Vigilance
Explorer
Estimated Metahuman Population: 82 (statistics provided by the World Metahuman Forum)
In many ways, starting with Germany is beginning at the beginning. The idea of a metahuman as a creature of science or of evolution, as opposed to a creature of magic or legend was cemented in the public consciousness when a pretty blonde German girl, who was Hitler's Aryan ideal (and lover) became the first human to break the sound barrier in the skies over the Reich Chancellery, being filmed by the most famous of the Nazi propaganda filmmakers. When others joined her in Hitler's Kamfgruppe Eugenik or "Eugenics Brigade", the Allied powers were left to scramble to catch up. The modern age of the metahuman, as military weapon and propaganda symbol had begun.
Following the war, as America and the Soviet Union each sought to recruit the most powerful Nazi metahumans to their side of the Cold War, a newly divided Germany was again at the forefront of changes in metahuman-government relations. Warfare between nations had become subtler. And the metahuman, so valuable as a brash and brazen propaganda symbol only months earlier, was now dressed to blend in, a better way to assassinate a target than any gun.
Until the 1980's, it was estimated that Berlin saw more metahuman conflict than any city in the world except New York City. Many of these battles were recruitment or extraction missions gone awry, while others were assassination attempts, with metahumans of one Cold War power targeting the agents of another. These were rare and were not often successful, we think because the metahumans had more affinity for each other than any of their ideological masters.
With the end of the Cold War and the unification of the two Germanys, many former foot soldiers of the Cold War found themselves out of work. Just as some agents, their jobs no longer as glamorous (or downsized altogether) turned to selling secrets, many former metahuman operatives turned to crime or mercenary work. Again Berlin found itself the focal point of these activities.
Today, Germany is the largest economy in Europe and a burgeoning center of industry and scientific research. After two world wars, occupation and division by foreign powers and a unification of two disparate halves back into a whole, Germany has emerged stronger from each hardship.
WMF Germany is the first supplement to Vigilance Press' signature USHER Dossiers setting.
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