Helm Döner

Obersturmbannführer Dr. Helm Döner is a tall, muscular man with slate-grey eyes and a face disfigured by extensive scarring. He is rarely encountered without his crisp black SS-uniform.

Affiliations

 * Waffen SS
 * Ahnenerbe
 * Verbena (Gardener of the Tree)
 * Valdaerman
 * Iron Circle
 * Black Sun Cabal

Background
Helm Döner was born in a small village in the Teutoburg Forest in Germany, close to the Externsteine. When news of his father's death on the Western Front arrived, his mother went into a deep depression from which she never recovered. Helm, a boy of 9 when his father died, was left to himself and for the next few years he spent all his spare time roaming the Teutoburg Forest. When his mother took her own life shortly after the armistice, Helm was sent to his maternal uncle, a stern Protestant minister. Here he received a harsh education in Bible lore.

Shortly after he arrived at his uncle's, Helm started having dreams of hanging men and valkyries, and became obsessed with Germanic history and mythology. His uncle tried to cure the boy's heathen tendencies with belt and rod. For years, Helm received regular beatings, until finally, at age seventeen, he Awakened. In a fit of berserker rage, he beat his uncle to within an inch of her life before submitting him to the rite of blood eagle. His aunt escaped and would have called the police had not Aelfbrandr killed her first.

Aelfbrandr, an Iron Cirlcle Verbena, had been following Helm since he noticed his potential when the boy was still young. He now took the boy under his wing and taught Helm the craft of the Verbena. At this time, the National Socialist wave swept across Germany and both master and apprentice embraced this ideology as a way to bring back the old ways. To that end, Helm enrolled in medical school and when he graduated at the head of his class, he joined the SS. Before long, he caught the attention of the Ahenerbe organization.

He led an expedition to search for an ancient rune stone in Greenland, during which his face was horribly disfgured as a result of a Paradox backlash. No one else from his expedition made it back and Helm has never spoken about what happened. He did however recover the rune stone and learn the ancient secrets of the Valdaermen. Helm chose to blend his rune-craft with modern methods and having unlocked these ancient powers, he has become a formidable Mage.

Following this return from Greenland, he was initiated into the Black Sun Cabal.