Characters / Silent Storm

Class-related tropes

As the player is able to customize his main character's appearance, most of those appearance-related tropes only applies to the hirable party members and the pregenerated starting characters.

Soldier

• Always Male: Party members and pregenerated soldier main player characters are only male. A custom main player character can be male or female, though.
• Firing One-Handed: It's how an Axis soldier fire a machine gun. Despite this, one of the game's box art◊ shows a German soldier firing a machine gun while holding it with both hands.
• Gangsta Style: In S2, Axis Soldiers wield their SMGs like this.
• Goggles Do Nothing: Axis soldiers (both the pregenerated player character and the hirable ones - and the one on the game's box art) wear some black goggles on their eyes. They don't alter any character states.
• Jack of All Stats: Quite competent to use any weapon.
• More Dakka: Have skills related to automatic fire (including affinity with SMGs, with MGs, and better control of burst fire). The cover art shows an Axis soldier with a machine gun.

Grenadier

• Always Male: Party members and pregenerated grenadier main player characters are only male. A custom main player character can be male or female, though.
• The Big Guy: Most of them are described in the file as very muscular and physically imposing.
• Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Despite being fit for dangerous heavy weapons' users (grenades and various BFG and automatic weapons), they don't wear any helmet.
• Mighty Glacier: They have the most strenght and the least dexterity, which means they start with the most hitpoints and the least action points.
• More Dakka: Despite their name, they are also quite competent with automatic weapons (especially submachine guns).
• Stuff Blowing Up: One of their specialities is to toss grenades better and farther than the other troops. The class' symbol is a grenade.

Sniper

• Fragile Speedster: Begins with both more action points and less hit points that average.
• Friendly Sniper: Averted. They are either explicitely stated to be Cold Snipers, or they personality isn't mentioned.
• The Gunslinger: Has a skill to make him/her more specialized with pistols.
• Mobile Shrubbery: Male Axis snipers wear some vegetal camouflage on their helmet. The Axis pregenerated sniper (an Italian woman) is bareheaded but wears to kind of ghillie suit. Averted with Eagle, the only hirable female Axis sniper, who doesn't wear any helmet at all.
• Not the Intended Use: Several of their perks add bonuses to any long range attack, not just scoped attacks. Some players took advantage of this by equipping a Sniper with a machine gun...
• Sniper Rifle: Their weapon of choice.

Scout

• Faceless Goons: Male Axis scouts wear a balaclava. The female one doesn't.
• Fragile Speedster: Begins with both more action points and less hit points that average. They're more speedster and less fragile than the snipers.
• The Gunslinger: Has a skill to make him/her more specialized with pistols.
• Mobile Shrubbery: Axis hirable scouts wear a ghillie suit. Averted with the pregenerated scout, a Japanese female wearing a black uniform.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: The scouts are usually refered as the shortest party members according to the files (ingame, everyone has the same height).
• Throwing Your Sword Always Works: Usually begins the campaign with either throwing knives or shurikens. They have some skills to make their throwing weapons even more lethal.
• Useless Useful Stealth: They can sneak about rather well, but as with most Turn-Based games this usually gets you killed. However, once you discover how many knives and shuriken you can throw in a single turn or obtain silenced firearms, neither of which break stealth, everything changes.

Medic

• Combat Medic: While not usually required to, they are able to use any weapon in the game, up to and including machine guns and rocket launchers. They also have a decent Snipe and Mêlée skill rating, second only to the Sniper and Scout respectively.
• The Medic: Duh.
• Stato Vision: When chosen, one of the medic's skills makes every enemy (even those not standing in the medic field of view) shows his exact amount of remaining vitality points, instead of the default inaccurate uninjured/injured/etc. It is actually more useful than it seems: as heavily enough injured characters bleed to death unless they receive some healing, knowing how heavily injured is an enemy can make you spare action points or ammunitions.
• Useless Useful Non-Combat Abilities: Medic skill is mostly useless because of some flawed balance. Its growth rate is too low, so much of the advanced medical items are virtually impossible to use. The basic ones are very useful, anyway.

Engineer

• The Engineer: Pick locks, disable explosives, and can also use them.
• The Gunslinger: Has a skill to make him/her more specialized with pistols.
• Stuff Blowing Up: Did we mentioned they are specialized in explosves?
• Useless Useful Non-Combat Abilities: The Technical skill suffers from the same flaw balance issue that the Medicinal one (cf. Medic above). This is even more blatant for engineer than for medics: with medicine, you can grind the skill with abusing the basic bandage, but with engineering, you quickly meet doors and chests which cannot picked with the basic gear while you can't use the more advanced one, making the skill impossible to train (unless you carry more lockpicks than ammunitions). It is actually more practical to open doors and chest with some burst fire than with a lockpick. There are mods which fixe this issue.

S2 Party Members

General tropes

• Action Girl: Each of the female player characters and party members.
• Amazon Brigade: Impossible to do with a six-members team in S2, as both Special Operations-SE2 and Abwehr Section 2 only provide four female party members (no soldier, no grenadier, and the Allies medics are all male). It is possible in S3 by having a female soldier/grenadier as main character if you don't plan to have team members of each class, replacing the lacking solider/grenadier by a second engineer, sniper, or scout.
• Bag of Spilling: Those soldiers you can recruit in S2? They may be experimented veterans who took part in earlier stages of WWII (or early conflitcs), but they will still be hired at level 1. They seem to have retain some of the experience gained during Word War 2, since in S3 they are hired at a higher level.
• Can't Catch Up: Likely to happen to your mercs on the field, whereas the recruit pool will miraculously gain experience and skill levels vastly higher than your party.
• Cloak and Dagger: Both Special Operations-SE2 and Abwehr Section 2. They're both part of intelligence organizations (the Abwehr was a real one), but execute commando raids instead of regular spying.
• Do-Anything Soldier: While they won't be as good at it, any member of your squad can do the same things as your specialists.
• First-Name Basis: Each squad member is either refered by his/her first named (or a diminutive) or a nickname; none are refered by their surname. The full name is only found on the character's biography.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: All S2 party members reappear in S3, and you can have a team of both Allies and Axis agents. Given their detailed biographies, collaboration between some of them would have been difficult (the roster includes two Spanish guys who fought the Spanish Civil War in opposing sides, a French World War One veteran who lost his family thanks to German war crimes, an Irishwoman who hates the British since the hanging of her father in the aftermath of the 1916 Dublin uprising, etc.), but Mutually Exclusive Party Members is totally averted.
• Gas Mask, Longcoat: BlunterMod allows to create a full squad of these if you choose the right uniforms.
• Hyperspace Arsenal: Averted. The amount of gear you can carry once is relatively realistic (Grid Inventory in which nothing stacks), each party member has belts, pouches, and backpacks, and some part of the unequipped items (grenades, mêlée weapons) are still shown on the character.
• Magikarp Power: In S3, in each class one of the available party members starts at level 1 or 2 and is much cheaper than the other ones.
• Money Sink: In S3, the highest level party members are expensive enough that gathering enough money to be able to hire them would probably means that, by then, the cheaper and lower level party members have levelled enough to be as effective (unless you tediously farmed the random encounter, thanks to the Anti-Grinding feature); they occasionally have precious high tier weapons in their starting gear, though.
• Multinational Team:
  • The special forces team the player assembles in S2 is manned by soldiers from various Allied/Axis-aligned nations. A few are from Allied/Axis-linked countries and ditched them due to neutrality/"own country being a douche in standing up for itself"/"I think the Allied/Axis forces can help my own country be free" issues. For example, there's an Irishwoman who joined the Axis due to the British executing her father as he played a major role in the Easter Rebellion in Ireland back in 1916.
    • Since there aren't enough party members of a specific nationality, it's almost impossible to not create a Multinational Team, unless you want a German-only team (each of the six classes have a German party member, thus allowing to replace any of them with a custom player character). ^note Depending on if you consider British Dominions being or not part of the United Kingdom, it is also arguably possible to create a British-only party fulfilling all the classes with a sniper player character; available party members include British (scout, engineer, grenadier), two Canadian (soldier, scout), an Australian (soldier), and a man from the Raj of India (medic).
  • The post-war S3 has some of the soldiers from both playable organizations in S2.
• Outranking Your Job: Most soldiers (including the player character) have the rank of second lieutnant or higher (1st lieutnants are pretty common, too), so you're likely to have a squad only made of officers.
• Politically Correct History: In the Silent Storm universe, the United States military is racially integrated, and every Allied and Axis military allows women to freely enlist and serve in frontline combat roles, including fighter pilots and elite paratroopers. You can also create a black custom German (or Japanese) trooper without any consequence. In Real Life, the American military was racially segregated until well after the end of the war, and the Soviets were the only major power to allow women to serve in combat at the time.
• Purely Aesthetic Gender: For the same class, there is no difference between the stats of a male and a female character. The player can create any gender-class combination.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits:
  • The composition of the Special Operations-SE 2 (Allies) or Abwehr Section 2 (Axis) squad is entirely up to you. You are presented with an array of dossiers on various colorful specialists from various countries and can pick any combination you want. So, among the available members:
    • Special Operations-SE 2 includes, among others, a tiny British sculptress whose work consists in creepy statues (Elf), a Spanish Republican veteran of the Spanish Civil War who loves stabbing people (Ramos), an American hunting enthousiast who joined the army for the thrill because he wanted to hunt the most dangerous game (Viper), a Canadian Great War veteran who ended here because he was forbidden to serve again in the Navy, as his successive boats sank so often that everyone thought he was some bad luck bringer (Gator), a French surgeon who enter Parisian Resistance with his World War One-hero father (Yves), a Russian sniper who learn to shoot when she was a Siberian huntress and who kill German with a bullet through the ears (Zinaida), etc.
    • Abwehr Section 2 includes, among others, an Iranian guy who fled his country right after its Russian-British invasion and joined the Wehrmacht with the intent of helping his countries' liberation, a German one-eyed sociopathic sniper freshly liberated from an asylum and who most likely popped one of his eyes to get rid of a strabism (Klaus), an Irishwoman explosives' specialist who totally hates the British (Holly), a German guy born out of wedlocks in USA from an unknown American father and a German-born woman, then set back in her family in German by the latter when she wanted to marry someone respectable, and who eventually relunctantly joined the Wehrmacht because of his grandfather insistance (Fritz), a Sikh British Indian Army (he switched side after being captured by the German in North Africa) who initially joined it as an act of rebellion against his family (Zail), etc.
  • S3 has the titular Sentinels, who are composed of former members of both the Allies and Axis. Your available recruits are a mix of SE 2 and Section 2 candidates from S2.
  • The player character in H&S can assemble quite the eclectic team during their romps around Europe.
• Starter Equipment: The characters start armed with low-tier equipment relevant with their class (but not always their faction).
• Units Not to Scale: Sort of. Each character's own file tells his/her height (from 1,42 meter to 1,93), but ingame each character is exactly as tall as any other.

The main player character

• Ambiguous Gender: During player character customization, one of the features serves to determine his/her appearance is "gender". The closer to female it is, the more the character will have a smooth face. The closer to male it is, the more the character will have a rugged face. If a male character "gender" is close enough to female, he will look like a woman. Actually, no matter if he/she's male or female, when you start the player character's face customization tool, the default character face is the same androgynous person: "gender" is set to the exact middle of the meter, there are no facial hair, and the head is shaved. You can also give female hairdress to a male character, or male hairdress to a female character.
• Archetypal Character: Like the hirable ones, the player character has his/her own file and a short biography. Said file actually exists in two archetypes: male (with some small differences between Allies and Axis) and female. The country only alters minor details like the birthplace or the name. Some others remain strictly identical (a male character's father will always die in 1937, although the details themeselves change).
• Blood Knight: In S3, his lines when ordered to attack with a knife or his bare hands basically state that he loves the smell of blood.
• The Generic Guy: The background of S2 male main character is pretty classical: he's just a guy who became a competent officer after being raised to reach this goal. Compared with the various available party members and their background, this is very bland. S3 protagonist is even blander: he was a nobody before World War 2, became a war hero during the conflict.
  • Averted with the female ones. In this era, a woman serving such a role wasn't generic at all.
• Girls with Moustaches: The player character's customization menu includes "facial pilosity". This feature isn't disabled if you create a female player character, allowing her to benefit from the same beards/moustaches that their male counterparts.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Face customization features include some clean and straight scars on the player character's face.
• Kleptomaniac Hero: Some missions are set in area inhabited by civilians. Sometimes, their houses has a chest which contains some items. You are also free to loot anything inside enemy places (or in allied ones, in the couple of defensive missions).
• Macho Masochism: In S3, when receiving a small injury, a male player character occasionally boasts that the wound is so light that it isn't even worth boasting about it.
• Nazi Protagonist: You can choose to be a German in both S2 and S3. S2 Axis protagonist is leading a special forces squad and S3 protagonist is described as a war hero, but beside this the player character doesn't receives much characterisation.
• Tyke-Bomb: The personal file of S2 male main player character mentions that he was raised since his childhood in order to eventually become officer in the army.
• We Cannot Go On Without You: Any member of your squad can be Killed Off for Real - but if it happens to your Player Character (i.e. the squad leader), it's game over. Contrary to the other ones (who can be inflicted non-fatal KO instead of permadeath if they didn't suffered from a too high amount of damage), reaching 0 vitality point is an immediate game over.
• You All Meet in a Cell: S3 begins with the player character and a Boris breaking out of a basement in which they were emprisoned by THO. Then the player character joins the Sentinels.

Abwehr Section 2

Ahmad

Full name: Ahmad Namju

Class: Soldier

Country: Iran

Birth year: 1901

• Child Soldier: Joined the Iranian army at 16.
• Death by Childbirth: Happened to his mother.
• Enemy Mine: Downplayed. He was already sympathetic to the German before the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran. Right after the Iranian surrender, he deserted with the intent of taking arms in order to free his country. He ended in a Bulgarian Wehrmacht recruitment office.
• Perma-Stubble

Axel

Full name: Axel Bieber

Class: Engineer

Country: Germany

Birth year: 1916

• The Medic: His personal file states that he is quite competent in this role.
• Young Future Famous People: Dated Eva Braun when he was a teen.

Carm

Full name: Carmelina Donati

Class: Scout

Country: Italy

Birth year: 1906

• Action Mom: She has two teenage daughters.
• Child Soldier: When she was a child during World War One (1916-1918), she guided Italian troops through the mountains. She killed for the first time when she was eleven, with a rifle picked from the corpse of an Italian soldier. She killed a dozen of Austrian soldiers during the whole war.
• Magikarp Power: The lowest level 1 Scout of S3.

Dani

Full name: Dani Kunstler

Class: Medic

Country: Germany

Birth year: 1918

• Follow in My Footsteps: Example without the conflict part. Her father is a doctor, her mother is a nurse, and her brother is a doctor, too. During the war, her and the whole family had a medical role for the German army (her brother died in September 1939 during the Poland invasion).

Eagle

Full name: Ela Jelinek

Class: Sniper

Country: Slovakia

Birth year: 1923

• Child Soldier: Joined the Wehrmacht at 16 in 1939, when Germany annexed her country) and fought in Poland later in the same year.
• Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Contrary to the male Axis snipers, she doesn’t wear any helmet.

Fritz

Full name: Fritz Wagner

Class: Soldier

Country: Germany

Birth year: 1919

• Disappeared Dad/Missing Mom: His father is an unknown American soldier. His mother is a German-born woman living in the United States. When he was a teen, she sent him back to her family Germany because she wanted to marry an American banker and felt that having an illegitimate child would hinder her chances to marry him.
• Kissing Cousins: His fiancée is a cousin of him.

Gari

Full name: Gari Kovacs

Class: Medic

Country: Hungary

Birth year: 1913

• Afraid of Blood: It is the reason why he didn’t finish his studies in medicine. He lost it after serving on the Eastern Front in the Hungarian army and witnessing all the violence and killings.
• The Engineer: Became engineer after unfinished medical studies. Although he serves the Abwehr as a medic, he is competent in both roles.

Gunnar

Full name: Gunnar Zumwald

Class: Scout

Country: Germany

Birth year: 1917

• Child Soldier: Joined the Wehrmacht when he was 16, lying about his age.
• Great Escape: Was captured by the British in Norway in 1940, then sent to a POW camp in Canada. He managed to escape then get back in Europe.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: His Canadian escape then his Atlantic trip back to Germany. In-Universe, he is famous for this feat.

Holly

Full name: Colleen Cullen

Class: Engineer

Country: Ireland (most likely Northern Ireland)

Birth year: 1908

• Enemy Mine: She didn't take well the British hanging her father (an high-rank Irish Volunteers member) in the aftermath of the Easter Rising. She saw World War Two as a golden occasion to chase the British from Ireland, then joined the Wehrmacht, while remaining indifferent to German ideology. Her personal file states that she would have allied with the Devil if it could help her to harm the British.
• Fiery Redhead: She is a redhead woman who hates the British, love explosives, and is stated to have quite a strong character.
• Irish Explosives Expert: Irish? Check. Explosive specialist? Check. Motivated by patriotism? Check.
• Magikarp Power: The lowest level Engineer of S2.
• Stuff Blowing Up: Not only she is ingame good to use explosives because she belongs to the engineer class, but her file states that she actually really enjoys explosions.
• Wrench Wench

Javier

Full name: Javier Vivas

Class: Engineer

Country: Argentina

Birth year: 1922

• Eagle Squadron: Argentina remained neutral until the last months of World War Two. He actually lived in Italy in 1940, in his mother's family. He joined the Wehrmacht in 1940, thinking it is better organized than the Italian army (in which all his Italian cousins were already serving).
• Master of None/What, Exactly, Is His Job?: In-Universe. The German military authorities initially viewed him as someone average in anything by excellent in nothing. They eventually recruited him to be part of special operations, as some support to replace the various specialists who can die during the operation.^note It also appears as a meta-example: in some versions of the game, the summary in his file states that he is a grenadier, while his actual character sheet and skill tree reveals he is an engineer.

Kenko

Full name: Kenko Harada

Class: Engineer

Country: Japan

Birth year: 1890

• My Country, Right or Wrong: Had a lot of difficulties to accustom to Germany now being allies of Japan instead of the enemy, but complied because of loyalty to Japan.
• Old Soldier: World War One veteran.

Klaus

Full name: Klaus Schmidt

Class: Sniper

Country: Germany
Birth year: 1911

• Blood Knight: He is very eager to fight. This is the reason why he was release from an asylum in 1941.
• Cold Sniper: He is as patient to stalk the enemy that he is impatient with his squadmates.
• Domestic Abuse: Implied. He is stated to be a violent man, and that his wife died in mysterious circmstances.
• Eyepatch of Power: Wears one, despite being a sniper.
• Eye Scream: According to him, he lost his eye because of a bomb shell’s shard. As there is no evidence of this, it is speculated that he popped his eye in order to stop his strabism and be able to aim better.
• Sociopathic Soldier: Some of his lines are creepy.
  Suffer! (when he hits an enemy)
  It brings me pleasure... Every time. (when he kills his target)
  Hatred makes anything possible. (idem)
  I'm ready to kill again! (after receving healing)

Mike

Full name: Mitica Caslaru

Class: Soldier

Country: Romania

Birth year: 1914

• Friendly Sniper: According to his files, he a jovial man and was a marksman when he was a policeman.
• Gameplay and Story Segregation: His files says he is a former sniper, but it doesn't shows ingame: his starting Sniping skill is barely higher than other Soldiers and lower than true Snipers. Turning him into an very efficient sniper would be a waste of time anyway, since a Soldier's Sniping skill rises too slowly, and much of Soldier's perks are irrelevant to such a gameplay.

Olli

Full name: Olli Heikkinen

Class: Grenadier

Country: Finland

Birth year: 1921

• Gentle Giant: Sort of. As a grenadier, being a big muscular guy is granted. How exactly he is gentle isn’t specified, but he is described to be a very calm and stoic man.
• Younger Than They Look: He is 22 in 1943, but looks like he is in his thirties.

Paco

Full name: Francisco Escudero

Class: Soldier

Country: Spain

Birth year: 1919

• Been There, Shaped History: Took part in the final Spanish Civil War battle (the fall of Madrid in the end of March 1939) in the Nationalist ranks.
• Eagle Squadron: As a member of a Real Life example of the trope. He joined the Wehrmacht as a member of the 250. Infanterie-Division (AKA Blue Division). He served in to thank Germany for its support in the Nationalist victory during Spanish Civil War.

Reggie

Full name: Reinhard Beyer

Class: Grenadier

Country: Germany

Birth year: 1899

• The Big Guy: He is one of the tallest and heaviest party member. His photograph shows him bare-chested, flexing his bicep.
• Child Soldier: Joined the German army in the beginning of World War One. He told them he was 18.
• Old Soldier: Fought in World War One.
• Shirtless Scene: His photograph in his files. Ingame, he wears a regular grenadier outfit.
• Vocal Dissonance: In the French dubbing, he speaks with a strangled high-pitched voice quite unfitting with his appearance.

Rocco

Full name: Rocco Migliaccio

Class: Grenadier

Country: Italy

Birth year: 1917

• The Big Guy: He isn't the biggest party member of the game (he is only 1,80 meters tall), but is anyway described as a very strong and perfectly physically fit.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Was on the receiving hand of one (the first stage of Greco-Italian War).
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: During the Greco-Italian War, he destroyed a vehicle after throwing a grenade through one of its windows. Depending on who tells this, said vehicle was somewhere from 25 to 250 meters far from him.

Tadas

Full name: Tadas Skirpa

Class: Sniper

Country: Lithuania/USSR

Birth year: 1917

• Defector from Decadence: Was born in independent Lithuania. In 1940, USSR invaded the Baltic states. He was drafted in Red Army, then deserted to join the German army.
• Jack of All Stats: According to his personal file, he isn’t just a skilled sniper, but also useful as The Medic and The Engineer.
• Magikarp Power: The lowest level Sniper of S3.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: His small size is very beneficial to his sniping role, as it allows him to hide anywhere and to go out of his hiding place without being spotted.

Toki

Full name: Toki Okino

Class: Scout

Country: Japan

Birth year: 1920

• Cold Sniper: Downplayed. His personal file states that he is quite skilled in sniping, too. It also states that he is more calm and instinctive than actually cold and calculative.
• Improperly Placed Firearms: His starting firearm isn't a Japanese pistol but a Nagant 1910 (a Russian revolver).

Zail

Full name: Zail Singh Siddhu

Class: Scout

Country: India

Birth year: 1916

• Artistic License – Religion: Explicitely stated to be Sikh, but doesn't wear the traditional turban. This could be justified with his ingame model by him being forced to wear the standard German scout outfit and headgear. For the photograph in his files showing him shirtless and bareheaded, there are no excuse.
• Child Soldier: Joined the British army when he was 17.
• I Work Alone: Downplayed. According to his files, on the field he prefers to work on his own instead of sticking with his teammates. ^note There is an actual scout (and sniper) skill which grants bonus to a character who isn’t standing too close to other teammates, but it is a regular high level one, not a special perk innate to Zail’s state (which he doesn't initially have anyway, since his starting level is too low)
• Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: Joined the British army as an act of rebellion against his family (he lost a brother and a sister, killed by the British during the Jallianwala Bagh massacre). He quickly lost his illusions thanks to the (unspecified) way he was treated by the British, so he didn’t hesitate to switch sides when the German suggested him to do so after he has been taken prisoner in North Africa.
• Perma-Stubble: Though it's only noticeable on his photograph or his you change his outfit in S3, since, as a male Axis Scout, his face is totally concealed.
• Shirtless Scene: His photograph in his files. Ingame, he wears a regular scout outfit.
• Turncoat: Former British soldier native from the Raj of India, who switched side after being taken prisoner by the German in North Africa.

Special Operations-SE2

Abala

Full name: Abala Dawar

Class: Medic

Country: India

Birth year: 1916

• Magikarp Power: The lowest level Medic of S3.

Arvid

Full name: Arvid Pettersen

Class: Sniper

Country: Norway

Birth year: 1922

• Eagle Squadron: Joined the British army in 1940 after the German invasion of Norway.
• Troll: After going to Scotland during his training in the British Commandos, he several times went hiking on the coast with the hope of spotting a German submarine and then shooting it. Not to sink the ship, but just to scare the crew because of the bullet impact’s noise on the metallic hull.

Bob

Full name: Robert Rousseau

Class: Grenadier

Country: France

Birth year: 1896

• Crusading Widower: When he was away during World War One, the German occupied his house during several months, then killed his wife and children when they left. It probably explains why he volunteered in French army at the very beginning of World War Two, despite being relatively old. Some of his one-liner express some satisfaction to shoot Germans.
• Old Soldier: Fought in World War One.
• Older Than They Look: Despite being only 47 in 1943, his hair and beard are nearly white.
• La Résistance: Joined it (yes, the original French one) after the 1940 Armistice. He eventually joined Free French Army in the end of 1942.

Doug

Full name: Douglas Ricketts

Class: Engineer

Country: United Kingdom

Birth year: 1890

• Nerves of Steel: Described to remain calm in any circumstances.
• Old Soldier: Fought in World War One.

Elf

Full name: Erin Farrell

Class: Scout

Country: United Kingdom

Birth year: 1922

• Carry a Big Stick: Contrary to most other scouts, her starting mêlée weapon isn't a knife but a club.
• Nightmare Fuel Station Attendant: In-Universe. She has the hobby of creating some creepy or disturbing statues, which has this effect on some people (especially her parents).
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: The shortest character of the game (1,42 meters), which doesn’t prevent her to be a paratrooper and a scout. There also is an unconfirmed rumour about her, which states that she gained some ranks in the army thanks to an ability to toss men out of flying planes.

Gator

Full name: Garnet Ferguson

Class: Soldier

Country: Canada

Birth year: 1897

• BFG: The only soldier of the game which starting firearm is a Lewis machine gun instead of a standard submachine gun.
• Born Unlucky: He served as a technician in Canadian merchant navy during World War One. The various ships he served on were sunken so often that other crewmembers didn’t want to serve with him. It is why the Canadian navy refused to engage him again for World War Two (so he joined the infantry, instead).
• Magikarp Power: The lowest level 1 Soldier of S3.
• Older Than They Look: This guy has a smooth and junevile face. He's in his late forties.

Jerzey

Full name: Jerzey Rosansky

Class: Soldier

Country: Poland

Birth year: 1918

• Eagle Squadron: Fled to Great-Britain after Poland's defeat and joined the British army.
• Reformed Criminal: Took advantage of the war to sever his links with his family.
• Tyke-Bomb: His family belongs to Polish organized crime and he was raised in order to become part of it.

Kate

Full name: Kateri Martin

Class: Scout

Country: Canada

Birth year: 1923

• Action Mom: Her file states that she has a child. Considering that she is 20 in 1943 and that she joined Canadian army in 1940, she either was a teenage mother or gave birth while she already was a soldier.
• Child Soldier: Joined the Canadian army while she was 17.

L.A.

Full name: Doris Decker

Class: Engineer

Country: USA

Birth year: 1917

• Ms. Fanservice: Invoked in her personal file: she is described as a beautiful woman very aware of this. Also, her photograph shows her posing in a fitting uniform (fanservice for the Forties, anyway).

Matt

Full name: Matko Hribar

Class: Scout

Country: Yougoslavia

Birth year: 1918

• La Résistance: Was part of Yugoslavian resistance before joining the British army.

Nessie

Full name: Samuel Nelson

Class: Grenadier

Country: USA

Birth year: 1897

• The Big Guy: The tallest and largest character of the game.
• Old Soldier: Fought in World War One.
• Lightning Bruiser: The most imposing character of the game… and still has most action points than the other grenadiers.
• Magikarp Power: The lowest level Grenadier of S3.
• Scary Black Man: The most imposing character of the game, and master in grenades thanks to his class. He also is an African-American guy.
• Shout-Out: In-Universe, received this nickname as a reference to the famous Loch Ness monster. Like it, given his height and bodychape he is suprisingly able to either stay still or avoid to be catched.

Oleg

Full name: Oleg Klimov

Class: Engineer

Country: USSR

Birth year: 1921

• Been There, Shaped History: His first battle was the defence of Moscow in the end of 1941.
• The Medic: His secondary specialization.

Oz

Full name: Bruce Baxter

Class: Soldier

Country: Australia

Birth year: 1920

• Trapped Behind Enemy Lines: His division was deployed in Crete when the Italian and German armies invaded it. Defeat was inevitable. Evacuation wasn’t an option, so they received the option to either surrender to the Axis or flee the island with their own ways. He instead chose to stay and remained there for five months, leaving among the Cretan partisans, until he managed to get back to the front.

Ramos

Full name: Ramos Ortiz

Class: Soldier

Country: Spain

Birth year: 1912

• Blade Enthusiast : His file state that he is very enthousiastic in using knives.
• Eagle Squadron: A couple of weeks after World War Two's beginning, he fought for France among the Foreign Legion.
• Neutral No Longer: Refused to take part in the Spanish Civil War, until the bombing of Guernica (in which he lived). He then joined the Republican side.

Rowdy

Full name: Duncan MacDougall

Class: Grenadier

Country: United Kingdom

Birth year: 1915

• The Alcoholic: Possibly. His ingame model is red-nosed, the photograph illustring his personal file shows him holding a beer tankard, and he gained his pub in what his file describes mentions as a bet made by drunk people.
• Bar Brawl: Witnessed (and took part in) a lot of them as a pub's owner. It gave him some basic medical skills.
• Be Careful What You Wish For: In the beginning of World War Two, he felt impatient because he initially couldn't fight. Then he got stuck in the German offensive toward Paris, and ended as one of the few soldiers from his company who didn’t get killed or captured.
• Blood Knight/Fiery Redhead/Violent Glaswegian: Redhead Scottish brawler who saw the incoming war as a possible outlet for his violent and aggressive tendancies. He became reservist in 1937. When the German invaded France, he was initially unable to fight and then get quite impatient.
• Disappeared Dad: His father died during World War One.
• The Engineer: Secondary specialization, from experience he gained when he worked as electrician.
• I Don't Like the Sound of That Place: Owns a pub initially named "Ian’s Inn ", which he renamed "The Angry Argyll".

Sook

Full name: Kwon Sook

Class: Scout

Country: Korea (Japanese-occupied territory from 1910 to 1945)

Birth year: 1909

• Eagle Squadron: Joined American army. He began as an intelligence agent, then served as a scout in the Pacific front.
• Improperly Placed Firearms: Despite being a recruit for the American army, his starting firearm is not an American gun but a Russian Nagant 1910.
• La Résistance: Was sent in USA as an emissary for Korean resistance, in order to gain material and political support.

Taras

Full name: Taras Petrenko

Class: Grenadier

Country: USSR

Birth year: 1901

• Old Soldier: Fought four wars in twenty years: Russian Civil War, Spanish Civil War, Winter War, and "Great Patriotic War" ^note Russian idiom designing the Germany-USSR front of World War Two

Viper

Full name: James Austin

Class: Sniper

Country: USA

Birth year: 1909

• Blood Knight: Hunting fan who join the army after the beginning of war because he sought adventure.
• Cold Sniper: Compares his sniping tactics to how acts a venomous snake. Hence the self-attributed nickname.
• Great White Hunter: He is a great hunter. His files' photograph shows him posing with a rifle in th end next to a dead rhinoceros.
• Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: Invoked by his reason to join the US army. He is a very enthousiastic hunter, so when the USA enter the war, he saw there an occasion to hunt the most dangerous animal.
• Screw the Rules, I Have Money!: His file states that he bought his military rank.

Yves

Full name: Yves Saint-Pierre

Class: Medic

Country: France

Birth year: 1914

• Informed Ability: According to his file, his speciality is plastic surgery. It's never used in the game, nor as a part of the plot (e.g. changing your face to be unrecognized or impersonate someone) neither as an option way to customise again your avatar's face.
• La Résistance: Part of French Resistance in Paris after the German arrival, along his father.

Zinaida

Full name: Zinaida Sedova

Class: Sniper

Country: USSR

Birth year: 1922

• Distaff Counterpart/No Celebrities Were Harmed: World War Two Russian sniper ace born and raised in Siberia, who learnt how to shoot from hunting… She is basically a female Vasily Zaytsev.

Thor's Hammer Organisation

Thor's Hammer Organisation

The main antagonist of the series.

• Dark Is Evil: THO men are dressed in black uniforms. Their mooks are masked.
• Gas Mask Mooks: Some of their mooks.
• Nebulous Evil Organization: A terrorist group who took advantage of WW2 (then the Cold War) to make profit and gain power. Oh, and they alway came back after being seemingly destroyed.
• Ninja: Their mooks look like ninjas (cf. above). S2 has a rare ninja-themed random encounter in Northern Britain with THO mooks. A single guy wielding a katana is standing in the middle of a dirt path, while shuriken-throwing enemies are hidden in the bushs all around the road.
• Religious and Mythological Theme Naming: THO high members use Norse gods' name as codenames. And there is the organization's name itself.
• War for Fun and Profit:
  • In S2, THO plans to fuel a Lensman Arms Race between the Allies and the Axis, watch them destroy one another, and pick up the pieces. How? By providing Powered Armor to both sides, while keeping the best Powered Armor and Energy Weapons for themselves.
  • In S3, the plan is eventually revealed to consist in teaching USSR how to build nuclear weapons, in order to trigger a war between USSR and USA, then take the world for themselves after both side are sufficiently weakened.

Silent Storm: Sentinels characters and factions

The Sentinels

A secret society ranked with multinational operatives who fights against THO. S3 player character joins them after escaping from THO custody in the game's prologue.

• All Your Base Are Belong to Us: Late in the game, the Sentinels' home base comes under full-scale assault by THO forces. The Sentinels have the advantage of heavy weapon emplacements and trenches, but they will lose without your help.
• Custom Uniform of Sexy: Male Sentinels wear normal-looking black uniforms. Female Sentinels wear black Spy Catsuit with high heel boots and a Navel-Deep Neckline.
• Dark Is Not Evil: The Sentinels wear black uniforms with red ranks on their shoulders, and the Sentinels privates are masked. They are the good guys.
• Foreshadowing: The Sentinels' outfit looks suspiciously similar to THO' uniforms. It turns that the Major is a traitor and he uses the Sentinels to unwittingly do THO's dirty work.
• Unwitting Pawn: A major (pun non intended) twist in S3 plot is the reveal that they have been unwitting THO pawn all along.

The Major

The Sentinels' leader. He is the character who gives you missions and reward you after completion. Well, until a specific reveal in a late part of the campaign.

• Big Good: He is the leader of the good guys and give you your missions. But then subverted late in the campaign, when...
  • Big Bad: He is THO current leader.
• Continue Your Mission, Dammit!: Once you receive a mission, he'll react this way his you talk to him instead of leaving the base.
• Cutscene Boss: He is shot by Boris and the player character in a cutscene, when you reach his office, in the end of the last mission.
• Foreshadowing: In S3, after the opening mission, when discussing with Boris in the base's infirmary, the player character tells Boris that, when giving confidential documents (the ones you stole from THO while evading from their hideout) to the Major, the Major just put the report in a drawer of his desk without reading it, to which Boris responds something like "I hope I won't regret this later". It turns that the Major is a traitor, and during two thirds of the game the Sentinels were actually doing THO dirty work.
• Manipulative Bastard: He is the Big Bad posing as the Big Good. He manages to convince both Boris and the player character that the other one is a THO mole.
• Walking Spoiler: Explaining his role beside "he's the Sentinels leader and the guy who gives you missions" spoils major reveals of the plot.
• We Can Rule Together: Tries this when eventually confronted by the heroes inside his HQ.
  You where one of the best Sentinels under my command. And, I seem to remember you joining for the money more than the politics, right? Why don't you come over to my side?

Boris

A high ranking Sentinel member and the first one met ingame (in THO custody with the player character). He becomes the Sentinels' leader after the Major's betrayal becomes official.

• Authority Equals Asskicking: A high-ranking Sentinels member, who becomes the interim leader of the organization when the Major is away then replaces him when the Major's betrayal is revealed. The first mission shows he is not afraid to fight (though he likely won't make it if left on his own), then a late mission during which he is playable reveals he is a relatively high-level scout, and then he evntually takes part in the raid on THO base in the end of the campaign.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: He wears a suit and a coat in later part of the campaign.
• Gameplay Ally Immortality: Played straight in the first mission, averted elsewhere. Boris will only be knocked unconscious if his VPs are depleted, even if his head gets blown off.
• Guest-Star Party Member: He becomes a party member in a single mission of the game, late in the campaign.
• Hero Must Survive: His death means an immediate defeat in the mission where he is a party member.
• Made of Iron: After the first mission, he recovers from his wounds no matter how severe they were (even if he is technically "killed" during the mission). Story-wise, it means that he potentially survived a roadtrip from Poland to Switzerland while suffering from multiple stabs, gunshot wounds, and hemorrhage).
• You All Meet in a Cell: How he initially met the player character (cf. above).

Sam

A Sentinel who takes part in Captain Wallis' rescue. Technically, he belongs to the Soldier class.

• Crutch Character: He offers extra firepower (you're only allowed to hire regular party members once you complete said mission, then he is the only available party member yet), but, since you can't keep him, using him means that his potential skill gains during the mission won't benefit the main player character. It is possible to win the mission in a pure solo way, but even then, he will drain XP gained from kills.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Only playable in the third mission. In a sort of inversion, he is first introduced as a (temporary) party member, before reappearing much later as a NPC.

Captain Wallis

A Sentinel agent capturd by THO. He is features in the game's third mission (the first mission acquired after the player character is offically accepted as a Sentinel) and the objective is to rescue him. He technically belongs to the Soldier class.

• Crutch Character: He becomes playable after his rescue and disappears from the game after the mission is completed. Like Sam, since he doesn't remain in the party, all his skill and XP gains are useless.
• Distressed Dude: He is the objective of a rescue mission.
• Guest-Star Party Member: Like Sam, he is only playable in the third mission.
• Teleporting Keycard Squad: Two THO mooks spawn near the house he is emprisoned in during during the cutscene played when he is found.
• Inexplicably Identical Individuals: Visually, he's a clone of the party member Gator.

Shade

A secret party member who can be gained for free in a (rare) random encounter in Switzerland. He belongs to the Scout class.

• Distressed Dude: He is initially locked in a THO-controlled prison.
• Guide Dang It!: The random encounter which allows to recruit him spawns rarely enough that you may never meet it if you don't intentionally look for it.
• Heroic Mime: Contrary to the other party members, he doesn't have any line when receiving orders, gaining skills/stats/levels, or receiving injuries.
• Ninja: He is a special Scout party member dressed in a THO uniform (black uniform with a mask), with high skils in mêlée and thrown, while his burst fire and gun skills are lower than average.
• Secret Character: He can only be accessed by completing a rare random encounter.

ABSR

A secret party member who can be gained from very specific conditions. He is a very powerful robot.

• Awesome, but Impractical: A big and powerful robot that is very difficult to damage. On the other hand, it's technically considered as a Panzerklein, so getting it will prevent to play future "Stealth Only/No Panzerklein" missions. And worse: since it isn't a regular party member, it can't be properly dismissed unless you kill it.
• Guide Dang It!: Once you reached ABSR, activating it requires the main player character to be an Engineer, with a technical skill of 130 or higher. But, in order to even go there, you need to gain several missable Plot Coupons; one of them is actually earned by failing a mission (killing the Russian mobster instead of interrogating him).
• Secret Character: Let's just say obtaining requires a complex course of action which would probably require to read a walkthrough (cf. Guide Dang It!).

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