Guttermen Attack | THE ULTRAWEEK DAY 2

The year is 1920. The world is in ruins. Every major city is burning, and the war doesn't stop. The conflict between Russian Empire, United Kingdom and France against Germany, Italy and Austria-Hungary continues escalating with each country fighting in an arms race. German forces created the Gutterman. Guttermen are bulky humanoid machines. Their heads are silver domes that bear a resemblance to old Russian diving masks. Their waists are covered with some kind of black metal, their belly and parts of their limbs seem to be made of a flexible dark gray material while the rest of their form is adorned in brown plating. Red lines, markings and lights detail their bodies. Guttermen wield large miniguns and riot shields, and a coffin with a skeletal body attached to their backs. Guttermen will slowly move and skedaddle towards the enemy while firing their miniguns. They are inaccurate at first, but their tracking will gradually improve the longer they are allowed to fire away at the enemy. Their shields can be broken with an armor piercing round. Guttermen also leak blood if their blood tank starts leaking, they use blood of the person inside the coffin on their back to fuel themselves. Kretzky is a small town on the north of Austria-Hungary. The town itself was almost completely ruined by the war because it contained important infrastructure and sides were fighting for the resources. SQUAD MEMBERS: Lieutenant Arthur Sterling (Commander) Appearance: At twenty-four, Arthur Sterling looks older than his years. The war has etched fine lines around his pale grey eyes and a permanent furrow between his brows. He has a lean, angular face, clean-shaven as per regulations, with dark hair that is always meticulously parted and slicked down, a small act of discipline he clings to. His uniform, while worn and mud-stained like everyone else's, is always as neat as possible. His Sam Browne belt is polished, his boots are scraped clean of the worst of the trench mud whenever the opportunity arises. He carries a swagger stick not out of arrogance, but because his hands need something to do. His most defining feature is his posture; he holds himself with a quiet, unbending stiffness, a physical manifestation of the responsibility he feels crushing down on him. Personality: Sterling is a man shaped by duty and a deep, gnawing sense of responsibility. He is the son of a schoolmaster and was a history student at Oxford before the war. He volunteered not out of a thirst for glory, but from a profound belief in the cause and a desire to protect the men he grew up with. This creates a painful conflict within him: he is intellectually opposed to the war's senseless slaughter, yet he must lead his men into it. He is not a natural martinet; his orders are given quietly and firmly, not shouted. He is deeply reserved, finding it difficult to bridge the gap between officer and men, a distance he feels is necessary for his own sanity. He cares for his squad with a fierce, paternalistic love, and the death of any one of them is a personal wound. He is terrified not of dying, but of failing them. He keeps a small, worn copy of The Iliad in his tunic pocket, finding a grim solace in its ancient tales of honor and futility.

Sergeant Thomas "Tommy" Miller Appearance: Sergeant Miller is a bull of a man, broad-shouldered and thick-necked, with hands like shovels. At thirty-five, he is the old man of the squad. His face is a roadmap of a hard life, weathered by years of working on the docks of Liverpool and now by the sun and rain of France. He has a thick, dark mustache that he constantly worries at, and a network of small scars on his knuckles from countless brawls and accidents. His uniform strains at the shoulders, and he wears his helmet tilted back, revealing a receding hairline. His eyes, a deep, warm brown, are his most telling feature; they are constantly scanning, counting, assessing—the eyes of a man who has seen too much and is determined to see his lads through. Personality: Tommy is the squad's bedrock. He is a pragmatist, a cynic, and a mother hen all rolled into one. He has no illusions about the war; he sees it as a job, a terrible, bloody job that has to be done. His loyalty is not to King or Country, but to the men in his charge. He is the buffer between the idealistic Lieutenant Sterling and the grim reality of the trenches. He knows how to get extra rum rations, how to spot a trench foot case before it becomes serious, and how to deliver a bollocking that is both terrifying and caring. He has a dry, sarcastic wit that he uses to deflate pomposity and ease tension. While he grumbles constantly about "the bloody officers" and "this bloody war," he would follow Sterling to the gates of Hell, a fact he'd never admit. He carries a tattered photograph of his wife and three children in his breast pocket, a talisman he touches before every charge. Private Reginald "Reg" Pemberton Appearance: Reg is a scarecrow of a man, tall and gaunt, with long, thin limbs that seem to have a life of their own. At nineteen, he still has the soft, unlined face of a boy, but his eyes are ancient. He is perpetually pale, with a smattering of freckles across his nose and a shock of unruly ginger hair that refuses to be tamed by his cap. He is clumsy, often tripping over his own feet, and his uniform is always a little too big for him, as if he's a child playing dress-up. He has a nervous habit of biting his nails down to the quick. He looks perpetually bewildered, like a lamb that has unexpectedly found itself in a slaughterhouse. Personality: Reg is the squad's innocent, the one they all instinctively protect. He lied about his age to enlist, driven by a romanticized idea of war from the pages of boys' adventure stories. The reality has shattered him. He is quiet and withdrawn, often staring into the middle distance. He is terrified, not of death, but of the noise, the chaos, and the blood. He is not a coward, but his fear is a palpable, living thing. In his rare moments of lucidity, he reveals a sharp, poetic intelligence, a love for the countryside of his native Kent, and a gentle, kind soul. He is a liability in a fight, but he is an expert at fetching water, digging a latrine, or writing letters home for the other men, his neat handwriting a small, beautiful rebellion against the ugliness around him. He is the squad's conscience, a living reminder of what they are all fighting to preserve, and what they are all losing. Nineteen years old. Private James "Jock" Ferguson Appearance: Jock is a compact, wiry man from the Gorbals in Glasgow. He is short but powerfully built, with a face that looks like it's been carved from granite. A deep scar runs from his left eyebrow to his cheekbone, a souvenir from a pre-war knife fight. His dark eyes are small, sharp, and constantly moving with a cynical, almost predatory glint. He has a perpetual five o'clock shadow and a sardonic smirk permanently affixed to his lips. He wears his uniform with a slovenly air, his tunic unbuttoned at the top, his helmet pushed back. He has a sharp, fox-like intelligence and the coiled energy of a stray dog that's had to fight for every scrap it's ever gotten. Personality: Jock is the squad's edge. He is a brawler, a scavenger, and a survivor. He grew up in poverty and learned early that the world is a brutal place where only the fittest and most cunning survive. He has no time for patriotism, sentimentality, or religion. To him, the war is just another fight, and he's determined to be the one who comes out on top. He is fiercely, almost tribally, loyal to his squad—his new "gang." He is the one who will "acquire" a chicken for a stew, who knows how to make a trench periscope out of a mirror and a piece of wood, and who will not hesitate to put a bayonet in a German sentry with cold, efficient brutality. He has a biting, often cruel sense of humor, and is the only one who can puncture Sergeant Miller's authority with a single, well-aimed jibe. Beneath the tough, cynical exterior, he is a man of deep, unspoken feeling, haunted by the poverty he left behind and fiercely determined to survive, if only to spite the world that made him.