Characters

Protagonists

Rocketman/Daniel Mansfield.
b. Oxford. 1900. A British secret agent working for the head of MI6 Sir Hugh Sinclair in an unofficial capacity. Mansfield is a former fighter pilot who saw service in France from 1917-18 and in Iraq from 1920-22. In 1929 he joined Project Meteor, initially as a test pilot until the project was terminated in 1934. Then in 1935 when Project Meteor was unofficially resurrected he became Rocketman by simple virtue of his being the only person capable of using the sole operational rocketpack. In 1936 Project Meteor was absorbed into MI6 and restructured with the purpose of providing technical support for Rocketman, the immediate result of this was an improved rocket pack with greater range and stability and light body armour for Mansfield.
Daniel Mansfield is a strapping, tall and heroric figure. A quintessential British adventurer gentleman. He married Audrey Summers in 1936 after he rescued her from the clutches of Viktor Korsakov.

Joe 'Mad Dog' Mitchell 
b. Texas. 1896. A former US marine, big game hunter, gun runner and East Africa based mercenary. Mitchell saw service in France under General Pershing and participated in the Saint-Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne Offensives in late 1918. Upon his return to the USA he found it difficult to adjust to civilian life and in 1920 was forced to flee the US after a bar brawl which left several men dead. From 1921 he became a mercenary working for various governments and businessmen until he was wounded in a fire fight in Madagascar and gave up mercenary work in favour of self employment. From 1929 until 1935 he provided logistical support to various European and American expeditions into central Africa operating from a base of operations in Alexandria (where his wife and four children still live). Since 1935 Mitchell has acted several times as a guide to Daniel Mansfield due to his extensive contacts and knowledge of East Africa, the Indian Ocean and Far East Asia.
'Mad Dog' Mitchell is a big, muscular, hard drinking, hard living man. A stereotypical Texan and US marine, he is always well armed.

George Macarthur
b. Southend-on-Sea. 1908. George is Daniel Mansfield's engineer. Having been a member of Project Meteor since its inception (he started as a technical student with a gift for repairing aero engines and weapons) he has gradually become an expert on rocketry and is probably that person with the most working knowledge of how the rocket pack actually works. Since 1935 he has accompanied Daniel Mansfield on all his adventures.
George is a short chubby fellow with a ruddy complexion and thinning blonde hair. He is usually wears sensible clothing, often oily blue overalls opened at the collar to reveal an old school tie. His fighting skills are poor, but he often carries a high calibre revolver to make up for this. Rather timid with other people, and uninterested in women, he is loyal and brave in a fight.

Marcel Messnier

b. Ajaccio.1904. Identified as a French intelligence agent of unknown affiliations, Messnier is an old war time friend of Daniel Mansfield and has subsequently assisted him many times in his various adventures. A slender, acerbic man, Messnier incorporates a great many classical Gallic traits, not least of which are his big nose, his vaunted prowess as a lady's man, and his love of fine wines. Amongst his many skills, Messnier is an accomplished marksman and a skilled driver of automobiles. His firey Corsican nature is easily roused and he is already ready for a fight. Messnier has a younger brother named Gabriel who frequents the Parisian underworld.

Audrey Summers/Mansfield
b. London. 1912. Audrey Mansfield is Daniel Mansfield's wife, and sometimes a companion in his adventures and the daughter of Prof. Summers. She is a budding aviatrix, holds a degree in archeology and since the early death of her mother, often assisted her father in his experiements at RAF Brookehurst until she was married. Young and head-strong Audrey will gladly pack her bags to follow Daniel on any adventure she can. She is a beautiful young English woman with auburn hair and green eyes.

Rocketgirl/ Margaret Emily Summers
b. Cambridge. 1913. Audrey Summers cousin, Emily Summers was a noted equestrian as a teenager but as she matured, she developed an adventurous streak that led her into conflict with her parents. In 1934 she took her pilot's license and the following year she joined an aerobatics team. After a scandalous affair with a married woman in 1937 she stole one of the older rocket packs from RAF Brookhurst and eventually fled England.

Professor Morgan Summers
b. Chelmsford. 1879. Educated at Oxford in the late 1890’s, Morgan Summers is a British professor, physicist and inventor who is the creator of the Mark IV rocket pack and head of Project Meteor. Initially Prof. Summers shared leadership of the project with his old business companion Sir Gerald Hesketh, but Hesketh was nudged aside by Sir Hugh Sinclair when MI6 took control of the project in 1936.
Summers is a man of another age. Quite peaceful at heart he is not a man of action, though he is of course British and knows no fear in a fight. When his friend Aaron Rosenblum was in danger, Summers pulled together the then disbanded Project Meteor team and sent Daniel Mansfield out into the world to rescue his friend. In doing so, Summers inadvertently brought Project Meteor to the attention of Sir Hugh Sinclair. The inventor and creator of the Mark IV jet pack, he was tasked in 1936 with building the Mark V rocket pack and subsequently has little more to do with the adventures of Rocketman.

Sir Hugh Sinclair.

b. Oxford. 1873. Head of MI6, and also head of Project Meteor as of 1936. Sir Hugh is a tall, cultured man with iron grey hair and a stern complexion. Formerly of the Royal Navy, he holds the rank of Admiral and was formerly head of Naval Intelligence. Sir Hugh is a member of the secret Lords Temporal and sits upon it's High Council as one of the military triumvirate.
Note Sir Hugh Sinclair is one of the few characters in Rocketman to be based on a real person.

Luigi Batista Lanzavecchia, il Conte del Vulcano
b. Lipari. 1906. An Italian millionaire nobleman. A former naval officer, Schneider Trophy pilot and noted society playboy, Luigi Batista Lanzavecchia's daring clandestine escapades on behalf of Italians in distress has earned him a covert reputation as a people's hero. Due to his activities and outspoken criticism of the Italian government however, Il Conte di Vulcano is viewed with extreme disfavour in Rome. Together with his trusted side kick Wu Fu, Il Conte di Vulcano uses his considerable personal wealth to roam the globe, looking for adventure, fame and glory.

Molly de Winter
An MI6 agent who runs a secret British Intelligence pipeline out of the United States and in to Canada.

Captain 'Flash' Beaufort
The former commaning officer of 715 Squadron. Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm. Captain Bertram John Beaufort has seen considerable service on the China Station aboard HMS Hermes.

Antagonists: Die Schwartzekreutz Bruderschafft

Hochmeister Baron Gottfried von Schöenberg
b. Schönberg. 1881. A Prussian noble and decorated former cavalry officer, the Baron is a robust and determined man whose natural leadership abilities inspire great loyalty in his men. Despite an old war wound that has left him with a slight limp, he is a large, strong man in superb condition.
As head of the House of Schöenberg the Baron controls extensive international business interests including a large number of industrial and banking assets and numerous investment companies, often via proxies. Unlike most German industrialists of the period, the Baron is not a Nazi and most of his wealth is situated outside Germany’s borders. An outspoken critic of Adolf Hitler, the Baron left Germany in 1935 and has never returned. His current where abouts are unknown. Apart from the Black Arrows, whose loyalty is without question, the Baron only trusts Helga. The reason for this is a secret known only to the two of them.

Helga
Helga is a mysterious tall, blonde woman of unknown age and background. Quite who she is, how old she is, or what her relationship with the Baron is remains unknown, but the connection between them is one of obvious loyalty and trust and Helga may be either the Barons lover or his daughter. She is Baron von Schöenberg’s most trusted associate and usually commands his clandestine field operations. She is a fully trained pilot, paratrooper and a crack shot with her trusty Mauser M712. She also carries a Bergman sub-machine gun.
Helga is ruthless, efficient and deadly.

Herr Doktor Alfred Metzger
b. Augsburg. 1891. A biologist of note, Metzger is a classic ’mad scientist’. After an extensive education in Berlin, he broke off his university connections in 1927 when Baron von Schöenberg offered him the resources to research the fundamentals of life and if possible to create the 'perfect human being'. Overwhelmed by this offer, Metzger accepted gladly and moved his operations to Farquhar Island in the Indian Ocean which was officially the site of a sea food farming project, but unofficially it was a research facility belonging to the Brotherhood of the Black Cross. Once established and left largely to his own devices, Metzger soon began horrendous experiments on human subjects using condemned criminals and wounded soldiers from Africa as laboratory specimens. Some of his experiments produced interesting and beneficial results, including performance enhancing substances and rapid healing compounds which could be given to soldiers, but most of his discoveries were practical dead ends and subsequently discarded. As time went by, the island become infested with the biologically mutated detritus from Metzger’s work. In 1934 Meztger returned to Berlin to work on a race purification project with several prominent Nazi scientists but after demonstrating the results of some of his earlier experiments in Berlin, Metzger was arrested by the Gestapo who recommended his employment by the Third Reich be terminated. Metzger was eventually released in 1935 thanks to the Baron’s influence, but in early 1936 a German scientific research station in the Arctic was destroyed when some of Metzger’s work on reanimated flesh, caused an out break of flesh eating zombies. Metzger himself was called in to contain the outbreak, but when the research station was over run, Metzger was trapped inside. By the time he was rescued, several months later, Metzger had undergone a series of self inflicted operations and was clearly unstable. He returned to Farquhar Island but by the end of the year, when realising that Metzger was completely insane, Baron von Schöenberg abandoned the island, leaving Metzger to be captured by Rocketman.  
Metzger is currently held at an undisclosed location by the Lords Temporal.

Oberst Doktor Holst

b. Königsberg. 1889. A tall, charismatic Prussian, Doktor Holst is a former military doctor of chemistry who once specialised in chemical warfare and poison gas. Since the days of the Great War he has been on the High Council of the Brotherhood of the Black Cross. He is the commander of the largest of the Brotherhood's infantry units, the chemically enhanced 'Shadow Troop'. In 1935 he took over military commander of Farquhar Island in an attempt to control Alfred Metzger's experiments which were rapidly becoming uncontrollable. After a year Holst reported the island had been made too dangerous and Metzger had become a liability. Holst abandoned the Island with the majority of his men and left Metzger to his fate.

Ritterbruder Brigadegeneral Hermann Ernst Ganz
b. Stolpmünde. 1899. From 1937; Member of the High Council of the Brotherhood of the Black Cross and Commander of the First Neo Prussian Panzer Brigade.

Ritterbruder Meyerbeer
b. Golnow. 1888. Meyerbeer is a highly placed official of the Reichsbank where he functions as a deputy to Hjalmar Schacht. As a member of Die Schwartzekreutz Bruderschafft his responsibilities are the free flow of money and assets between Germany and Rorainópolis. Based in Berlin, Meyerbeer is the senior most member of the brotherhood still to reside in Germany, as of 1939.

Oberst Joachim Weber
b. Brandenburg. 1893. Head of 1st Neu Prussien Logistische Abteilung, Weber is in charge of supplies and logistics for Rorainópolis.

Oberst Villy Reger
b. Berlin. 1901. Commander of Jagdstaffel 1 - the primary fighter and ground support squadron of Neu Prussien's airforce.

Bruno Blot
b. Pretoria. 1890. The son of German missionaries, Bruno was raised in Africa where he developed a marked distaste for the British and French. Indifferent to Africans, he grew through adolescence to become something of a loner. With no where to call home, he soon began to work as a mercenary, eventually being hired by the Sultan of Zanzibar as an executioner, for almost a decade. In 1934 he left Zanzibar after a dispute over a woman, and went to work for Oberst Doktor Holst on Farquhar Island where his primary task was to keep an eye on Alfred Metzger. Holst regarded Blot as a useful, but unpleasant asset. When Farquhar Island was abandoned, Blot travelled to Rorainópolis where he was tasked to take care of the Swedish rocket fuel scientist Andersen.

Moros
Very little is known about Moros. He appears to be some kind of shaman based in the Amazon rain forest who buys and 'acquires' unusual artefact's. According to rumour, he was educated as a chemist in Paris in the 1920’s and later spent some time in the USA. In the past he has also been connected to Baron von Schöenberg via reported arms deals, but this connection appears to have been discontinued since 1930.
Moros is a dark skinned Hispanic, probably Mexican, who wears flying goggles and an unusual hat adorned with the feathers of tropical birds. He uses this some what eccentric costume to intimidate local Indians and create the impression that he is a demon. Moros is thought to have a secret lair some where in the Amazon.

Antagonists: ONB7

Viktor Korsakov
Also known as the 'Iron Czar', the 'Machine Man' or occasionally 'Archangel'. Korsakov is a Russian Bolshevik renegade from Arkhangelsk whose origins are unknown. In the early 1920’s he was a party member, fairly high in the ranks of the Politicheskoye Buro where he controlled a secret scientific research unit known as the Osobogo Naznacheniya Brigada 7 (Special Purpose Brigade 7) refered to as ONB7. ONB7 specialised in scientific and technical espionage but was virtually unknown until 1935 when MI6 learned Korsakov had apparently broken away from Stalin and was threatening to destroy Moscow with a Tesla Peace Ray. Korsakov had also kidnapped Audrey Summers however and his plans were subsequently thwarted by Rocketman. Korsakov fled to a secret base in Afghanistan but Rocketman was sent by MI6 to assist a British Military Special task force under the command of Lt Col Sir John Napier and destroy the Bolshevik Warlord before he could destabilised the entire region. Korsakov was defeated but survived and fled to China under the care of his lover, Olga.
Korsakov's strength lies in his control over numerous technical scientific projects, most of which were hidden away so secretly that even the government in Moscow does not know of their locations, or in some cases, even of their existence. Korsakov controls numerous secret research installations and paramilitary groups, especially in Russia’s more far flung regions, Khazakhstan and south eastern Siberia. He has been declared an enemy of the state by Moscow, but his Black Guards remain loyal as they see the government in Russia as tyrannical and believe they are fighting a counter revolution for a better communist state.
Korsakov is well armoured. He usually wears prototype powered armour suits which, though slow are impervious to small arms fire and (usually) grenades. The Black Guards have employed a wide range of obscure weaponry, including heavy tanks and armoured trains.

Yuri Mosolov
Yuri was Korsakov's second in command in the Kazakhstan and Afghan campaigns. He is a slender, sharp faced man, a Bolshevik, and former officer of the NKVD. He firmly believes in the counter revolution to restore communist control over the Soviet Union. He hates Josef Stalin and despises the NKVD. Yuri joined ONB7 at some point prior to 1934, but such is the secrecy surrounding that unit that no information about Yuri is known prior to 1935. He was believed killed in 1936 when Rocketman destroyed the ONB7 Tesla Peace Ray but resurfaced later in Afghanistan.

Olga
Olga is a Uighur bandit queen, international weapons dealer and Viktor Korsakov's lover. Her origins and age are unknown. Originally Olga was thought to be motivated by money alone, but during the clean up of the Afghan campaign eye witnesses reported her romantic involvement with Viktor Korsakov. She is a short squat woman who often wears bulky fur coats and tends to shout a lot at her men. She appears to carry no weapons but a pistol. She is something of a martial arts fighter and rumour has it, she often kills her victims with her thighs. Olga's bandits are a mixture of illiterate tribesmen from Turkestan, Khazakhstan, Afghanistan and beyond. Her economic strength lies in her control of a vast gun running network that stretches from Mumbai to Manchuria.

Antagonists:  The Children of Ag Lata

Josef Stalin
Formerly a Bolshevik leader, Stalin was secretly murdered and replaced by the plant people in 1907. It is now the leader of the Eastern faction of the plant people and the most powerful Aglatean on the planet - with full control over the Soviet Union and its vast resources. During recent years, it has purged the Soviet military leadership to prevent any chance of the humans threatening its hold on power. Many of the high standing military survivors of the purge are also actually dead, having been replaced by plant people. By the late 1930s, only a few docile humans remain in the top level of the Soviet government.
The Lords Temporal have assassinated Stalin three times, but each time the plant people have managed to grow a new Stalin. The first three were highly intelligent, but relatively calm individuals. The fourth Stalin however, grown from highly degraded biological remains, has proven to be difficult to control, extremely ambitious and utterly ruthless.   

Major Gavrill Kapustin
A minor Soviet cavalry officer who was secretly murdered and then replaced by the plant people. It now functions as Stalin's personal commander of special operations.

Qal Ag Lata. 'Queen of the Moon'. 
The supreme ruler of the Aglateans, Qal means Mother/ruler. Ag Lata is the oldest of the pure born plant people, and only one of three survivors of the original colonists. As with all pure born, Ag Lata cannot risk beig contaminated by the Earth's biosphere and she has never set foot there. She resides in the Secret City which is hidden on the dark side of the moon.
The pure born are the remnants of the first Aglateans to arrive at Earth, several thousand years ago. On their way to a new world, their ship's drive began to fail and they were obliged to find a safe haven where they might be able to repair it. Unfortunately for them, their only option was Earth whose ecosystem is incompatable with their own. Unable to survive on the planet without extensive adaptation, they settled on the moon instead and began to breed agents who could survive on the surface and infiltrate the human population. Unlike the pure born, the agents do not have a gender, and are grown from spores planted onto a dead terrestrial host - usually a human being. The first few generations of agents were weak and barely able to live on the surface for any length of time, but the Aglateans eventually managed create a strain strong enough to live amongst the humans and gather enough information to begin infiltrating human society. The terrestrial agents are hybrids and as such they can not live with the pure born because they pose a serious contamination risk. They were created to serve Ag Lata but they are also capable of maintaining their own self-interests. Ag Lata allows this, providing the agents do not jeopardise their purpose.
Unable to live on Earth due to their biology, the Aglatean pure breeds are only interested in using Earth and its inhabitants to build a new world ship so they can continue on their original journey to their New World.
Qal Ag Lata has a cadre of pure born Royal Guards, specifically bred to maintain her authority. These can fly to Earth and enforce her commands if necessary, but they must wear specially armoured environment suits to survive on the surface without contamination. The Royal Guards are so potent that they can exert direct control over the agents by means unknown to human science. They cannot openly pose as human however since the pure born do not have human features.

Other Antagonists

Tanta Muzuzu

b. Limpopo. 1908. Titled The Witch Queen of Nonon by her own people, the Nonon tribe. Tanta Muzuzu is the hereditary queen and undisputed leader of both the Nonons and their affilated tribe, the Yayas. A stunningly beautiful woman, her only agenda is the liberation of her tribal home land from Belgian colonial rule. To that end she has worked to build a secret weapons production industry with which to arm her people in their struggle for independence.

Captain Brass
Luigi Carlotti is an Italian naval officer who fought to great accomplishment in the First World War and who became known as Captain Brass due to his willingness to undertake even the most desperate work. An underworld adventurer - if the price is right, his exploits have brought him both infamy and a great deal of money.