Gasthaus neun Ferkel

Berlin 1933

Introduction

The Nine Piglets guest-house is a 17th century inn that along with several other traditional businesses surround an ancient community courtyard quaintly termed Am Krögel or the "Crag" off of Stralauer Strasse in the Alt-Berlin (Medieval Berlin). The owners are Anneliese and Justus Kruse. Their son Otmar acts as the all around caretaker of the inn, he makes repairs, runs meals up to guests and generally acts as his mother's dogsbody. Otmar's young wife, Heida provides maid service cleaning rooms, and for a small fee she also washes and repairs the guests clothes.

Anneliese Kruse

Behavior: Anneliese is the matriarch of her little family. She is a sweet old lady, just don't get on her bad side, the Gasthaus is small, but she rules it just as the Emperor used to rule Germany. Anneliese's special kingdom is the kitchen, she cooks for everyone and you can veritably taste the love she pours into the food along with the spices. Her only complaint is her back, which is getting worse with the years and that Otmar's wife Heida just isn't that interested in cooking. Young women these days are just plain lazy.

History: Seventy odd years ago, Anneliese was born in this very Gasthaus. Her parents were Polish tenant farmers fleeing the latest round of border wars. They were carrying a dark, leather bound trunk with them when they arrived in Berlin and from that day forward, they became Germans. Were the Nazis to discover that Anneliese and her family are actually descendants of Slavic laborers, they wouldn't hesitate to arrange for their "resettlement". The Kruse family legacy is dark little secret that only Anneliese and her husband remember. Of course, if the contents of the dark trunk were to fall into the wrong hands, well...nothing lasts forever.

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Justus Kruse

Behavior: Justus is a good man, more than a little tired, but a hard worker and as long as his wife lives he will keep getting up and doing the days work. He prides himself on his Protestant beliefs, and never lies except when he is protecting his wife's legacy. There are only two things that trouble him about death, his fear that he might not go to the same afterlife as his beloved Anneliese and the long ago deeds of he performed as a soldier in World War I. He works the desk of Gasthaus, signing up guests and keeping the accounts; in this regard he is meticulous and rarely makes a mistake, even with his failing eyesight.

History: Justus was born almost eighty years ago in Bavaria to a farm girl mother and blacksmith father. He grew up strong working the forge and was well set up with a trade. For several years he work alongside his father, until the outbreak of W.W.I, at that point he was taken with patriotic fever and a lust for adventure. After a week at the Front, he had lost both his motivations for fighting, but realized that his only chance of escaping this hell alive was to fight hard and as long as needed. He was lucky and he made it home alive with all his limbs intact, unfortunately, his parents had both died of the Spanish Flu while he was gone and his homecoming was empty. So, after saying his goodbyes, he packed up his tools and set off for Berlin. There he set up shop in the Altstadt at an ancient forge which had been worked since the Dark Ages. There by chance he met Anneliese. He cared nothing for her Polish ancestry, and he married her without a second thought, but Germany isn't the same country it used to be and he worries for Otmar and his young wife. Justus sees dark days ahead.

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Otmar Kruse

Behavior: Otmar works hard, sometimes too hard, but that is life in Berlin or anywhere else in Germany. When he isn't working, which is rare, he takes the opportunity to go down to his favorite tavern and raise a stein to the old Kaiser or to Hitler depending on who is buying the drinks. Despite his health and good looks, Otmar is already thirty years old and he knows his prospects for a better life are fast diminishing. But recently, he has met someone at the tavern a young Braunhemden (Brownshirt) has with a fiery disposition and ready coin to buy drinks between his speeches to the patrons about the just causes of the National Socialists. Otmar is slowly slipping into the political orbit of the Brownshirts, not out of any misguided idealism, but because like his step-father, he can see that Germany is headed into darkness and he sees how much money the Nazis are throwing around and thinks that he could maybe do better for himself and his wife if he joined up with Hitler's storm-brigade.

History: Otmar is a bastard, literally. His mother, Anneliese wasn't always a woman of virtue. Before the Great War, she cared for her aging parents, being the youngest daughter of a large family, it was her duty to never marry and look after her parents becoming a spinster. But just when Anneliese was certain never know marriage or motherhood, King Cholera came calling and he took her parents with him - setting her free. Otmar was born just a few years later, from an illicit union based on pleasure rather than the sanctity of marriage. As a boy growing up without a father, it was tough, the neighborhood children were cruel. But when Anneliese married Justus, that all changed and Otmar was thrilled to have a father who didn't care that he was another man's son. Otmar learned everything Justus could teach him and he grew up strong, but when his turn came to be a blacksmith, he found work hard to find, new factories were being built where immigrant labor and machines made metal items far more cheaply than Otmar could. So, when the cost of the smithy became too great, he sold it dearly and moved back in with his parents, bringing his new wife Heida and working as the Gasthaus laborer.

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Heida Kruse

Behavior:

History:

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