Post by astalakio on Mar 16, 2010 4:50:43 GMT -7
((I hope my rendition of Johann's otherwise rather vague story is acceptable. I made sure that it tied into the movie and still used elements from the comicbooks.))
NAME: Johann Krauss
NICKNAME: Mr. Krauss, Dr. Krauss, Mr. Know-It-All, Mr. Kraut, Mr. By-The-Book, Gas Bag, Glasshole, Tin Man
CLASSIFICATION: Ectoplasmic entity (formerly human)
GENDER: Formerly and mentally male
AGE & BIRTHDAY: 64 years old (mentally 56, the age he ‘died’), October 1st
APPEARANCE: Johann’s actual form is a light grey, swirling mist. It moves constantly, whisping around and forming into shapes seemingly at random, only to dissipate and form another. When he is completely outside of his containment suit, he can take any shape necessary, but often takes a humanoid shape, with a torso, arms, legs and a head, but no other features. This isn’t necessary, as he could glide about like a wave or spread like a fog if he wished, but it is his personal preference.
However he is rarely seen this way, as he generally stays inside the containment suit that was built to sustain his ethereal existence. The suit stands at around 5’10’’, and although it is weighted, particularly in the boots, it isn’t as heavy as it seems since Johann himself weighs virtually nothing. The colour scheme is of different shades of brown, giving it a military, though also industrial feel. It was clearly structured from a suit designed to protect someone from radiation, but has been altered at the feet, hands and head. The feet are more like metal boots, weighing the suit down so that he doesn’t float off or blow away in windy conditions. The gloves have metal fingertips which can be popped open to release a small amount of Johann into the world, allowing him to connect into other objects and beings. Around the waist there are pockets for storing bits and pieces useful on the field, and he has the BPRD belt buckle on the front.
The headpiece is perhaps the most interesting part of the suit. It is mostly a clear dome, round and transparent, and so Johann’s ghostly form is always seen floating about inside as though it was a fishtank. Below this dome, at the front, it a mechanized pair of what resemble the mandibles of an insect. These move up and down absently, though they seem to click faster when he is angry or excited. They work to regulate things within the dome, but to any onlookers, they appear to simply be there to show emotion. On either side of these ‘mandibles’ is a round hole which depressurizes the suit when necessary. However unfortunate timing of this often makes it look like he is sighing in exasperation. When necessary, a larger bulk of his spirit is able to release itself through these holes. Finally, there is a last metal device on his chest which is simply another switch-activated valve, this one wide enough to release his Ectoplasmic form in seconds, for use in emergency or combat. It is also to be noted that the suit contains some form of spinal system, allowing it to stay stood upright whilst Krauss is not inhabiting it.
PLAY BY: John Alexander
NAME: None
POWER LIST: Possession of objects and creatures, dead or alive. Able to move about as a mist.
DETAILED POWER: When released from his containment suit, Johann is able to possess objects ‘organic or mechanical, dead or alive’. He does this by entering into them in his spirit form. This has allowed him to perform such feats as opening a complicated series of locks on the door to the troll market, possessing the dead body of a tooth fairy to access its memories, and taking control of one of the robotic golden army members. As we can see from these examples, he takes on the objects attributes while utilizing them, I.E. strength, speed, durability.
As a purely Ectoplasmic entity, he is not very dense and as such is able to move very fast, and through very small or difficult spaces EG. Through a crack in a wall or the space at the bottom of a doorway. This makes it very hard to contain him anywhere, though it is possible as witnessed by his suit.
ALIGNMENT/OCCUPATION: BPRD
WEAPONS: None.
PERSONALITY: When first meeting Johann, many people are inclined to summarize him as efficient, by-the-book, and a bit of a know-it-all. It is true that he is in the habit of sticking very close to protocol, very rarely acting outside of the rules or being spontaneous. He plans operations out in advance, with excellent attention to detail and when things do not go according to plan has a hard time of thinking on his feet. It is here that he falls behind agents such as Hellboy and Abe who are more able to adapt to a changing situation.
He is very knowledgeable, and honest enough to speak his mind almost all the time. He has no difficulty in assessing the strengths and flaws of both his enemies and allies, and often points them out to them, usually to a negative reaction. He is very tactical in his approaches to both work and social situations.
Generally, Johann keeps to himself when not needed in meetings or on missions. He usually confines himself to his room where he partakes in somewhat peculiar hobbies such as building furniture for doll’s houses. He is often found doing these somewhat odd things, or otherwise reading up on some aspect of the occult.
Perhaps once Johann had difficulty accepting what he had become, but by now he is fully comfortable in his spiritual form, which can be witnessed by the way he walks – confident if clunky strides, and the way he talks. His accent is strong as his voice has a robotic tang due to the machine he speaks through, but his language is proper and educated.
SKILLS: Johann is fluent in both German and English, and has a multitude of other skills which apply to plotting and tactical discussion, though perhaps his most notable skill is his link to the occult and his knowledge of the paranormal. Before being separated from his body, Johann was a gifted medium, able to see ghosts from a young age, and deteriorating into Ectoplasmic form has only enhanced his abilities in this field. He has also taken the time over his life to study many other aspects of the paranormal, and is relatively well known in underground circles which delve into unknown fields. He is useful to the BPRD for this reason as well as his abilities, as in any case he is assigned to, the chances are that he will know something about the situation beforehand.
STRENGTHS: The nature of his spiritual form makes Johann very versatile on the field, able to get virtually anywhere he needs to be, and of course he is nigh impossible to kill, since he doesn’t have a body. Through the use of his suit he is also able to partake in more delicate work and interact with the world as a human would. He is tactful and intelligent, knowledgeable about many aspects of the paranormal and overall very useful to have around.
WEAKNESSES: However, his no-nonsense, know-it-all attitude can be found rather irritating by certain members of the group and has been known to cause tension. His tendency to stick so rigidly to the rules and the ‘right’ way to do things can lead to having less options open when needing to get something done. Whilst in his containment suit, his movements are slow and cumbersome, and although he can abandon his suit if necessary, he cannot be outside of containment for extended amounts of time before dissipating completely and being lost forever. This is perhaps his biggest weakness. He must inhabit either his suit or and object, otherwise he is unable to wander the world for extended amounts of time. Finally, due to the nature of his form, it is practically impossible for him to go unnoticed in public spaces. Unlike Hellboy and Abe, who can put on a hat, coat and scarf to pretty much mask their appearance, this would hardly work for the dome-headed Johann.
HISTORY: Johann Krauss was born in 1946 in Stuttgart, Germany. He was raised by a relatively privileged family, and progressed as an intelligent and well developing child, until he reached the age of ten. It was at this point that his natural gift revealed itself – he began to see spirits of the departed, more frequently as time went on. He eventually realized this when nobody else could see them. As he matured to adolescence, he became more and more frustrated as, although he could see these ghosts, he wasn’t able to communicate or interact with them. Many of them seemed to be in pain or distress and yet there was nothing he could do to help them.
It was this that led him to Anneliese Stiener, an elderly German woman who had spent her life studying aspects of spiritualism. Studying under her guidance, he was able to improve his control over his gift, and was able to interact with the spirits he had seen since he was young. However, Stiener was associated with the darker circles of occult practitioners, and soon enough Johann fell into the group alongside them. The people in these underground groups were concerned with using spiritualism to do such dark things as removing the spirit from an enemy’s body, or bringing back souls, often unwiling ones, into their realm. Although he felt on some level that this was wrong, Johann couldn’t deny the results of their rituals and so went along with it.
One day, however, he was introduced to Anelie Becker, the woman who would one day become his wife. She was also a budding spiritualist, though unlike Johann she wasn’t born with a natural ability - she had worked hard to hone her talent. Also unlike Johann, she saw the monsterousity in what the underground occult groups were doing, the dark nature of their rituals. She convinced Johann to consider this, and Johann, having fallen in love with Anelie, agreed to abandon the groups.
The two of them remained firm friends, grew closer over time and were eventually married. They opened up their own practice in Munich in 1971 (at the age of 39), conducting harmless séances to allow people to contact ‘the other side’. The two of them became well respected mediums in their business, and helped many grieving relatives move on in their endevours after speaking to loved ones one last time.
Their shared happiness lasted for a long time, until 2002 when an unfortunate car accident took Anelie’s life, leaving Johann deeply scarred and depressed. He refused to accept that his beloved wife was gone from the world forever, and so, shortly after, organised a ritual. He roped some of the men and women from the dark occult groups into helping him, and planned to connect to the other realm and take back his wife’s spirit, defying nature by forcing it back into her body and back to life.
And so it was in February of the same year that Johann contacted the spirit of his wife on the ethereal plane. However, to Johann’s immense grief, Anelie refused to come back, claiming that this was exactly the kind of practice that she tried to save him from. She pulled away but Johann, refusing to accept no from the wife that was his whole world, clung onto her and wouldn’t let go. She pulled and he still would not release her.
It was at that time that there was a fluctuation in the ethereal realm which rippled out like an explosion, causing a chain reaction that affected the ritual. The bodies and souls of the six other people in the room were completely obliterated and Johann, as strongly connected as he was to the other side, was forced out of his body but not quite into the other plane. If he had let his wife go, the men and women wouldn’t have died and the connection would have dissipated harmlessly.
Rejected by his loved one, with the death of six men and women on his hands and lacking a body, Johann found himself in a difficult situation. Forced to quickly grasp his new form, he spent a year or so wandering the world, sustaining himself on a pitiful existance of hopping from one object to another so that he didn’t deteriorate.
In 2003 he came into contact with an aging Professor Trevor Bruttenholm, who took pity and interest in Johann and helped design him a containment suit that would allow him to move about without dissipating into nothingness. Extremely grateful to the Professor, he told him that he would always be available to assist him and the BPRD if ever he was needed.
The two parted ways, and for a time Johann found himself working for the government in Washington. He was kept a closely guarded secret from the public. When news reached him of Bruttenholm’s death, he was deeply saddened as he had great appreciation for the man. However it was not until later that he was transferred to the BPRD to join their forces.
Although he was welcomed by the director of the operations, Doctor Thomas Manning, he wasn’t so well received by Hellboy, who rejected his by-the-book manner and proper attitude. Johann did his job well however, leading the team to the troll market in search of Prince Nuada who was declaring war on the human world. Within the market, however, he found that his methods of extracting information were a lot less useful then Hellboy’s blunt force methods.
The two still weren’t on the best of terms when Johann pointed out Hellboy’s weakness to him, only to be punched in the dome. Johann slithered out into some nearby lockers and delivered a firm punishment to Hellboy, before reitterating his point and strolling away in spiritual form.
When Hellboy was injured mortally by Prince Nuada’s blade, at first Johann was reluctant to act out of terms. He agreed with Manning that they should concentrate on forming a plan rather than chasing after Nuada for Hellboy’s sake. However a reminder from Liz Sherman of his own humanity made him change his mind, and he accompanied them on their way to Prince Nuada.
During the climactic battle that followed, Johann helped substantially by taking over the body of a member of the golden army, but, even with Hellboy, Abe and Liz’s aid, the team was eventually backed into a corner. Johann watched on as Hellboy fought one-on-one with Nuada for the right to command the golden army, and congratulated him when he succeeded. Their relationship appears to be on the road to improvement.
Since then, Johann has remained behind at the BPRD to help out where he is needed. He has become quite comfortable in his surroundings now, after so long without a place to call home, he thinks that perhaps he has now found it.
THE HANDLER
NAME: Johann Krauss
NICKNAME: Mr. Krauss, Dr. Krauss, Mr. Know-It-All, Mr. Kraut, Mr. By-The-Book, Gas Bag, Glasshole, Tin Man
CLASSIFICATION: Ectoplasmic entity (formerly human)
GENDER: Formerly and mentally male
AGE & BIRTHDAY: 64 years old (mentally 56, the age he ‘died’), October 1st
APPEARANCE: Johann’s actual form is a light grey, swirling mist. It moves constantly, whisping around and forming into shapes seemingly at random, only to dissipate and form another. When he is completely outside of his containment suit, he can take any shape necessary, but often takes a humanoid shape, with a torso, arms, legs and a head, but no other features. This isn’t necessary, as he could glide about like a wave or spread like a fog if he wished, but it is his personal preference.
However he is rarely seen this way, as he generally stays inside the containment suit that was built to sustain his ethereal existence. The suit stands at around 5’10’’, and although it is weighted, particularly in the boots, it isn’t as heavy as it seems since Johann himself weighs virtually nothing. The colour scheme is of different shades of brown, giving it a military, though also industrial feel. It was clearly structured from a suit designed to protect someone from radiation, but has been altered at the feet, hands and head. The feet are more like metal boots, weighing the suit down so that he doesn’t float off or blow away in windy conditions. The gloves have metal fingertips which can be popped open to release a small amount of Johann into the world, allowing him to connect into other objects and beings. Around the waist there are pockets for storing bits and pieces useful on the field, and he has the BPRD belt buckle on the front.
The headpiece is perhaps the most interesting part of the suit. It is mostly a clear dome, round and transparent, and so Johann’s ghostly form is always seen floating about inside as though it was a fishtank. Below this dome, at the front, it a mechanized pair of what resemble the mandibles of an insect. These move up and down absently, though they seem to click faster when he is angry or excited. They work to regulate things within the dome, but to any onlookers, they appear to simply be there to show emotion. On either side of these ‘mandibles’ is a round hole which depressurizes the suit when necessary. However unfortunate timing of this often makes it look like he is sighing in exasperation. When necessary, a larger bulk of his spirit is able to release itself through these holes. Finally, there is a last metal device on his chest which is simply another switch-activated valve, this one wide enough to release his Ectoplasmic form in seconds, for use in emergency or combat. It is also to be noted that the suit contains some form of spinal system, allowing it to stay stood upright whilst Krauss is not inhabiting it.
PLAY BY: John Alexander
THE CREATION
NAME: None
POWER LIST: Possession of objects and creatures, dead or alive. Able to move about as a mist.
DETAILED POWER: When released from his containment suit, Johann is able to possess objects ‘organic or mechanical, dead or alive’. He does this by entering into them in his spirit form. This has allowed him to perform such feats as opening a complicated series of locks on the door to the troll market, possessing the dead body of a tooth fairy to access its memories, and taking control of one of the robotic golden army members. As we can see from these examples, he takes on the objects attributes while utilizing them, I.E. strength, speed, durability.
As a purely Ectoplasmic entity, he is not very dense and as such is able to move very fast, and through very small or difficult spaces EG. Through a crack in a wall or the space at the bottom of a doorway. This makes it very hard to contain him anywhere, though it is possible as witnessed by his suit.
THE POTENTIAL
ALIGNMENT/OCCUPATION: BPRD
WEAPONS: None.
PERSONALITY: When first meeting Johann, many people are inclined to summarize him as efficient, by-the-book, and a bit of a know-it-all. It is true that he is in the habit of sticking very close to protocol, very rarely acting outside of the rules or being spontaneous. He plans operations out in advance, with excellent attention to detail and when things do not go according to plan has a hard time of thinking on his feet. It is here that he falls behind agents such as Hellboy and Abe who are more able to adapt to a changing situation.
He is very knowledgeable, and honest enough to speak his mind almost all the time. He has no difficulty in assessing the strengths and flaws of both his enemies and allies, and often points them out to them, usually to a negative reaction. He is very tactical in his approaches to both work and social situations.
Generally, Johann keeps to himself when not needed in meetings or on missions. He usually confines himself to his room where he partakes in somewhat peculiar hobbies such as building furniture for doll’s houses. He is often found doing these somewhat odd things, or otherwise reading up on some aspect of the occult.
Perhaps once Johann had difficulty accepting what he had become, but by now he is fully comfortable in his spiritual form, which can be witnessed by the way he walks – confident if clunky strides, and the way he talks. His accent is strong as his voice has a robotic tang due to the machine he speaks through, but his language is proper and educated.
SKILLS: Johann is fluent in both German and English, and has a multitude of other skills which apply to plotting and tactical discussion, though perhaps his most notable skill is his link to the occult and his knowledge of the paranormal. Before being separated from his body, Johann was a gifted medium, able to see ghosts from a young age, and deteriorating into Ectoplasmic form has only enhanced his abilities in this field. He has also taken the time over his life to study many other aspects of the paranormal, and is relatively well known in underground circles which delve into unknown fields. He is useful to the BPRD for this reason as well as his abilities, as in any case he is assigned to, the chances are that he will know something about the situation beforehand.
STRENGTHS: The nature of his spiritual form makes Johann very versatile on the field, able to get virtually anywhere he needs to be, and of course he is nigh impossible to kill, since he doesn’t have a body. Through the use of his suit he is also able to partake in more delicate work and interact with the world as a human would. He is tactful and intelligent, knowledgeable about many aspects of the paranormal and overall very useful to have around.
WEAKNESSES: However, his no-nonsense, know-it-all attitude can be found rather irritating by certain members of the group and has been known to cause tension. His tendency to stick so rigidly to the rules and the ‘right’ way to do things can lead to having less options open when needing to get something done. Whilst in his containment suit, his movements are slow and cumbersome, and although he can abandon his suit if necessary, he cannot be outside of containment for extended amounts of time before dissipating completely and being lost forever. This is perhaps his biggest weakness. He must inhabit either his suit or and object, otherwise he is unable to wander the world for extended amounts of time. Finally, due to the nature of his form, it is practically impossible for him to go unnoticed in public spaces. Unlike Hellboy and Abe, who can put on a hat, coat and scarf to pretty much mask their appearance, this would hardly work for the dome-headed Johann.
THE STORY
HISTORY: Johann Krauss was born in 1946 in Stuttgart, Germany. He was raised by a relatively privileged family, and progressed as an intelligent and well developing child, until he reached the age of ten. It was at this point that his natural gift revealed itself – he began to see spirits of the departed, more frequently as time went on. He eventually realized this when nobody else could see them. As he matured to adolescence, he became more and more frustrated as, although he could see these ghosts, he wasn’t able to communicate or interact with them. Many of them seemed to be in pain or distress and yet there was nothing he could do to help them.
It was this that led him to Anneliese Stiener, an elderly German woman who had spent her life studying aspects of spiritualism. Studying under her guidance, he was able to improve his control over his gift, and was able to interact with the spirits he had seen since he was young. However, Stiener was associated with the darker circles of occult practitioners, and soon enough Johann fell into the group alongside them. The people in these underground groups were concerned with using spiritualism to do such dark things as removing the spirit from an enemy’s body, or bringing back souls, often unwiling ones, into their realm. Although he felt on some level that this was wrong, Johann couldn’t deny the results of their rituals and so went along with it.
One day, however, he was introduced to Anelie Becker, the woman who would one day become his wife. She was also a budding spiritualist, though unlike Johann she wasn’t born with a natural ability - she had worked hard to hone her talent. Also unlike Johann, she saw the monsterousity in what the underground occult groups were doing, the dark nature of their rituals. She convinced Johann to consider this, and Johann, having fallen in love with Anelie, agreed to abandon the groups.
The two of them remained firm friends, grew closer over time and were eventually married. They opened up their own practice in Munich in 1971 (at the age of 39), conducting harmless séances to allow people to contact ‘the other side’. The two of them became well respected mediums in their business, and helped many grieving relatives move on in their endevours after speaking to loved ones one last time.
Their shared happiness lasted for a long time, until 2002 when an unfortunate car accident took Anelie’s life, leaving Johann deeply scarred and depressed. He refused to accept that his beloved wife was gone from the world forever, and so, shortly after, organised a ritual. He roped some of the men and women from the dark occult groups into helping him, and planned to connect to the other realm and take back his wife’s spirit, defying nature by forcing it back into her body and back to life.
And so it was in February of the same year that Johann contacted the spirit of his wife on the ethereal plane. However, to Johann’s immense grief, Anelie refused to come back, claiming that this was exactly the kind of practice that she tried to save him from. She pulled away but Johann, refusing to accept no from the wife that was his whole world, clung onto her and wouldn’t let go. She pulled and he still would not release her.
It was at that time that there was a fluctuation in the ethereal realm which rippled out like an explosion, causing a chain reaction that affected the ritual. The bodies and souls of the six other people in the room were completely obliterated and Johann, as strongly connected as he was to the other side, was forced out of his body but not quite into the other plane. If he had let his wife go, the men and women wouldn’t have died and the connection would have dissipated harmlessly.
Rejected by his loved one, with the death of six men and women on his hands and lacking a body, Johann found himself in a difficult situation. Forced to quickly grasp his new form, he spent a year or so wandering the world, sustaining himself on a pitiful existance of hopping from one object to another so that he didn’t deteriorate.
In 2003 he came into contact with an aging Professor Trevor Bruttenholm, who took pity and interest in Johann and helped design him a containment suit that would allow him to move about without dissipating into nothingness. Extremely grateful to the Professor, he told him that he would always be available to assist him and the BPRD if ever he was needed.
The two parted ways, and for a time Johann found himself working for the government in Washington. He was kept a closely guarded secret from the public. When news reached him of Bruttenholm’s death, he was deeply saddened as he had great appreciation for the man. However it was not until later that he was transferred to the BPRD to join their forces.
Although he was welcomed by the director of the operations, Doctor Thomas Manning, he wasn’t so well received by Hellboy, who rejected his by-the-book manner and proper attitude. Johann did his job well however, leading the team to the troll market in search of Prince Nuada who was declaring war on the human world. Within the market, however, he found that his methods of extracting information were a lot less useful then Hellboy’s blunt force methods.
The two still weren’t on the best of terms when Johann pointed out Hellboy’s weakness to him, only to be punched in the dome. Johann slithered out into some nearby lockers and delivered a firm punishment to Hellboy, before reitterating his point and strolling away in spiritual form.
When Hellboy was injured mortally by Prince Nuada’s blade, at first Johann was reluctant to act out of terms. He agreed with Manning that they should concentrate on forming a plan rather than chasing after Nuada for Hellboy’s sake. However a reminder from Liz Sherman of his own humanity made him change his mind, and he accompanied them on their way to Prince Nuada.
During the climactic battle that followed, Johann helped substantially by taking over the body of a member of the golden army, but, even with Hellboy, Abe and Liz’s aid, the team was eventually backed into a corner. Johann watched on as Hellboy fought one-on-one with Nuada for the right to command the golden army, and congratulated him when he succeeded. Their relationship appears to be on the road to improvement.
Since then, Johann has remained behind at the BPRD to help out where he is needed. He has become quite comfortable in his surroundings now, after so long without a place to call home, he thinks that perhaps he has now found it.
