Frederika Reichman
Frederika Reichman (born 02 January 2029) is the Commander-in-Chief of the MPD, a position she assumed after the death of her husband, Augustus Reichman.
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Frederika Bowers Reichman was born and raised in a wealthy suburb of Sauklund, a metropolis to the south of Rivertown. She attended a prestigious private university in Sauklund and, at the insistence of her parents, found employment as a manager in the human resources deparment at Allied/Bradwell, a defense contracting firm. She was courted for a short time by Augustus Reichman before they married and she promptly quit her job and settled into her life as a homemaker. The Reichmans lived in an expansive home in the Lakeview neighborhood of Rivertown South, where she gave birth to her four children: Katrina, Rudy, Abby, and Delia.
As the living conditions in Rivertown deterioated, she fought viciously with Augustus about how to handle the situation. Frederika wanted to transform their home into a sealed fortress like those in Sweetwater or moving to Sauklund, threatening to leave her husband for as long as he insisted they relocate with other families to the Allied/Bradwell headquarters. After prolonged arguing, Augustus called her bluff and the family moved into what would become the Rock and the birthplace of the MPD, an organization they would both lead.
Frederika outsourced her motherly duties to hired help and never developed strong bonds with any of her children, whom she found to be both unruly and needy given their trying circumstances.She was leery about the family's move to the compound known as Mansion Inn in Rivertown North after MPD expansion but quickly grew used to the relatively lavish living conditions compared to the Rock and it soon felt like home. She enjoyed the privacy and space it provided the family, and reveled life at Mansion Inn during the "Golden Age" of the MPD, marred only by her daughter Delia's decision to run away from home as a teen in 2097 shortly after the move, and then again by the unexpected death of Augustus in early 2113.
Frederika strongly feels like she deserves more credit than she gets for surviving the apocalypse with more than a modicum of class and grace. She's also a firm believer in the old cliche "behind every great man is a great woman," and she believes that her husband will one day be remembered as one of the greatest leaders the nation has ever seen.
She is used to a life of comfort and regarded the decade that saw the world collapse as a major inconvenience, a personal wrong that Augustus worked long and hard to attempt to right. His death has embittered her further, feeling as though she has been cursed by fate, and governs the MPD with a great deal of resentment. In her mind, she had almost as much to do with the organization's growth as her departed husband and can't understand (beyond her own low regard for human nature) why she should be required to face down an endless line of challenges. Unused to this type of stress and constant worry, Frederika is often overwhelmed by depression.
Frederika has no established goals or motivations other than simply getting through another day. She finds long-term planning for the organization impossible because she does not trust the counsel of the other Family members, suspecting them all of attempting to manipulate her into vulnerable positions--a fear not that's entirely unfounded.
What Frederika subconsciously wants, however, is for someone to make her decisions for her. She would likely even welcome a successful coup, because it would allow her to blame someone else for her predicament. As it stands currently however, she is paralyzed by the number of decisions large and small she is responsible for making, and knows full well that her enemies are simply sniping at her to force her into making one grave mistake that will topple her family from the top of the organization they built up.
Frederika spends all of her time at Mansion Inn, and specifically in her private quarters. She rarely ventures into other rooms of the house, and rarer yet does she set a foot outside. She has not left the compound grounds since moving there 17 years earlier and, given that her husband is buried in the backyard, she may never leave the grounds again.
Frederika is 73 years old and physically frail; she would fail any physical challenge beyond getting out of her bed, bathing, and navigating stairs. She is stern and forceful in her interactions with others but not adept at rhetoric or persuasion. She is intelligent but does not like putting forth the effort to expand her mental faculties. She does possess an unflagging stubborn streak and conviction in defending herself and her family's reputation, which earns her grudging admiration.
At the conclusion of the project each player wrote a coda, or a concluding summary, of how they felt their characters grew or changed over the course of the role-playing campaign. Warning: each coda contains major plot spoilers! We recommend you spend time navigating through characters' vignettes before reading any codas.