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Name
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Ulrich Mauer
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Alias
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Ben Salisbury
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Rank
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Rottemeister / Weibel
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Previous Occupation
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Farmer
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Origin
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Salzburg
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Contact
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Ulrich was born in 1507 to Gustav Mauer and Heike Wurzer of Salzburg near the southern borders of Bavaria-Landshut. Gustav had formal education as an Ingenieur, and helped build ditches and stone walls as a Mauerer in the countryside. However, in 1500, he lost his tools and home to gambling debts and had to work it off digging the land for others. Ulrich's youth was dull as he was very poor and not quick witted due to a lack of education and something in the water flowing from Bavaria.
Dissatisfied with the peasant's life, shoveling manure at the small family cabbage farm, Ulrich looked up from his work one day to the sound of a drum. A Landsknecht Fähnlein, nicknamed 'Das Todesangel,' was passing through Salzburg on the way south to glory in the Italian Wars. Always seeming to have his face in the dirt and a landsmen's boot in his back, Ulrich was awestruck by the flashing steel of armor and the tips of forests of pikes, the noble bearing of the colorful puff and slash garbed soldiers. He had never seen such clothes! That night, with the Fähnlein billeted in nearby fields, Ulrich approached a firepit where several Landsknechte were drinking, offering himself to the pike square. "You will need a katzbalger to pass the musterung." Gunther, an experienced Speißträger, lent him a sword taken from a fallen comrade, making him promise his first month's pay, and presented Ulrich to the Hauptman Reinhardt in the morning alongside other recruits from the countryside to join in the musterung. There were many after the last campaign season, where a great victory was won in Pavia. It is in the songs and stories of this time that Ulrich's mind was occupied as he recieved his first pike and marched with his fahnlein towards the Italian States.
After five hard fought campaigns and several pairs of hosen, Ulrich has elevated himself to the rank of Weibel, where he must prove now not only his skill in battle but his ability to command with halbred, cugdel, the wheel, and the noose. His Rottemiesters, the most nefarious tools of his command, see the orders through and the Gleide and Rotte straight for battle. It is his black rustic, geldt chain, and hard looks that impress the men, while his flashy Fähndrich and stalwart Trommelschläger, in their swagger and impossible dress, recruit foolish lads to romantic wars.
"Noch Weiter!" Another push begins....
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