Anneliese Voß

**Anneliese Voß** (born 21 Jan. 1926) is the current, and so far only, Matriarch of Austria.

Born into a world that was largely unaware of the existence of metahumans, she was amongst the first to fall victim to the brutal experimentations of the Nazi regime, paving the way for the creation of future metahumans. The suffering she endured at their hands, and later the hands of the Americans, colored her outlook and left her a bitter and broken woman. Eventually coming to terms with her past, she opened her home to other neglected metahumans, becoming an adoptive mother to generations of children.

Left forever changed by her mutations, she continues to grow despite her already massive size. This has led to her having something of a cult following amongst people who would find that sort of thing attractive, though such people tend to be labeled degenerates by mainstream society.

## Early Life

Anneliese was born in a moderately large house in Linz, Republic of Austria in the beginning of 1926. Her father, Dr. Wenzel Voß, was a doctor who had previously served with the Empire. While she was originally healthy, she grew sicker and sicker until she was diagnosed with a terminal blood disease when she was 7 years old. There was no cure known for her condition, and she was not given more than a decade to live. This left her father desperate to save her life, and he sat out trying to find a treatment himself. His work was not successful, though after the Anschluss his work attracted the attention of the Ahnenerbe Institute and he was invited to join the project.

## A Human Guinea Pig

Dr. Voß was not getting any closer to a cure, and Anneliese's condition worsened as the years passed. The situation was growing more desperate, both for Dr. Voß and the Third Reich as a whole, leading to the beginning of more direct human experiments in 1941. Dr. Voß made sure that Anneliese was one of the first subjects, as he sought to use the work of the *Institut für Wehrwissenschaftliche Zweckforschung* to save her life. The experiments were excruciating, and seemed to be leading nowhere. Believing that trying to cure the disease was now pointless since it had taken its toll on his daughter, he took a new approach: if Anneliese's body couldn't get rid of the disease, then it might be simpler to go around it completely and focus on restoring whatever damage it wrought.

Unfortunately for Anneliese, being among the first of anything comes with its disadvantages. The technology of the time wasn't perfect and it meant that the work was not as precise as it would be for later generations of created metas. Her father was able to successfully cause her body to heal from the damage of the disease, but there was no limiter placed on the regeneration. This caused it to be constantly active, giving her a never-ending growth spurt that made her continue to grow far beyond the size of a normal human. The gene therapy she underwent had the unfortunate side effect of giving her a form of porphyria, where she couldn't produce her own heme compounds. This meant she required regular ingestion of blood in order to keep her body regenerating or else she would begin to suffer the ill effects of her disease and eventually die.

## From One Cage To Another

While her life was saved, she had endured unimaginable pain at the hands of the *IWZ*. She hated the Nazi Party and especially her father for what happened to her. She'd been a lab rat for years, being injected with mysterious chemical and cut open more times than she could count. Instead of being able to die with dignity, she was turned into a freak that couldn't die. While the Ahnenerbe was rushing to pack and flee the country, Anneliese used the confusion to enact some modicum of revenge. She killed her father and his entire research team before fleeing from the incoming Red Army. She was found and captured by the American army, who interrogated her about her origins. Once they found out about her abilities, they transferred her back to the United States in secret to be placed under the authority of the Manhattan Project.

From here, she was subjected to more experiments that allowed for the creation of the first American metahuman Columbia. While the Americans weren't as cruel as the Nazis were, they still exploited the fact that her wounds would quickly heal so they could run more tests on her than on other subjects. She was beaten, stabbed, shot and any other number of horrors they could inflict upon her to test the limits of the regeneration that was written into her DNA so that its benefits could be granted to the new batch. With no end to the experiments in sight, Anneliese again decided to escape.

## Mother to Orphans

In early 1958, Anneliese escaped from her detention in Groom Lake, Nevada and managed to sneak out of the country and return back to Austria for the first time since in thirty years. Unwilling and possibly unable to see Linz again, she arrived in Salzburg in the middle of that April. She took over the Festung Hohensalzburg overlooking the city, feeling that it provided her enough separation from the populace to remain undisturbed. For years, her presence in the fortress was regarded as rumors made to scare children and draw tourists; no one would seriously believe that a tall vampire lady live in one of Europe's largest castles unnoticed.

Her experience of being used and abused by regular humans caused her to view the outside world with distrust and contempt, and she fully planned to stay in her fortress alone for the rest of her unnatural life. After a couple of years, she began to sympathize with other metahumans she saw being mistreated by society, it reminding her of her own life all too much. She began taking in children and young adults who were rejected by their families or being exploited, raising them like they were her own children. She refused any form of monetary compensation, instead the only thing she would ask of them is that they allow her to take their blood in small quantities to keep herself alive which they all agreed to without hesitation.

## From Mother to Matriarch

Over the decades of running her orphanage, Anneliese raised dozens of children across generations. She provided them with a nurturing home she never got as a child, keeping them safe from the cruel world outside the walls of her home. Because of her 'participation' in the Manhattan Project, Columbia herself tried to convice Anneliese to join in their plan for a new world order by appealing to her maternal instinct for neglected metas, though the Austrian woman declined to participate in what she believed would be trading in the yoke for the whip. Despite her initial refusal, her children implored her to reconsider. They insisted that since the plan was going to happen anyway, it would be better for someone caring and responsible to be in power than someone who might be just as cruel and callous as the regime being replaced. Somewhat begrudgingly she agreed to rule over Austria, turning the whole country into a safe haven for metahumans who would otherwise be in danger elsewhere. She still takes in new generations of children into her care, though by now there are so many applicants that a lottery system was formed to determine which candidates she would adopt personally.

## Powers and Abilities

**Colossal Stature:** Anneliese is 9'2 and growing. She currently weighs around 620lbs, This alone gives her a tremendous strength advantage over a normal person, though she is not excessively strong for her size. Her bones are incredibly dense, or else she would have been crushed under her own weight decades ago, meaning that non-meta physical attacks can't break them.

**Natural Weapons:** Anneliese has an unnatural control over her physiology, able to manipulate her skeletal structure at will. By temporarily increasing the regeneration to a certain point, she can cause a bone to erupt from her skin for use as a weapon. She prefers not to do this, as the regeneration does nothing for the pain, but she will not hesitate to use her own fingers as claws if someone were to threaten her children.

**Runaway Regeneration:** Anneliese's body is capable of healing from virtually any injury. Smaller wounds close within seconds, and a grievous injury like dismemberment could take a day or two. This is also what keeps her size increasing gradually and allows her to use her own body as a weapons platform.