Otto von Hochstatt

Otto von Hochstatt is a character first mentioned in the articles Secrets of Freedom and Secrets of Privilege in Quoth the Raven Issue 29.

Background

Otto von Hochstatt is an aristocrat of the city of Leidenheim, in the domain Lamordia. He is both venomously racist and viciously sexist, and so fiercely proud of his heritage that he is frankly disdainful of the world beyond the borders of his home country. He joined the Syndicate of Enlightened Citizens at a relatively young age, presumably briefly after he completed his formal education and was acknowledged as an adult. Although he is not related to the Mordenheim family (that we know of), he managed to unlock the secrets of the scientist prestige class, specializing in the study of chemistry.

At some point Otto fathered at least one child, a son named Diedrich von Hochstatt. Given his insistence that an Aristocrat of Lamordia should follow traditional codes of conduct, this was presumably done with his legal wife. He spent a fair amount of time forcing his creative, adventurous son to conform to his expectations, which included frequent beatings and even more frequent verbal abuse. At one point, when Diedrich asked Otto to arrange an audience with the Syndicate for the scholar Mu, the elder von Hochstatt did so only to ambush the woman from Gothic Earth, beat and rape her alongside his high-born cronies, and destroy the notes she had made on her research into the many-worlds interpretation. To complete this transgression, Otto and his Syndicate friends thought to sell their victim to a brothel.

To Otto, this was not an act of evil. He simply disapproved of anyone attempting to blend magic and science, was disbelieving of any notion that other worlds might exist, and was disdainful of the notion of a woman seeking to set up a major operation. To his mind, he was putting Mu in her "proper place" in a way that livened up a meeting of his cell of the Syndicate, and the occasion merited little consideration beyond that point. It is possible Otto never even realized that his son was desperately in love with Mu, and had hoped to help her secure funding for her research.

Current Sketch

Things took a turn at this point, as Diedrich first disappeared for months on end, only to later be found dead at Schloss von Brandthofen. As no one could fully explain what had happened at the castle, Otto became radicalized in his hatred for the supernatural and non-human creatures, as he apparently suspected they were responsible for the demise of his heir. He had always been of a vicious nature, but now he started calling for violent action on the part of the Syndicate. Presumably, even though it could not be said that Otto held genuine fatherly love for Diedrich, he was outraged that anyone or anything should rob him of the heir he felt he needed to fulfill his obligations as an aristocrat - especially as no one could find the one or ones responsible so they might be punished.

When the Cornerstone Foundation started putting out feelers with an eye to working together with the Syndicate, Otto welcomed them. He eventually became a member of their number and managed to become a foundationist in his zeal to move up the ranks - this in spite of his rabid hatred of magic. As it became clear that he did this not to further the cause of either the Syndicate or the Foundation, but with a hope to one day funding and openly commanding actual death squads across the Core, he is now considered to be a liability by both groups.

Statistics

Lawful Evil male human aristocrat 5 / scientist (chemist) 6 / foundationist 2