Austria

With similar history, culture, and language, Austria is often seen as Germany's little brother. It is a relatively safe place, which is at odds with the fact that the country gave birth to the Golden Age villains Nosferatu and Wilhelm Kantor, among others. The only major super-battles here occurred in the late 1970s when the Maestro temporarily settled here in search of Mozart’s lost symphonies. He clashed with the sonic-powered heroine Singschwan (Song Swan) in Salzburg and Vienna, but quickly returned to America.
The country’s peacefulness is commonly attributed to the presence of the UNISON garrison in the United Nations Office in Vienna. However, the truth of the matter is that Austria’s tranquility can be attributed to the presence of two great evils, one ancient and one more modern.
In 1938, The Thule Society sent Joscha Von Weldensteyck to Asia Minor to search for artifacts. Although he claimed to have found nothing, in truth Von Weldensteyck discovered the Great Ark, potentially the inspiration for the Biblical ark of Noah. The Ark is an extra-dimensional storage device full of biological and technological samples gathered by the Preservers. Von Weldensteyck eliminated his team to keep his discovery to himself, blaming the hazards of their mission for their deaths. He then returned to Germany and found a power struggle already in progress between Wilhelm Kantor and the Übermensch. The archaeologist knew he couldn’t oppose either faction regardless of the outcome, so he hid the Ark in the Austrian Alps and waited.
After the Reich fell, Von Weldensteyck took some followers to Austria and retreated into the Ark. Over the years, in the strange extradimensional space, Weldensteyck and his team studied Preserver technology. They emerged 30 years later, in 1977. None of them had aged a day since entering the Ark, but the world had changed considerably. After familiarizing himself with this new world, Von Weldensteyck realized the dreams of the Thule Society ultimately amounted to nothing.
Instead of pursuing the dead goals of the Thule Society, Von Weldensteyck decided he would complete the work the Preservers began. Combined with Nazi ideals of eugenics, Von Weldensteyck believed by using the Preservers’ knowledge, he could combine the best aspects of all creatures on Earth to create the ultimate race—beginning with himself and his followers. From there, it was only natural that he and his new race would take control of the lesser beings populating the planet. He founded the Multi-Eugenic Network for Acquiring Control of Earth, or MENACE, a force for “evolution through struggle.”
His hybrid apex-human followers have infiltrated institutions and the underworld. They sell technology they’ve derived from the Preservers’ artifacts to criminals and super-villains. In order to keep their technological advantage, MENACE keeps an eye on mundane scientific research. Whenever necessary, MENACE agents steal or sabotage research projects that might bring unwanted breakthroughs.
Von Weldensteyck, now known as Master Menace, runs the organization. To the outside world, MENACE is an organization that provides high-tech weapons and experimental treatments to anyone who can meet their price. Their true purpose, however, is to provide criminal organizations and rogue governments with “tools to promote evolution through struggle.” In addition, when someone approaches the organization looking for something more exotic, Master Menace is happy to “lift” them out of humanity and into his new race... whatever form that might take for that subject.
Master Menace used political manipulation and pressure to get the U.N. to choose Vienna as its fourth worldwide office. With bribes and blackmail, several of his followers were nominated to high-level positions on the U.N. staff in Vienna. Master Menace knows that one day heroes will challenge him, but he maintains a stable of unsuspecting fall guys (who actually think they are members of MENACE) and creates supervillains (like the Dreckete Partie) to keep the authorities busy and spread as much conflict as possible.
Most of the world believes MENACE has been defeated and dismantled at least four times in the last twenty years. Each time a new group has taken up the name. The current, public incarnation of MENACE includes the Dreckete Partie, a biker gang employed by Master Menace as enforcers and eventual fall guys. Master Menace himself spends most of his time in the Ark, experimenting, researching, collecting information, and planning.
The Ark resembles a pod or capsule just a few yards long on the outside, but is much larger inside, including a complex of rooms, corridors, and laboratories. Due to its strange properties, Master Menace and his staff do not age while in the Ark. Von Weldensteyck, born more than 100 years ago, is physically only in his 40s. The Ark is currently hidden in a warehouse in downtown Vienna. Thanks to his understanding of it, Master Menace and his minions can open dimensional doorways to it from all around the city as needed.
INNSBRUCK Centuries ago, Austria became home to a refugee from ancient Greece: the satyr Marsyas. Marsyas barely escaped from Olympus with his life after being caught trafficking with demons. The corrupted satyr settled in the mountains of Tyrol, giving birth to the legends of Krampus, the punisher of bad children. Soon, the satyr met the man-bull Taurus who brought the demonic fey into his Zodiac Cabal as the Capricorn. For centuries, the satyr was the loyal companion to Taurus, corrupting and subverting humans like the Knights Templar (who called him Baphomet) for the glory of the Zodiac. Marsyas met his fate during the 18th century at the hand of Daedalus, who scattered the ashes of the satyr on a swath of ground near Innsbrück. Two centuries later, the vampiric count Varney Orloff accidentally found the resting place of Marsyas when he sensed evil energy radiate from the ground.
Orloff called in the Thule Society, which quickly seized the opportunity to acquire more power. They built a secret concentration camp at the precise spot of Marsyas’s death. For years, the Society sacrificed hundreds of innocents there, feeding the corruption in the soil with their suffering and using the dark energies to power their own unholy rituals. As the war drew to a close, the staff dismantled the camp and went into hiding, leaving the site abandoned and undetected for 60 years.
Recently, a mysterious mystic only known as der Hexenmeister reoccupied the derelict site. Hoping to resurrect “Krampus,” the sorcerer performed some rituals and discovered that the sacrifice of evil souls was actually more efficient than sacrificing innocents. In order to acquire sacrifices, he started abducting (and sacrificing) some of the most prominent members of the Austrian criminal underworld. Local heroes and the mob are all are trying to figure out what’s going on, but Marsyas has already gained sentience and will be resurrected soon. Der Hexenmeister believes he will control the demon, but Marsyas has other plans.

Type

Geopolitical, Country