ER:Elke

From The Heretic Knowledge Vault

Latest revision as of 02:45, 4 May 2020

Elke Sonnenschein, known simply as Elke, is an important NPC in the Errant Road free-form on-line role-playing game. Her basic concept can be found in this thread in the Forum. Needless to say, she's not known to exist in the Poe-verse.

Elke is a moderately big wheel in the Eisenfaust, an Errant-Road-specific outfit the broadly parallels the Gewehr in concept. The Eisenfaust is based in Port Lorrel, where Elke oversees certain of their operations working out of a warehouse in the dock district. There are occasional indications that she has ... other ... loyalties as well, but those aren't well understood yet. NPCs Annabelle, Carlos, Titus, and unnamed others all work for her. The identity and status of her own superiors hasn't been revealed, apart from the shadowy and possibly pseudonymous "Mr. Jones," possibly the capo di tutti capi in the guild.

Elke enters the story when the doughty band of PC adventurers arrives in Port Lorrel following the big shootout in Kiyoka. She causes PC Jamie Porter, whom she knows from past encounters, to be slipped a message that she should visit the Eisenfaust hangout, and also a little magical "enhancement" for her libation at Geno's restaurant. This bit of spice allows Elke and her people to keep constant tabs on where Jamie is and what she's up to. The reasons for taking this odd step haven't been revealed yet, either (Elke has more than her share of mysteries). She takes an interest in PC Marcus at this time, but doesn't actually meet him.

Later, Elke appears in Volkanenborg on a poorly-understood errand (including a particularly ... athletic ... tryst) with the ominous Mr. Stagpoole. She seems to take a particular interest in what Jamie and Marcus are up to, manipulating Jamie into going into the mountains to join the bizarre "rescue" of Saiko Mesuinu. This doesn't work out exactly as expected, but it ends well enough, and after one last roll in the hay with Mr. Stagpoole, Elke returns to Port Lorrel to continue with her nefarious schemes, whatever they are.

Elke is not a mage herself, but like most of the Eisenfaust, she's considerably more comfortable with Tsuirakuan magical gadgetry than most Farrelites. The tracer that she introduced into Jamie is an example. Another is a magical contraceptive, which however she forgot to bring on the little joy ride with Mr. Stagpoole. As a result, she's showing certain symptoms of morning sickness, confirmed as such by a recent pregnancy test. Well, what will be will be.

As the game enters its twelfth(!) year, Elke makes the transition to essentially a player character (which may be good) and widow (which isn't). She and Mr. Stagpoole tied the knot somewhere, somehow, and were en route to the Northern Confederacy for something connected to the Convergence (significant bad guys whose full story still isn't known), when a nuclear-scale detonation happened somewhere in the vicinity of the Convergence's headquarters. (We know that this was due to the formidable Father Amalric consummating a years-long quest for revenge, but Elke doesn't know that.) Her husband died shortly thereafter, in a manner that Elke has never revealed to anyone, and probably won't. The realization that she too was supposed to have been taken out by this blast appears to have scared her out of whatever shenanigans she was up to with the Convergence. She's now back to being a senior Eisenfaust operative, no more, no less, other than the mother-to-be part of the picture.