Kromer

Personality Kromer describes herself as "a humanitarian who loves purity," referring to the purity of the human form without prosthetic modifications. As the head of N Corp.'s nailing judgement expedition in Calw, she displays extreme levels of sadism, obsession, and savagery towards prostheses, calling for intense mutilation of those who get these surgeries. She saw prosthetic users as affronts to humanity, describing them as impure things and heretics, and taking extreme pleasure in inflicting them pain, laughing with no remorse at her actions.

In Sinclair's memories, Kromer is shown to be a perceptive and charismatic person, noticing Sinclair's reluctance in undergoing prosthetic surgery, and easily manipulating him into trusting her, to the point of giving up his family's basement key to her. It is clear Kromer had always had an authoritative grip over Sinclair, exploiting him during their school years, and appearing possessive over him in current times, describing him as belonging in her hands. Kromer developed an obsession with the flesh, as seen in Sinclair's memories, where she excitedly stared at an Abnormality. This obsession drove her to the point that she had various facilities dedicated to creating Corroded Inquisitors built within Sinclair's basement.

N Corp. Inquisition Story District 11 Lobotomy Corporation Branch Interior 1 BG.pngThe N Corp. Inquisition is a subdivision of Nagel und Hammer and act as the primary antagonists of Canto III. They are an extremist subdivision of N Corp. that holds zealous beliefs of anti-prosthetic purification. It is led by The One Who Grips, Kromer, with the Großhammer, Guido the Persistent acting as her right hand man.

Fighting Style The N Corp. Inquisition team is universally weak to Blunt.png Blunt and resists Slash.png slash. They primarily use Blunt.png Blunt skills that debuff your offensive power and Pierce.png Pierce skills that inflict Bleed.pngBleed and the faction exclusive debuff Nails.pngN Corp’s Nails. The Inquisition also has an exclusive buff, Fanatic.pngFanatic, that buffs their power against targets with Nails.pngN Corp’s Nails. They also use Inquisition skills, negative coin skills that inflict Nails and massive debuffs if the opponent has enough stacks at the time.

The faction is divided into 3 tiers, with each tier having 3 types of Inquisitors. One focuses on nails, the second focuses on hammers, and the third uses both skills, with all 3 in a tier sharing the same Inquisition skill.

The Inquisitors are further broken up into 3 tiers of corroded inquisitors. Those who corroded into four legged creatures are the Kleinhammers of the first row, those who corroded with Nothing There's Mimicry were the lesser Mittelhammers of the second row, while those who corroded into snakes are the greater Mittelhammers of the third row. They all use Lust near exclusively, and inflict many of the statuses that their base inquisitors inflict, aside from Nails.pngN Corp’s Nails and Fanatic.pngFanatic.

Story Prior to Limbus Company Kromer was originally an N Corp. citizen. From a young age, she hated living among the "filthy affronts to humanity" she labeled prosthetic users, considering herself a "humanitarian who loves all things human" who should rid the world of the "impure". The forested town of Calw, also known as the Holy Site of Nest K's Prosthetic Industry, was a long-term area of interest for her in her deranged quest to eliminate those with prostheses. Kromer would come to lead a subsection of Nagel und Hammer called the Inquisitors, as the top-ranking One Who Grips.

During her school days, she made a deal with K Corp. that allowed her free destruction of Calw in return for supplying their Singularity with footage of the tragedy. She enrolled in the school which Sinclair attended, and laid low for a time. Yet one day, she caught wind of her classmate's hesitance to go through with his prosthetic procedure, and would properly introduce herself to Sinclair. Kromer bonded with him over his discomfort with replacing one's body with something else and appeared to empathize with his struggle. They spoke frequently, and at the time, Sinclair would consider them friends.

At one point, Kromer would prepare to take action against the people of Calw. She promised Sinclair that she would "help him" alleviate his pressures to receive his own prosthetic if he would help her with a grudge of hers in turn. For that cause, she asked him for his basement key, and Sinclair would hesitantly follow her through a filthy air vent attached to his home's basement. The two peeked into a Lobotomy Corporation branch containment cell, within which was an Abnormality that enraptured Kromer and sent Sinclair spiraling with terror and regret. Afterwards, she handed him two coins.

From that day forward, Sinclair grew horrified of Kromer, and did his best to avoid her. However, he would at one point ask for his basement key back, to which Kromer complied, only after cackling at his hesitance to speak up about it.

Kromer would ultimately go through her plan to desecrate the citizens of Calw on Christmas day. When Sinclair arrived home, he found her with Guido, massacring and dehumanizing his family. She demonstrated awareness that this day would haunt him for the rest of his life, and relished in it. Kromer wouldn't hurt him, but instead thank him for the opportunity he'd given her, take back one of the coins she'd gifted him, and order him to be brought to safety after declaring she'd call for him again when the time was right.

Canto III: The Unconfronting Some time later, still far off from Christmas, Kromer reenacted the day she murdered Sinclair's family in an attempt to permanently break his spirit and lead her to join her cause. She hung up the innocent townspeople in trees and on pikes, considering them less than human and deserving of the torment. Among these was the LCCB's Effie, whose limbs she had forcefully applied prosthetics to in an excuse to persecute and torture him. She also set fire to Sinclair's old home, where she reunited with him face-to-face and verbally tormented him, finding great enjoyment in his suffering and no concern for the fact that this outcome was clearly not what he'd wanted.

Kromer reached the Golden Bough before the Sinners could and resonated with it, revealing a manifested mindscape of mountains upon mountains of corpses. Sinclair found the resolution to kill her, and confronted her on the hills. Partway through their fight, Kromer distorted, and mentioned a Mirror World she witnessed of the two of them fighting side-by-side under her cause to kill prosthetic users, much to Sinclair's distress and denial. All throughout the battle, she attempted to manipulate, scar, and ruin her former classmate, claiming his family's death was entirely his fault and projecting her extremist beliefs onto him.

With time, Sinclair's determination slowed, and he seemed to give up on the fight against her when Demian appeared in response to a sentiment by Dante. In a want for no one else to "domineer over" Sinclair, Demian waved his arm and cleaved her clean in half, ultimately leading to a swift and dramatic end for Kromer.

Trivia Kromer is based on Franz Kromer from Demian: The Story of Emil Sinclair's Youth by Hermann Hesse. The two coins that Kromer gives to Sinclair, and later asks to have returned to her, in Limbus Company are inspired by their central interaction in the novel. In Demian, Sinclair lies about stealing apples from a local orchard in an attempt to show off to some of the neighborhood boys, including the neighborhood bully Franz Kromer. Kromer threatens to report Sinclair for the theft, telling him that the owner of the orchard has offered a reward of two marks for anyone who reports the thief, so Sinclair must give Kromer two marks if he does not wish to be reported and known as a criminal. Kromer's whistles are a reference by Franz Kromer whistling to signal to Sinclair when it was time to exchange the money. Due to Emil Sinclair being ten years old during this time, he was unable to acquire the full amount of money that Kromer was extorting from him, so the two had to meet multiple times throughout several weeks as Sinclair slowly paid off the two marks. Even while recalling the events an adult who has survived war, Sinclair believes he would still be frightened if he were to hear Kromer whistling again. In addition to her whistles being referenced throughout the story of Canto III, they are also referenced in gameplay. In certain combat stages throughout the Canto, Kromer will whistle every three turns, applying Kromer's Whistles.pngKromer's Whistles to the enemy N Corp. Inquisitors, and causing Sinclair to lose 30 SP. As an enemy, Kromer has the passive "Fearsome Whistles" which applies debuffs to Sinclair unless he has 3 of A Sign.pngA Sign. Kromer's avoidance of Sinclair on days when he spoke to Demian and her eventual fate of being killed by Demian are inspired by Franz Kromer eventually being scared off from continuing to harass Emil Sinclair thanks to Max Demian. In Demian, Demian takes notice of how Sinclair is being bullied by Kromer and offers to help him be rid of the problem. While he first tries to get more information about the situation from Sinclair, he eventually decides to step in and handle it for Sinclair. At one point he makes the remark that Sinclair should just kill Kromer, and that he would help him with the act if Sinclair so desired. While Franz Kromer is not killed by either of the two boys, Demian soon confronts him and from then on Kromer never bothers Sinclair again. Kromer was the first human enemy character to have both types of Resistance. Kromer remains the only human enemy whose Sanity is fixed at 0. This is due to the fact that Sanity-using enemies were first introduced into Focused Encounters (and Sanity-fixed enemies into Regular Encounters) in Canto IV: The Unchanging, one Season after Kromer's initial addition to the game. Kromer The Dreamer Of Human Wholeness bears a striking resemblance to the Peccatulum Luxuriae. Sinclair also notes that the Peccatulum reminds him of Kromer in his observation log. Incidentally, the Peccatulum Luxuriae first appears in the same dungeon that Kromer acts as the final boss of. If The One Who Shall Grip Sinclair is deployed in the battle against Kromer, she will become staggered on the first turn and say "Aah... Could it... You're... My Sinclair...?!" This was the first unique interaction between an enemy and a specific Identity. Before the May 10th 2023 update, Kromer instead said "Ah... You... No way.... My Sinclair?"

Appearance: Gender:Female Occupation:The One who Grips Affiliations:N Corp. Inquisition Relations:Guido (Second-in-Command), Sinclair (Former classmate), & Demian (Former classmate)

Appearance Kromer's consistent physical traits consist of pale pink skin, silver eyes and silver hair with yellow highlights. Kromer's hair is prominently swept to the right, covering her right eye. Her hair is tied back in a short ponytail when in her school uniform, and cut shorter in present times. Kromer's N Corp. uniform consists of a white shirt with a wide sleeve on the right side. The left side of the shirt is covered by silver plate armor with red wax seal ribbons and a badge with N Corp.'s insignia. The shirt is adorned with four-pointed yellow stars decorations that go from her shoulder to her lower torso, and a rounded, protruding collar in the same color. Kromer wears a cravat around her neck in a gradient that goes from golden to white, atop which is an N Corp. Inquisition red wax seal and ribbon. Her uniform has two different belts of different sizes: a larger yellow, cincture-tied belt with a large silver buckle, and a black baldric upon which Kromer carries her the nail she utilizes as a sword. A thin yellow string decorates the black belt. Her pants are of similar color to her upper half, however it is mostly covered by silver plate armor that extends from her upper thigh to her feet, with red wax seals planted around. Finally, Kromer wears a dirtied white cape that reaches down to the floor.

In the past, Kromer wore a school uniform design which consisted of a long-sleeved white button up shirt overlaid by a green sweater vest with a large V-collar dipping down just below her chest. She wore shorts of a similar color that are rolled up below her knees. Kromer also wears ankle-high white socks and black shoes.