MAJOR DEEJ UNIVERSE

During the 15th Century, the Holy Empire of Germany and its Imperial (Reich) Knights were some of the greatest warrior of northern Europe.  The Director (Ritterhauptmann) of the  Rhenish Circle was an Imperial Knight who considered his duty to God and the Holy Empire as a blessing, was also a masochist and a very intimidating warrior.  He was known for psychological warfare against his enemies and his undying loyalty to the Emperor.  

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In a 15th century battle in what is today considered to be the Black Forest of modern day Germany, the Ritterhauptmann and a dozen other knights went to battle what was reference to as 'a sorcerer and him newly created demon'. The sorcerer in question was a mage that had for decades attempted time and again to steal children and women from neighboring towns to use in his evil conjurings and plots. The Ritterhauptmann  considered the mage a nemesis and in this particular instance, the knight had been ordered by the Emperor himself to did the land of the sorcerer and his evil. The Ritterhauptmann was only too happy to oblige and swore to God he would not rest until the sorcerer and the demon were vanquished. 

 

The knights rode into the cult's Stonehenge-like ceremonial grounds just as they were about to impart a powerful sacrificial spell upon a 10-foot tall demon in the center of the circle. In a circle around the demon were a dozen young children and women bound to the ground, all to be used as life sacrifices for the sorcerer's spell; a spell that would give immortality to the demon. 

 

The battle was a steel vs. magic battle; arcane bolts flying, horse-mounted knighted charging in with swords, cleaving at the cultists.  The battle was chaos.  The demon, stuck in a hold spell to allow the immortality spell (and control) spell to be cast upon it, was only able to screech and hiss at the knights.  As the cultists fell before the knights, the spell for the immortality weakened, causing the sorcerer to make a last vain attempt at casting the spell before it was too late.  The Ritterhauptmann leapt from his horse and out in front of the sorcerer just as the sorcerer cast his spell; the sorcerer was impaled upon the knights battle axe and the knight was impaled upon the sorcerer's staff.  The spell blast, being deflected into the Ritterhauptmann, also caused a catastrophic wave withing the circle, killing all knights, cultist and even the demon in an unearthly transferal of sacrificial energies...into the Ritterhauptmann's body, axe, armor and shield.  The sorcerer, lying on the ground in near death, uttered several incantation words before he died. Seconds later, the Ritterhauptmann died next to him. 

 

The only survivor of the battle was a a child who was to be free himself during the battle and escape the circle.  The child was to be used as a sacrifice by the cultists.  The child saw the entire exchange of what happened from the treeline outside the circle and ran to a nearby Orthodox Abbey and told the Friar there everything that had occurred.  

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The next day, the Friar and several clergymen went to the 'unholy' site and buried the knights and the innocent women and children victims near the Abbey, leaving the cultist to rot in the center of the circle.

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In 1939, a noted German archaeologist was out exploring for 'mystical artifacts' for Nazi Germany at the bequest of Adolph Hitler.  Hitler was a believer in magic and the arcane and wanted any and all religious relics and magical artifacts he could muster to empower his regime. One such site the archaeologist figured was worth exploring was the long abandoned Black Forest Abbey previously mentioned from the 15 century.  There, he found the graveyard with over 100 graves, some with markers denoting Imperial Knights.  When the Ritterhauptmann's grave was unearthed, wooden planks surrounded the grave's skeleton with a mix of Christian holy artifacts and arcane wards all warning of an 'arcane death to any and all that disturb this Ritterhauptmann'.

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The archaeologist, Professor Adolph VonHauser, didn't pay any heed.  He and his team extracted the body, but each of the team said they felt an 'air of dread and discomfort'around the skeleton's body.  The skeleton was still wearing ancient Imperial Knight armor, and had his old wooden shield and battle axe lain across its chest. When VonHauser removed the shield and the axe, a feeble shock wave emanated from the skeleton, causing it and the skeleton's armor to disintegrate...but not the axe and the shield. Unhappy that he wasn't able to delve deeper into this arcane mystery, he instead took the axe and shield and boxed them up for further study back in Berlin. 

 

Once in Berlin, the Professor began to examine the axe and shield in his private lab. There, after touching the axe and shield for several minutes, the lights in the room dimmed, the room became eerily cold and Professor VonHauser began to hear a voice in his head; a voice speaking old Latin. "Is there still evil in the world?" the voice asked again and again.  Finally, not knowing what else to do, VonHauser said, "well, yes, there is ALWAYS evil in this world that must be dealt with".  No sooner that VonHasuer said that, he became possessed by the spirit that inhabited the battle axe and shield.  Together, these two were the catalyst for the dead spirits from the Stonehenge-like circle to manifest once again.  Interestingly enough, it seemed that the Ritterhauptmann seemed to be the dominant spirit in the possession.  VonHauser's spirit was pulled down into an otherworldly pyschic state wherein all the other spirits resided, all of which fought VohHauser's spirit to be heard above his; in essence, he was mobbed and silenced by the dozens of spirits fighting to take control of the body...including that of a 10-foot tall demon's spirit.

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The Ritterhauptmann spirit donned a set of old (supposedly) arcane armor the professor had collected and with the axe and shield, exited the building in search of 'evil to vanquish' in the name of God.

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Minutes later, dozens of Nazi policemen were being attacked by the Ritterhauptmann-possessed body of VonHauser. It took an entire precinct to slow him down enough that they could knock off the helmet and knock out VonHauser's body.  They took VonHauser's body to a jail cell, where minutes after being placed in prison, the demon's spirit came to the forefront.  It fought with the viciousness of an animal for over 15 minutes before Ritterhauptmann's spirit finally took control.  The Ritterhauptmann spirit asked in old Latin for the Emperor, to which none of the policemen understood what was being asked.  Luckily, an old Jewish man who was a scholar...and imprisoned for being a Jewish Store Owner, told the guards what the Ritterhauptmann was asking for.  The guards, unsure if he meant Hitler, called the SS and told them about this strange man.

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The next day, SS Colonel Amell VonBattenberg (AKA Baron Berlin) arrived with a team of SS personnel.  They interviewed the 'being' that was once Von Hauser and came to realized the possession and the magical properties of the axe and shield.  Colonel VonBattenberg told the being of when and where he was and that the "Emperor" was now a "Fuhrer" and that he, VonBattenberg, was the go-between with the Fuhrer and Ritterhauptmann.  Ritterhauptmann agreed to once again do the work for God and the new Emperor-Fuhrer so long as he/it was allowed to wield its axe and shield and receive 'better' armor than what he was wearing.

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Von Battenberg agreed and within a week's time, the new "Reich Knight" became a member of the Nazi Party and of the new Nazi super-powered group known as Axis Force.  He received a new set of armor (which he liked) and for the next few years of World War II, followed 'Baron Berlin's' orders and direction, fighting and killing Allied troops and soldiers, never once wavering...until that fateful day in April 1945.

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On 10 April 1945, Axis Force had been called back to Berlin.  There, the Axis Force team members where segregated into separate rooms. Minutes later, an SS Officer entered each of their rooms and informed them that they were arrested and charged for treason and were to be executed.  Reich Knight killed the SS Officer and 2 guards and started hacking at the room's locked steel doors.  In two swings of his axe, Reich Knight already started breaching the door.  An SS Captain engaged a knock-out gas system into the room's ventilation, causing Reich Knight to start passing out...but not before the demon's spirit came forward.  Screeching and howling, it smashed itself into the walls. Luckily for the Germans, the Reich Knight's demon-possessed body finally passed out...but if it had smashed the wall one more time, if would've escaped.  The guards, now with gas masks on, took the Reich Knight body, stripped it of its armor and weapons and dragged him outside to a firing squad.

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Seconds before he was executed by the firing squad, Professor VonHauser's spirit re-manifested itself back into his own body...just long enough to seem himself get shot to death by his own countrymen.  As such, it is believed that VonHauser's soul/spirit died with his body that day.

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The shield and axe were handled with long armed pincher grappler devices and stored in seperate lead storage boxes in the back of the third sub-level of an SS underground bunker.  The shield and the axe, according to a drugged-out Adolph Hitler, would eventually be 'gifted' to whomever was to become a leader in saving the city of Berlin from the Soviet Red horde.

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Adolph Hitler committed suicide shortly thereafter.

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The armor, shield and axe were eventually buried under 60 feet of the bunker's concrete and rubble from a Soviet artillery blast on the bunker the Reich Knight's equipment was stored in.  It wasn't until 2007 when construction crews, rebuilding downtown Berlin after the 2000 Soltan Star Empire invasion of Earth, found the armor and weapons.  Since all records about the Reich Knight were destroyed by the Nazis before their surrender in 1945, there was no knowledge or information about the axe and shield being a catalyst for a spirit possession.  Luckily for the German archaeologists handling the weapons, not a single archaeologist touched both weapons at any time.  As such, the weapons were placed on display in a war museum in Nuremberg, Germany where it remained on display and identified solely as the weapons and armor used by the Reich Knight.

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In 2016, however, the Reich Knight would come back to life once again (see Reich Knight II (Current).

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