Tom Olam

ur guide to New Europa is the Man Fr om

O The Future ; sort of—shanghied by a Faerie

High Lord named Auberon and a wizard
named Mor rolan in their quest to find a
secret weapon to restore Crown Prince
Ludwig of Bayern (Bavaria) to his rightful
throne. By wording their Summons as “Find us something to
help us succeed,” they had no idea what they would get in the
process. So the magic went out into the Faerie Veil between
worlds and returned with Tom. They didn’t know what he was
good for, but they decided to keep him anyway in case he
might be useful.
Tom’s real reason for being Summoned was only revealed
later, when it turned out that one of the books he’d brought
from our world had mystical importance in his new one.
Using his book, the group was able to build a secret weapon
that allowed them to defeat Iron Chancellor Bismarck’s invad-
ing armies. And so, Good Triumphed—this time.

But Tom Olam is also from a dimension in which the events of

the late 19th Century went tragically wrong. In his world—our
world—King Ludwig was pronounced mad, incarcerated
under house arrest, and eventually met his end under mysteri-
ous circumstances that smack of murder. Without the forces of
Bayern to hold him back, this world’s Iron Chancellor
Bismarck marched forward to unify the German states under
the rule of the willful and militaristic Kaiser, leading to the the
Franco Prussian War and the horrors of the First World War
shortly thereafter. And even at the end of the “war to end all
wars,” the tragedy didn’t stop— humiliated and bankrupted by
crippling reparations at war’s end, the Germanies united one
more time to attempt to take down their rivals. Only this time,
the megalomanical dictator Adolph Hitler was leading them.
If Ludwig falls, Bismark may still achieve his dream.
Now an important figure in his adopted world, Tom Olam has
a taken on the dangerous role of secret agent and advisor to
the “Mad King” and his Army of the Second Compact.
Because Tom Olam knows his history well; well enough to
know that if he doesn’t figure out how to use the knowledge
locked in his brain, the world of New Europa will suffer the
same fate his world did. And he’s prepared to go to the wall to
make sure it doesn’t happen.

Especially since he’s not sure he can get home again.

C A S T L E 1 F A L K E N S T E I N
Marianne. I did this just
before we were about to ride
out to tackle the Regent‘s
Marianne
he’s my lovely Marianne (or the Countess Marianne Theresa

S
guards. The sketch doesn‘t Desirée, as she is seldom known). A French expatriate living in
do her justice at all... Bayern, Marianne was the next person I met when I awoke
from Auberon’s sleep spell. As cook, chambermaid and nurse
for the garrison forces occupying Falkenstein, Marianne had
been given the responsibility of keeping me out of trouble.
Although I first dismissed her as a cute bit of chambermaid “fluff”, I soon
learned that first impressions can be dangerously wrong. You see, unknown to
even Morrolan, Marianne was also hiding out from one of the Regent's pet
Prussian “military advisors”, who had made the near-fatal mistake of trying to
ravish her against her will. I later learned that this “cute chambermaid fluff” was
responsible for having shish-kebab’ed at least thirty men in duels all over New
Europa.
Where do I begin to describe Marianne? First of all, she’s gorgeous; I like to
describe her as what you get when you give a fashion model the reflexes of a cat
and the fighting instincts of a rabid badger. She also has a cute little French
accent and a flirtatious command of English that’s sometimes comical beyond
belief.
Second, she’s competent. Very, very competent. Early on, when her
astounding beauty led to young swains bothering her at every step, Marianne
realized that until she was able to take care of herself, she wasn’t going to get a
moment’s peace. Trained by her father (a one-time fencing master), she soon
became adept at riding, hunting, and dueling. Especially dueling: in practice
bouts with her brothers, she could beat any two of them. The turning point in
Marianne’s life came at sixteen, when the son of a local Parisian noble tried to
rape her at knife point and she disemboweled him for his pains. The noble had
connections at Court: the Countess was branded a murderess and fled France
for her life.
The next few years were spent traveling the Continent with a host of ene-
mies on her trail; inevitably an admirer would take liberties and she’d slice him
up into itsy-bitsy pieces, or her old enemy would send assassins out to kill her.
Finally the Countessa had to accept that she had a skill and was uncommonly
good at it. So she became an Adventuress: a one-woman bodyguard and trou-
bleshooter for hire. Eventually, she gained enough money and such reputation
that she decided to settle down in Old München and retire. That is, until an
unfortunate incident with Baron von Riker, the Regent’s right-hand man.
As chambermaid-in-hiding, Marianne was responsible for making sure I got
fed, clothed (my own outfit was badly charred by Morrolan’s Summonation
Spell) and guided to wherever I had to go in the Castle. Later, when we
embarked upon our adventures in New Europa, her sword skills and quick wits
were instrumental in restoring the King to his throne and keeping us all alive.
While Marianne likes me (she’s an outrageous flirt), so far we’ve been danc-
ing around the idea of a long-term romance. We’re obviously both interested,
but we both also know that sooner or later I may have to return to my own
reality. (Besides, with her romantic history, who can blame her for being gun-
shy?) So the dance goes on, and our fiery, on-again, off-again relationship never
gets settled.
Damn. I hate that part.

C A S T L E 2 F A L K E N S T E I N
Colonel Tarlenheim and I
talking over a bottle of port.
A tough old bird, he‘s saved
my neck more than a couple of
times!
The circular inset is a copy of
the Bayernese Cavalry‘s sym-
bol, embossed into the hilts of
their sabers and also worn on
their gunbelts.
C A S T
Colonel Tarlenheimhe Garrisson Commander of Castle Falkenstein, I think the term
T
“old war dog” was created for Colonel Rudolph von Tarlenheim
(the next person I met here). A career military man from a long line
of career officers (his great-grandfather fought the Duke of
Marlborough, his father fought Napoleon and his son Fritz is an aide
T
de camp to the ruler of the neighboring kingdom of Ruritania). He’s
served both as Commander in Chief of the Bayernese Guard and as the Head of His
Majesty’s Secret Service: rough, gruff, and a hell of a fighter; yet courtly to the ladies
and kind to pets and small children.
When I was first transported to Castle Falkenstein, Colonel Tarlenheim was as
much in the dark about Auberon and Morrolan’s intentions as I was. He explained
that only two days earlier, the now-magnificent Castle had been a pile of moldering
stones, an old border fortress called Alt Schloss Falkenstein, where disgraced soldiers
were exiled never to return. The Kingdom was in a dire state: An evil Regent con-
trolled the Government and appeared ready to let Bayern’s enemies absorb her with-
out a fight.
A true patriot, the Colonel was the first to object to the Regent allowing Prussian
“advisors” to cross the borders into Bayern. For his pains, Tarlenheim was fired from
the Bayernese Secret Service and sent to Alt Schloss Falkenstein with a few dozen
loyal troops, where he spent the long months guarding the old heap of stones and
playing chess with a British sorcerer vacationing in the nearby village. Guess who?
Then Faerie Lord Auberon showed up in the middle of the night with a lot of
din, interrupting Morrolan and the Colonel’s quiet chess game and carrying the
unconscious body of a cloaked man. The man turned out to be the long missing (at
least to New Europa) Crown Prince Ludwig,
who had vanished in a mysterious yachting acci-
dent several years before and was heir to the
Throne. Without any further explanation, the
Faerie Lord began to rebuild the Castle.
Instantly. With Magick.
Save for the meddling of Lord Auberon and
the sorcerer Morrolan, Colonel Tarlenheim
would have probably spent the rest of his life
rotting in the ruins of the old Castle. But with
the help of the rest of us, (and a lot of sword-
play and heroic action to boot) he eventually
managed to restore his King to the Throne and
toss the Regent out on his ear.
L E 3 F A L K E N S T E I N
Rhyme Enginemaster. A lit-
tle watercolor sketch that
really captures his grumpy
Rhyme: Dwarf
nature, I think. You know
how some people are just bad
tempered on the outside? As
Mad Scientist
es, “Virginia,” I really do know a Mad Scientist. What’s worse is, he’s a
this sketch shows, Rhyme is
bad-tempered to the bone!
Y Dwarf. A real Dwarf, and one of the other important inhabitants of Castle
Falkenstein.
Rhyme Enginemaster is the local handyman around the Castle: He fixes
the pipes, tinkers with the roof, and makes sure the entire structure doesn’t
fall off into the chasm below the mountaintop. Why a magickal castle needs
a handyman is something I’ve never been able to figure out, but when I arrived, Rhyme was
already on the job, mostly complaining about how Auberon’s magickal renovation job had
probably screwed up the sewer system of the original Alt Falkenstein (it hadn’t).
But that’s only Rhyme’s regular occupation. His true avocation is Science—Big Science
with a Capital “S”; Science that really does use big lightning-throwing Jacob’s ladders, huge
revolving gears, gigantic knife switches, steam pumps and all the other trappings of bad
Frankenstein movies. While he hasn’t tried to create a monster yet, Rhyme’s inventive handi-
work can be found all over Castle Falkenstein, from the clever turbine system that turns the
roasting spit in the kitchen, to the complex mirror system that pipes daylight into the win-
dowless second floor Library. Although he’s a tiny bit unusual in that he’s a Dwarf obsessed
with Invention, Rhyme is actually pretty typical of a New Europan native. Science is every-
where here, that same kind of weird-tech kit bashing that creates ironclad giant robots, clock-
work computers, steam powered helicopters and submarines run by Electricity, the Third
Force of the Universe. A Dwarfish Edison isn’t going to stand
out all that much in that kind of environment.
Rhyme’s workshop covers one entire level of the basement of
Castle Falkenstein, a retreat full of obscure parts, bubbling
retorts, grinding gears and sparking electrical circuitry. Visiting
there, you really wonder why he hasn’t blown the whole place
off the mountaintop yet. But King Ludwig seems to enjoy
Rhyme’s tinkerings and gives him free reign to modify the run-
ning parts of the Castle as much as the irritable Dwarf sees fit.
After all, who else but Rhyme could have made the King the
mechanical swan-boat that he tools around Lake Falkensee in?
Short (four foot ten), grumpy and bristle-bearded, Rhyme
clumps around the Castle in his heavy work boots, alternately fix-
ing things or redesigning them in a feverish fit of creative mad-
ness. The only time he’s remotely pleasant is when he’s drinking
beer or tearing something apart with a wrench. Rhyme also has
no sense of personal property; everything exists to be either fixed,
improved or made into parts. When I arrived here, he promptly
“appropriated” my wristwatch and tried to rebuild it. Other
things he “borrowed” from me have had even more dire results
(as I’ll explain in due time).
I have to say I’m not looking forward to Rhyme’s next
invention. After all, we still haven’t repaired the hole in the roof
from the last time.

C A S T L E 4 F A L K E N S T E I N
King Ludwig. A sketch of
him at a concert. Okay,
maybe he‘s a bit stuffy and a
Mad King
also work for a Mad King. Of course, so does everyone I know.
little too “heroic” sometimes.
But he’s still a great King
and (at least in this world),
a skillful leader too.
I King Ludwig the Second is the King of Bayern, the last in a
long line of kings from the illustrious Wittlesbachs of Southern
Germany. He’s got relatives all over New Europa: the Wittlesbachs
are famed for producing beautiful Princesses and handsome
Princes who have married into all the best Royal Houses. As my
sketch shows, Ludwig has all of these qualities. He’s good looking, clever and
very charming in a slightly formal, “Student Prince” kind of way. He’s also the
most important person in Castle Falkenstein: the Boss.
But King Ludwig is also the main reason I’m here in the world of Castle
Falkenstein. It seems that several years before I got grabbed, the then Crown
Prince was on a trip to the Grecian isles, where he planned to study the ancient
ruins (Ludwig is a big architecture fan, as you might have noticed). A storm
suddenly came up out of nowhere, and by the time the search parties reached
the scene, his yacht the Swan Prince was a shattered wreck.
The body was never found.
It had always been rumored that there was foul play afoot in the accident; evil
sorcerers from the Order of the Golden Dawn were implicated, as were Secret
Agents of the Prussian Throne. Several Bayernese Secret Service investigations
were launched to find the culprits, but to no avail. Finally the entire nation sadly
submitted to the inevitable and when old King Max died, settled for his mad son
Otto under the Regency of the Chancellor, the shifty Count Hohenloe.
Then Auberon showed up from nowhere with the unconscious body of
Crown Prince Ludwig. According to Morrolan, the Faerie King claimed that
Ludwig’s yacht had been sunk by members of the evil Unseelie Court (the rival
group of Faerie who hate all mortals) and that it had taken Auberon several
years to locate where the kidnapped Prince was being held and to release him.
But Morrolan and I don’t exactly buy the Faerie King’s glib explana-
tions. For one thing, King Ludwig should be about twenty; the guy we
know looks about thirty. Auberon explains this away by saying the King
aged prematurely while trapped in the Faerie Realms. But that doesn’t
explain other tiny slips, facts Ludwig should know but doesn’t, references
to things like telephones (there are none here), or to his castles like
Neuschwanstein and Linderhof that haven’t yet been constructed. Once,
he even mentioned an opera by Richard Wagner which hasn’t even been
written in this reality.
So Morrolan and I have a theory of our own. Auberon couldn’t find
the real king, so for some reason of his own, substituted a look-alike
Ludwig from another universe in a bizarre version of interdimensional
Prisoner of Zenda. Then they Spellnapped me to be their secret weapon.
With the help of Colonel Tarlenheim, Marianne, myself and the
Falkenstein Guard, we did manage to fight our way into Old München, oust
the Regent and put the King on his Throne (more on this later). But some-
times we both privately wonder: Did we crown the right king? Why was it so
important that we crown him?
And what was Auberon’s real plan?

C A S T L E 5 F A L K E N S T E I N
The Iron Chancellor
f, as I’ve noticed in the world of Castle Falkenstein, almost everybody seems to

I have a Nemesis, then King Ludwig’s is Otto von Bismar ck, Chancellor of
Prussia (Bayern’s aggressive northern neighbor) and the architect of his
nation’s vaunting imperial ambitions. Since Bismarck’s goal is to absorb all of
his immediate neighbors (and then the rest of the Continent) into a Greater
German Empire, it’s obvious that sooner or later the Prussians are going to
have to take over Bayern. Everyone in New Europa suspects that Bismarck was the master-
mind behind the Regent, and Colonel Tarlenheim believes he may have also had a hand in
Crown Prince Ludwig’s disappearance in that mysterious “yachting accident” several years
ago. So, as you can guess, there’s little love lost between the self-proclaimed “Iron
Chancellor” and the King of the Wittlesbachs.
Most sensible people are afraid of Bismarck, and not just because of his political agenda.
He’s even a bit scary in person. It doesn’t hurt that the Iron Chancellor is over six feet tall,
built like a bear, and has a quiet, ominous voice and a fierce bristling walrus moustache to
match. Or that, thanks to a hunting injury sustained in his wild youth, his left arm has been
replaced with a menacing iron and clockwork contraption with a bone-crushing handshake
and a bunch of built-in gadgets that would make James Bond envious (a small Derringer is
only one of its surprises). Yet, for all of this, Bismarck can also be quite charming. He’s well-
educated, extremely astute, and has a gift for flattering the ladies that makes him quite popu-
lar at parties. I guess if you’re going to be the bad guy, you might as well do it with style.
But Bismarck is also a ruthless politician,
Machiavellian schemer and deadly opponent.
His hand-picked Secret Service agents are
everywhere, secretly advancing his nefarious
plans and keeping tabs on his opposition. As
Chancellor, his policy of “Blood and Iron”
aggression terrifies all New Europa with the
specter of its first world war. And in Prussia,
the Hollernzollern King’s presence hasn’t
stopped the wily Iron Chancellor from abol-
ishing freedom of the press, rendering the
Parliament impotent, putting secret police
agents on every street corner, and promoting
a series of wars that threaten to involve all
New Europa.
But the most dangerous aspect of
Chancellor Bismarck is his close alliance with
the Unseelie Court, a group of renegade
Faerie who would like nothing better than to
wipe Humanity out. For although the
Unseelie have helped Bismarck in the past Bismarck and the King meet at Ludwig‘s Coronation.
with advanced technology, Faerie spies and At least they were polite to each other
other..
lots of advice, their real intent is to use the
indomitable Chancellor and his unstop-
pable armies to conquer the world, then ... Okay, soso they
...Okay, they didn‘t
didn‘t declare
declare war
war immediately.
immediately.
enslave all Mankind through his puppet
Empire of Blood and Iron.

C A S T L E 6 F A L K E N S T E I N