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5
Baron Wolfgang Siegfried Edward von Hammer was born on August 17th, 1828, to Baron Karl von Hammer and his English wife, Elizabeth von Hammer, nee Stratford. His mother was an unconventional woman for her time, a scholar and scientist from a family with strong ties to the Order of Freemasons. His father was a bored scion of Prussian nobility. Falling in love against the wishes of both their families, they travelled the world together in search of adventure.
In 1825, they followed the rumors of a subterranean empire in South America. Making friends with the natives, they were led to cave on a remote mountain in Peru. After nearly a week of travel through tunnels lit by weird, phosphorescent moss, they emerged in Matarra, the World Beneath the World. A land ruled by harsh snakemen, the skies filled with weird creatures, the people subjugated and primitive.
The Hammers, of course, were delighted, and spent the rest of their lives fighting against snakeman tyranny. Their child, Wolfgang (or just Wolf) was born in Matarra, and raised there, with only the occasional harrowing trip back home. Elizabeth kept detailed journals of their exploits, and by the 1840s, penny dreadfuls of their fanciful adventures were circulated throughout Europe and the Americas.
In 1847, Wolfgang and his family had overthrown the snakemen, and were proclaimed heroes of Matarra. But the vile reptiles struck back, chasing them headlong across half of Matarra. During this chase, the family heard tales of a bird of flame that the king of the snakemen, Sssital, was seeking. A bird whose blood could give him eternal life!
Chased by snakemen from behind, they strove forward to stop the cold-blooded king from achieving his goal. Surrounded by snakemen on the mountain where the flame bird lived, the Hammers sent their son forth to face Sssital in final combat, and died giving him time to escape. In a final, climactic battle, Wolf slew Sssital, even as the latter had mortally injured the flaming bird -- a phoenix!
As Wolf lay dying from his wounds, the ailing phoenix spread her wings over him, bathing him in her burning blood, before being engulfed in flame from her own feathers. Wolf was miraculously restored, and found both treasure and a potent blade in her nest...as well as an egg. As the snakeman armies climbed to the peak, Wolf took up the blade, and battled valiantly to protect the egg.
The grateful legions of Matarrans appeared on the scene, and after hours of combat, the snakemen were defeated and driven away. At dawn of the next morning, the egg broke and the phoenix was reborn.
Wolf left the mountain and collected his parents' bodies. After the funeral, bereft of purpose, he decided to take his father's will home to Prussia. During his many adventures on the way, he discovered that the phoenix's blood had rendered him able to recover from virtually any mortal injury, as well as lending him a prodigious resistance to poisons and disease. It would only be a decade later that he would realize he seemed to have ceased aging.
Growing quickly restless on the family estates, and discomfitted by the mores and values of civilized society, he would venture forth again and again on adventures. Travelling the world over, he continued his mother's habit of keeping journals and publishing the results of his expeditions. While generations of youngsters venerate him as the hero of their childhood, the more scientific and snooty decry his 'unbelievable' adventures.
During decades of travels and adventure, he came many wonders, and met others who didn't fit in the world in which they'd been born. Extraordinary individuals, who shaped the world with their passage. He finally decided that these exemplars could serve a greater purpose -- to foil evil, and help lead the world into the new century. And thus, he founded the Berlin Club.
At the end of the day, he is more Matarran than European. Slights may be answered with violence. Strength is more important than knowledge. One should be plain spoken, as much as possible. Underneath his velvet clothes and fine trappings is a warrior.
Wolfgang von Hammer is a brilliant, but largely untrained, swordsman and hand-to-hand combatant. He is fluent in several languages, an adept traveller and survivor. He has brilliant reflexes, and is in top physical condition. He also has an unerring sense of wrongness that has saved his life on many occasions. He simply has an instinct for a bad situation, and avoids dangers both large and small with relative ease.
In addition, the blood of the phoenix has rendered him both ageless and immune to disease and poison. If he is mortally injured, the blood awakens in him, healing him back to a point where his body can take over the healing on its own.
Finally, he still owns the blade he found in the phoenix's nest. Keen and hard beyond anything on Earth, it is a lethal weapon.
Wolfgang is a tall, well-built man of heroic bearing. He has chiselled, German features, a thin, long scar down the right side of his face that does little but enhance his aura of manly ruggedness. He has thick brown hair, and unusually for the day, is clean-shaven. He usually dresses in attractive finery of crimson, white and brown, but his clothes frequently suffer from his activities.