Thank you very much! Shall we continue then? 
Monday, May 4th, 1891 – London, England (UK)
When the Travellers arrived in Earth Zero’s London of the year 1891, they decided that it would be best if H.G. Wells would first consult his counterpart in this reality in order to obtain possible clues for their search for the Mata’Nui while the rest of the team would search for references in other places.
But at the very moment when he reached the house of his “twin”, he was intercepted by a completely dilapidated, dirty man in odd-looking, ripped clothes, staring at him with a wild look behind even odder glowing red goggles as he began to seemingly incoherent talking to him.
“H.G.! Oh my God, am I glad to see you here! You were right – I got it all completely wrong and now he has managed to acquire the Eye of Horus. We have to stop him from also getting the Eye of Ra, or the world as we know it will be doomed.”
“What? What the hell are you talking about? And who are you, anyway?”
“Don’t you recognize me? It’s me – the Walker. Wait a minute! What date is it?”
“Today is Monday, May 4th”.
“No, I mean, what year is it?”
“Is this a joke?”
“WHAT YEAR IS IT???”
“Calm down! It’s 1891. Why?”
“Damn it! Of course you don’t know me, we haven’t yet met in this time period. How could we anyway – I’m only born today. Is this a coincidence? Whatever, unfortunately it takes a few more years until we’ll meet for the first time. At least from my point of view.”
“Don’t tell me you are also a time traveller!”
“What? What do you know about time travel? You shouldn’t know anything about that for the next four years.”
“I guess you’re confusing me with this realities H.G. Wells. Sorry to disappoint you, but I am not him. I’m from a parallel world and came here on a search for an alien race that lives hidden on this earth.”
“Oh dear, a dimension jumper. That explains a lot. Guess I didn’t confuse you after all then. Wait! This alien race you’re talking about – are those the Mata’Nui?”
“You know them?! That’s splendid! Then you can lead me to them – my world needs their help against a common enemy.”
“Now it’s me who has to disappoint you. My only contact with this species was by a computer, which I have to thank that I have to carry out such confusing conversations over and over again. Long story…”
“Well, I think I know very well how you must feel. Time travel is a complicated thing. But perhaps our meeting is no coincidence. Maybe I’ll find a pointer to the Mata’Nui if I first help you with your problem? What is that anyway – something about an Egyptian artifact?”
“Oh, believe me you can’t help me on this matter – at least not your present self. But then again, considering the information I have now, I guess you already did help me in some way. Just not today, but rather in the future. Precisely in 25 years from now in New York to be exact. Huh, another May 4th – what are the odds? Anyway, if I understand this correctly, that will also be the first time that we meet from my point of view. Man, I hate these time travel paradoxes…”
“Well, I guess I’ll see you in 25 years then.”
At the “same time” on the other side of the English Channel:
Friday, August 13, 1915 – near Munich, Bavaria (Germany)
After his lost battle against the Monsters Society in his “fathers” former laboratory at the university of Ingolstadt in Germany, Frankenstein’s Monster had found refugee in an old abandoned abbey near Munich where he recovered from his injuries when a mysterious scruffy men in ragged clothes and with an old musket on his back entered the ruins. Hidden in a dark corner he studied the odd man who seemed to search for someting when suddenly the men turned around and stared directly at the spot where the monster was hiding.
“You can come out now, I know you’re there.”
“Who are you? What do you want from me?”
“People call me “the Walker”. I’m here to help you – and ask for your help in return.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about. You don’t know me.”
“Of course I do, Frank. Can I call you that? Frank? I know you don’t have a real name, but Frank somehow sounds appropriate for Frankenstein’s so called “Monster”.”
Frank slowly stepped out from his dark corner and studied his opponent suspicious.
“How do you know about me? Most people think I’m just a character in a novel.”
“Well, to be honest I thought that too once. But as I had to learn the hard way, this world is stranger than most people think possible. Take me for example – did you ever think that there could be a man who travels through time to fix historical events that have gone wrong?”
“You are a time traveler? That explains how you knew where to find me.”
“Huh – now I’m somewhat disappointed. I didn’t think you would swallow it that easy. I’d already prepared ​​myself for lengthy explanations.”
“Not much unlike you I have seen many strange things in the 127 years that I have now roamed this world. And what exactly is it you think you could help me with?”
“Well, in fact I think we can help each other. After all, it is about a common enemy.”
“I guess you’re talking about Moriarty?”
“Bingo!”
“Bingo?”
“A word you’ll probably learn in about 11 years which means that you’re right. Anyway. Yes, it is Moriarty who I need your help to fight.”
“Why?”
“Well, unfortunately, the attainment of your father’s research documents was only a small piece of the puzzle in a much bigger scheme by Moriarty, which could mean the end of the world as we know it. If we want to save billions of lives, we have to stop him.”
“That sounds pretty ominous. And how would this mutual aid, of which you are talking about, look like?”
“As you may already have noticed by now, you don’t stand a chance against the combined power of Moriarty’s Monsters Society – and neither do I. But with a little help of friends? So, what do you think of joining – or rather founding – a team of adventurers?”
“Umph. Never been a good team player.”
“Well, then it’s time to change that. I think we should start our recruiting tour in London.”
“Why? Who is there?”
“Ever heard the name Van Helsing?!”
The Team from front left to back right:
| FRANK | ||||||
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Information: ________________________
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Origin:
Created from body parts of several corpses by the mad scientiest Viktor Frankenstein, who was obsessed with studying outdated theories of science that focused on achieving natural wonders and had developed a secret technique to imbue inanimate bodies with life, “Frank” was immediately repudiated by his “father” after his reanimation. Hopeless and saddened from rejection, the monster disappeared and spent a year living near a cottage, where he learned to speak by listening to a family living there and taught himself to read with a lost satchel of books he had discovered. After an unfortunate encounter with the family, he became afraid of people and fled to Geneva, where he approached his creator and craved that Frankenstein create for him a female companion like himself. Viktor reluctantly agreed and together they traveled to England where Viktor pretended to work on a second being on the Orkney Islands. But at the first available opportunity he betrayed his creation and fled the Island. Once again left in the lurch by his “father”, the so called monster followed Viktor back to Geneva and arrived just in time for Viktors wedding with his adoptive sister Elizabeth. But when confronted by the monster to get an explanation for his acts, Viktor used Elizabeth as a human shield and throw her in the monsters arms who accidentally broke her neck when he tryed to catch her. Horrified and mad with anger over Viktors actions the monster pursued him to the North Pole, where he found his father, nearly frozen and emaciated, dying aboard a ship that was entombed in ice. Mourning over Frankenstein’s body he vowed to kill himself on his own funeral pyre so that no others will ever know of his existence. But as he endures cold and heat much easier than normal people his suicide attempt failed and in the following decades he wandered restless the world in search of a home and people that accepted him for what he is. |
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Powers:
Frank’s physical strength and durability is enhanced to levels far beyond the human body’s natural limits and, being created through artificial means, he is effectively immortal since he is isn’t technically “alive”. He does not age beyond his current form and despite the fact that he isn’t invulnerable and can indeed be physically injured, he is also able to rapidly regenerate damaged or destroyed tissue and heal injuries such as bullet wounds and severe burns within minutes to a few hours. He can even heal a severed limb by holding it in place long enough for the damaged connecting tissue to regenerate. |
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| ABBY VAN HELSING | |||||
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Information: ________________________
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Origin:
After his participation in the hunt and killing of Count Dracula, Abraham Van Helsing returned home to his wife who was pregnant with their first child at this time. But when he finally arrived his wife was already bitten by Dracula’s vampire son, the “Nightstalker”, in revenge for his fathers death. Abrahams managed to fight of the vampire only to see his wife die while giving birth to their daughter Abby. Grieve-stricken Abraham had now to behead his own wife in order to prevent her return as a vampire and raise his daugher alone. In the coming years Abraham soon learned that Abigail was different to other childs. He recognized treats of a vampire without really being one and realized that when the vampire feasted on his wife as she gave birth, his baby daughter was altered and transformed into a Dhampir – a being half human, half vampire, that’s been tainted by a vampire’s kiss, but not converted. Building up on Abbys special abilities as a Dhampir, Abraham taught her everything he knew about hunting, fighting and killing vampires and determined to avenge her mother’s death, Abby become a redoubtable vampire hunter and a relentless nemesis of Dracula’s Son. |
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Powers:
As a Dhampir Abby was born with an immunity to the effects of vampire bites, the ability to “sense” the presence of supernatural beings or forces, a greatly prolonged lifespan, and various superhuman physical capabilities similar to those of vampires such as heightend sense of sight and hearing as well as supernaturally strength, speed, agility, and stamina. While being immune to most of the particular supernatural vulnerabilities of vampires, like being affected by direct exposure to sunlight, she possess one weakness common with them: the need to ingest fresh blood in order to stay strong. But rather than to feed on humans, she prefers to consume the blood of superhuman creatures which provides her with even more power. |
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| THE WALKER | |||||
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Information: ________________________
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Origin:
Lance Walker was an American archaelogist who happened to stumble upon an abandoned, hidden base of an alien species called the Mata’nui in 1927 and was chosen by the facility’s sentient computer to become “The Walker” – an involuntary time traveler who is hurled back- and forward through time to places of special historical significance in order to “put right what once went wrong”. In the majority of cases he can’t control when and where he will end up, but sometimes he is able to willingly travel into times he already visited before. While he remembers his last name and how he became a time traveler, most of his past is a blur to him. In return he appears to have a vast knowledge about the past and the future, what originally should have transpired in history, and what change has to be done, in a specific time he appears in, to “correct” the course of events. |
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Powers:
Obviously, the Walker can move forward and backward in time. He also sees possible futures, and when he detects a threat to the timeline he gets automatically pulled to the corresponding point of time in order to take steps that counters this threat. He also has the irritating, and mostly subconscious, ability to sense the presence of latent and manifested mutations in the genetic code of person’s who are in close proximity to himself and to jump-start or evolve their superhuman powers. |
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| RANDOLPH CARTER | ||||||
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Information: ________________________
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Origin:
Randolph Carter, born in 1874, was an antiquarian who underwent a mysterious experience at the age of ten and thereafter exhibited a gift of prophecy. Serving in the French Foreign Legion during the First World War, he was badly wounded in fighting near Belloy-en-Santerre in 1916 and a few years later he was the first time confronted with supernatural forces while investigating a mysterious crypt in an ancient abandoned cemetery with his Harley Warren who died during these events. In the following years Carter had many ancounters with the supernatural world and became access to a vast, alternate dimension that can be entered either via dreams. In the Dreamlands he became a king and by passing through it he could reach other alternate realities and parallel earths, one of them being a world where a powerful alien race called “The Old Ones” lived hidden on earth for billions of years. But as he aged, his ability to dream as he once did eventually eroded and after his long-dead grandfather told him of a silver key in his attic, inscribed with mysterious arabesque symbols, in one of his last dreams he made a visit to his boyhood home in the backwoods of northeastern Massachusetts where he found a mysterious cave that he used to play in. Using the silver key to the “gate of dreams” Randolph was able to return to his childhood as a ten-year-old boy, and his adult self disappeared from his normal time, while his ten year old self had somehow gained the ability to glimpse events in his future. Now, on his second walk through life, be become a full-time adventurer and an expert in the supernatural, who fights the dark forces and keeps the Necronomicon under lock and key. |
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Powers:
Randolph Carter is able to mentally and physically enter a dimension called “The Dreamlands” and travel to alternate realities through it. He also possesses the original Kitab Al’Azif – also known as “Necronomicon”, an extremely powerful and dangerous grimoire of dark arts bound in human skin and written with human blood by the insane Arab sorcerer Abdul Alhazred in the year 700. |
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| ARSÈNE LUPIN | ||||||
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Information: ________________________
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Origin:
Born 1874, the son of Henriette d’Andrésy and Théophraste Lupin, Lupin enjoyed an excellent education in law and medicine, where he specialized in dermatology, the field of medicine that deals with skin diseases. In addition to Latin, Greek and English, he speaks several modern languages ​​fluently. He is a master of disguise and various martial arts and an outspoken painter and art connoisseur – in the hollow needle shaped rock at Étretat he hoards exquisite art treasures, including the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci. Lupin knows of his genius, and it’s hard for him to be humble. The cat-and-mouse game with the law enforcers sometimes seems to be more important than his personal wealth. Lupin is skillfully and elegant in dealing with women and abhors violence, which is why he only kills in absolute self-defense. Since its victims are always come up with a very dubious way to their wealth, he enjoys the sympathy of the general public and in the course of time, Lupin turned from an opponent of the authorities to their secret helper. |
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Powers:
After his first encounter with the mysterious time traveler “The Walker”, Arsène developed the power to blend into shadows at one location, and stepping out into another location, enabling him to teleport himself and others to any location. Additionally to that Arsène is proficient in gymnastics and acrobatics, a master at stealth, a polymath, an escape artist, a master of disguise, a master detective, a master of 127 forms of martial arts, and much more. |
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| GREYSTOKE | ||||||
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Information: ________________________
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Origin:
John Clayton III. is the son of a British lord and his wife, who have been marooned by mutineers on the Atlantic coast of Africa. His mother died when he was one year old, his father died in battle with the leader of the ape tribe by whom the young Lord Greystoke was raised from then on. As a young adult he met a young American woman Jane Porter who had been marooned, along with her scientist father, on exactly the same coastal jungle area like Johns biological parents twenty years earlier. Eventually he fell in love with Jane and when she finally returned home, he decided to follow her to England where they married and had a son called Jack. Disgusted by the hypocrisy of civilization John and his family returned to Africa a few years later and made themselves a new home on an extensive estate in British East Africa. But when Jack was ten years old, he was kidnapped by John’s enemy Alexis Paulvitch and taken to Africa, where he managed to escape and flee into the deep African jungle where two decades earlier his father himself had been raised. Jack remained there for several years and learned to live like his father once did, while Greystoke himself turned in these years into a merciless hunter who would turn in the search of his son the whole world upside down if necessary. It was on of of this hunting trips, when Greystoke met the mysterious “Walker” who promised him to lead him to his son, if he would in return help him and his friends against a man called Moriarty. |
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Powers:
Due to his jungle upbringing Greystoke has abilities that are extraordinary in comparison to normal men. His strength, speed, stamina, agility, reflexes, senses, flexibility, durability, endurance, and swimming skills are far beyond those of ordinary humans and he can climb, cling, and leap as well as any great ape. He also has wrestled full grown bull apes and gorillas, lions, rhinos, crocodiles, pythons, sharks, tigers and even dinosaurs! Furthermore he can learn a new language in days, ultimately speaking many languages, and is able to communicate with many species of jungle animals. |
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| ZORRO | ||||||
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Information: ________________________
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Origin:
Don Diego de la Vega, the second, is the grandson of the same-named Californio nobleman who defended the people living in the Spanish colonial era at the beginning of the 19th century against tyrannical officials and other villains as the very first Zorro. Like his father, Don Cesar de la Vega, before he took up the mantle of zorro to avenge the helpless, to punish cruel politicians, and to aid the oppressed. |
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Powers:
Zorro (Spanish for “fox”) is a skilled horseman, an agile athlete and an extraordinary acrobat who never uses brute strength, but rather rely on his fox-like sly mind and well-practiced technique to outmatch an opponent. His weapons of choice are a sword and a bullwhip which he uses as an extension of his deft hand. He loves to use his sword to carve his families trademarked mark, a “Z”, with the three quick strokes upon his opponents faces to humiliate them and to use his bullwhip amongst others to swing through gaps between city roofs. Like his predecessors he is a master swordsman and marksman and has more than once demonstrated his prowess in unarmed combat against multiple opponents. |
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| SOLOMON KANE | ||||||
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Information: ________________________
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Origin:
Solomon Kane is sombre and gloomy man of pale face and cold eyes who wandered the world of the late 16th/early 17th century with no apparent goal other than to vanquish evil in all its forms. After decades of adventures that took him from Europe to the jungles of Africa and back he found his final destiny in 1612 in colonial Massachusetts at a village called Salem when he followed a lead to the lost colony of Roanoke. Once arrived in Salem he heard the legend of a witch that lived in the nearby woods and was allegedly responsible for the vanishing of three young girls. Solomon took up the pursuit of the putative witch, and eventually led the men of Salem to a cabin deep in the woods where they encountered a young beautiful herb woman that lived alone in reclusion. The men took her to the village and after a very short trial she was declared guilty of witchcraft and sentenced to death. Although he was not really totally convinced of the guilt of the woman, Solomon watched idly by as she was finally burned at the stake. But this inaction to which he owed the curse of the burning woman who condemned him to “restlessly wander the earth to all eternity solely in the hope of redemption from his sins on the Judgment Day”. It took him just a few more decades to realize that he was now immortal… |
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Powers:
Due to the curse of the “witch”, Solomon is immortal in the sense that he is resurrected after each death by external causes. That also means that he can’t day of natural causes since he is immune to all known Earthly diseases and infections and doesn’t age beyond his current form. But that doesn’t make him invulnerable and so every lethal injury leaves a mark on him when he rises from the dead. He is also immune to any form of magic. |
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