, were somewhat older than Yijun, being born respectively in 1908 and 1910. Tao was enthralled by the Kuomintang ever since he saw them openly defy the Qing Empire, and quickly registered for the Nationalist Party as soon as they formally organized. In 1917, the family moved from Wuchang to Guangzhou as the KMT clique was established in the city. It was once they finally settled down in their new home that Tao and his wife Jingyu, unexpectedly had a third child. Although it wasn’t their plan, they still loved her very dearly, and life went on with a slightly expanded family.

It was under the reality of a divided country that Yijun grew up under. Not even Guangzhou was spared from political violence: it experienced a brief civil war in Yijun’s infancy over whether or not Sun Yat-sen should continue to lead the party or not. However, it was, compared to the north, far more peaceful and prosperous, and perhaps one of the better areas to raise a child. Yijun got the best education a war-torn nation could provide, as Tao used his influence as a low-mid party member to pull as many strings as he could.

These formative years, from about 1920-1926, were the happiest of Yijun’s life. Sure, outside of her bubble, everyone was killing each other over the question of who should lead China. However, all she can remember playing with her friends at school, helping her mom with her chores, being read stories by her dad (whenever he was home), and even playing some games with her brothers when they weren’t too annoyed by her. It was a period of bliss that would soon be violently ripped from her.

In 1926, as a response to the growing instability of the warlords to the north, the KMT enacted what would be known as the Northern Expedition. Both Tao and the recently of-age Qiang both volunteered to join the army, as an officer and an enlistee, respectively. The march against the northern criminals might be long and arduous, but it would be the final struggle to unify China under enlightened, people-centered government. There would be no more war, no more dictators, but peace and prosperity.

The NRA never even reached Nanjing.

In their first major battle, the NRA forces were soundly defeated by the German-backed Zhili clique. Among the dead were both Tao and Qiang. Only a few months later, the Zhili themselves attacked Guangzhou. The entire city was torn into chaos as the streets ran red with blood in the urban fighting. Everything went by so quickly, that Yijun could barely process what was going on at first. Jingyu, Huang, and herself took whatever they could carry and headed for the docks. Rumor had it that there were boats to take the leadership to France. Although they were far too low ranked to be the intended recipients… it was their best chance to get out of the falling city.

At some point in their mad dash, an explosion rocked a building to their side, spewing debris onto the street. Yijun was gashed by splintering wood, but she survived. However, the shock knocked her out, and by the time she regained consciousness, she was already on a boat leaving shore, her mother tensly staring at the burning city, fighting back tears. Huang wasn’t with them, and her mother remained silent as the young girl asked where her brother was. All the little girl could do was join her mother, looking at the engulfing inferno that continued to consume the city

Yijun would later find out that Huang refused to evacuate, saying that his father and brother didn’t run from their duty, and neither should he. Plus, they’d have a better chance of pleading their way on a ship if it was just a single mother and her young child, rather than if he was there with them.  He promised to write back as soon as he could, to make sure they knew he survived the fall of the city.

He never wrote back. Yijun and her mother knew he would have crossed hell and highwater to get any form of contact with him had he lived: he’s gone as well.

Yijun and Jingyu both settled down in Paris with the other KMT exiles, both utterly broken from their experiences in Guangzhou. Jingyu arranged for her daughter to continue her studies in an école, but given that neither of them spoke French when they first arrived, simply readjusting to their new lives was going to be hard work. Jingyu was simply done with politics at this point in her life, and since that’s all the other exiles wanted to talk about, she was forced to try to reach out to native Parisians for any sort of friendship. Yijun on the other hand, grew to resent herself for not being able to do anything to help the situation. It didn’t matter that she was only 8 at the time; her entire family besides her mother died to protect her, the country, and the revolution, and beyond her survival, it was all for naught. As she started to approach her teenage years, Yijun felt the onus of responsibility to try to avenge them one day, when the opportunity arose itself.

Therefore, while Jingyu willingly embraced France, Yijun slid into isolation with the other exile’s children, finding them to be her only real friends in the Commune. Jingyu didn’t mind at first; it made sense that her daughter gravitated towards the children most similar to her, and it's not like they were really old enough to influence her. However, as she grew older, Jingyu attempted to push Yijun to accept their new life in Paris and try to make friends with her kids in school.  

However, Yijun continued to mostly hang out with the other exiles, who increasingly radicalized each other after sharing their stories of their families and their heroics in the name of the Nationalist Party to one another. During the height of the 1932 riots in the south, Yijun and her friends did an impromptu oath, similar to the legendary Peach Garden Oath, that they would one day return back to China “when the time was right”. This, of course, horrified Jingyu when she heard about it, but she also knew if she tried to intervene too harshly, her daughter would just meet with them behind her back.

Four years later, in 1936, Jingyu heard through one of the other exile’s wives that they were planning the “big one”. The tyranny in the Eight Provinces was reaching a breaking point, and it was only a matter of when before the remaining KMT cells in China would lead a new uprising, and they would return to their homeland. Jingyu was terrified; she knew her daughter would do anything to join the return trip. She didn’t want to see her only remaining child killed in some short-sighted quest of vengeance. Instead, she secretly enrolled her daughter into the International School of Geneva, to get her away from her friends and to keep her out of the next wave of bloodshed in China.

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Dev Diary - Naomi Keya Abeselome

Today we learn of another playable character, who has come from the east coast of Africa to be with us today, so give a warm welcome to the girl on the right, Naomi!

Naomi Keya Abeselome

NATIONALITY AND CITY: Abyssinia, Addis Ababa

BIOGRAPHY: Naomi Keya Abeselome was born on November 28th, 1917 as the child of a higher class member of the empire. When the Abyssinian Empire joined the fight alongside the central powers to take back the lands that Italy had stolen from them, her parents were more than happy to help out in the fight. When the lands were successfully annexed from the crumbling remains of the Italian Empire, many were happy to rejoice in this victory, however, the empire was plagued with many other problems and conflict, even after their newfound success and power.

Unfortunately, despite the higher status that Naomi had, she was able to see these first hand. She saw the crippling problems that the country had faced due to an inefficient tax system, too much power being granted towards the feudal lords, the outdated and corrupt institution of slavery still being prevalent, and the infighting between the various classes. But most of all, the empire needing one thing: Modernization. It was clear that in its current state, Abyssinia was in no shape at all to contend with any of the other powers on the continent, and if it did not do this quickly and efficiently, they would surely be absorbed. So, the country had decided to expand it’s railway to help properly and efficiently move it’s supplies and resources around. Naomi had high hopes for the future of Abyssinia, and the new railway being built brought her great amounts of awe. However, Abyssinia was still not quite up to par. So, it decided to try and get into contact with the greatest empire in the world, and its former ally, the German Empire, to help out with it’s investments. But, a day and an opportunity that the young Naomi had longed hoped for had come.

Thanks to connections with the foreign offices of Berlin, and later contacts with the neutral country of Switzerland, Naomi had gotten the opportunity of a lifetime: The chance to study European history and Culture at Geneva. Not only would this help broaden her overall view of the world, and to see all of the people in it, but perhaps also benefit the Empire as well with the information she would bring back!

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Even as production ramps up, we can’t forget the huge role fan content plays in our community. Submersible for example penned a simple adorable Gwen, deviously preparing to seize the means of the school deserts, I can only presume. Many thanks for your contribution!

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Ah, you the motherfucker?

Well, thanks to ButteryIcarus, I understand everything now.

Nods.

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Hot damn, is this not some absolutely fantastic art? Many thanks to RuneRaven for a brilliant take on Yijun, the Chinese OC.

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OC CONTEST WINNERS!

The OC contest is over, let us all stand with ovation at the winners! We're all legitimately proud at the entries, turns out you lot are quite the writers!

1st Place: Yijun, written by Omega!

2nd: Eli, written by Eli of Arabia

3rd: Christopher, written by Meser

4th: Thandiwe, written by Gains

5th: Anice, written by Nexerus

6th: Tie between Pim, Rainbow, and Konrad

Many thanks to Buttery for doing the art for our entrants, and a shout out to everyone who applied in this competition! We had a lot of great content, and we’re glad that these talented writers got their day in the sun!

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Dev Diary - Annemiek van Zijl

A story is only as good as it's protagonist! Get ready to fill someone's shoes and let us take a look at the first half of the player characters!

Annemiak is to the left.

NATION AND CITY: Den Haag, The Netherlands

BIOGRAPHY: Annemiek was born into the ideological ‘melting pot’ (Or should that be ‘powderkeg’?) of The Netherlands on the 15th of April, 1918. Four years prior, the world had plunged into war, but it was a war that ranged outside Dutch territory, for the nation had chosen to remain neutral in the conflict. Aside from food rationing, the war had no major impact. The Netherlands had always been a nation of trade and one worldwide conflict was not going to change that. As France and Britain fell to the syndicalist Revolutions, trade became solely oriented towards the German Empire.

The pillarisation of Dutch society continued well into the 30s, however, she never joined one of the four pillars (The Socialist, Liberal, Catholic or Protestant pillars) though. She was expected to join the Liberal pillar, as her parents had, but she was fortunate to avoid doing so, as when Black Monday hit the country, it didn’t take long for the economic crisis to shatter the pillars.

The life she knew vanished. It was clear that something had to be done, as the high standard of life that Dutch citizens enjoyed was no longer guaranteed. While Annemiek herself might have some ideas on how to fix the problems, she still has to go to school. An opportunity came in the form of the International School in Geneva. This seemed like the perfect move to not only learn but also to meet other people and cultures. Maybe then she could return home after a few years of schooling and help fix the crisis…

Stay tuned for more characters & the Male MCs in the coming weeks!