In 1999, I backpacked through Europe. One of my stops was Prague, in the Czech Republic, and while in the city I visited Josefov, the historic Jewish neighborhood. I don't recall exactly where in there, but I saw an exhibit about the concentration camp of Terezín (or Theresienstadt).

Some of the items in display were drawings made by Jewish children at the camp. These really struck a chord, because it got you thinking if things were grim for adults, they must have been really horrific for children.

Cut to last June, when I was attending my nephew's eighth birthday party. The theme was Michael Jackson and my nephew had rehearsed some of Jackson's moves to dance for his friends. However, the expectation got to him and he forgot the choreography and ran from the room (don't worry, he's okay).

But the event reminded me of the amount of pressure children are under and we might not realize. Then I thought: what if the psychological abuse became so great it broke something inside the child's mind and allowed him to do things no one with a sane mind could? And what if those in power decided to exploit this?

The answer is this seed.

Obviously, as my columns go, this one has a rather bleak premise. I apologize in advance if it's not your cup of tea.

Pitch

Ex-secret agents empowered by psychological abuse suffered as children fight back against the establishment responsible for their creation.

Premise

On December 1943, eight-year-old Eli Kaplan and his family, together with hundreds of other prisoners of the Theresienstadt concentration camp, were about to be shipped to Auschwitz. Their stay in the camp was marked by tragedy after tragedy and these left an indelible mark in Eli's psyche.

Once a joyful boy, he became sad, introverted and scared. Eli witnessed friends and family die and be murdered — life became a burden for him. The relocation to Auschwitz was a new unknown, but deep inside, Eli hoped something good would come out of it.

Unfortunately, there was a scuffle on the platform before the prisoners boarded the train. It soon developed into a riot and the German soldiers opened fire on the crowd, killing many, including Eli's last remaining family members: his parents and older sister.

At that moment, something snapped inside Eli's mind. The survivors from that fateful day say the boy rose six feet into the air, his body crackling with a baleful energy. Then there was a flash and when reinforcements arrived, they found nearly all of the people on the platform — Jewish prisoners and German soldiers alike — dead. Their bodies were charred as if consumed by a fire.

At the center of it all, unconscious, but alive, stood Eli. The Nazi officers realized something strange had happened and the Jewish boy was the key. Dreaming of a new weapon to use in the war, they shipped Eli to Auschwitz, where the Germans created a program to study him and try to duplicate whatever gave him his ability.

The program was put under the control of Dr. Josef Mengele and based on one of Auschwitz's subcamps. There, Mengele experimented on adults and children, subjecting them to all sorts of stress, both physical and psychological. Meanwhile, he dissected Eli, trying to identify from where his power came.

After almost a year of ìexperimentsî, Mengele concluded that whatever gave rise to Eli's ability had to do with the brain and could only be accessed in children — adults lacked what he called the ìGehirn Potenzialî or the brain potential.

After a string of near successes, Mengele had a breakthrough on late December 1944 with a girl named Nina. Unfortunately for the Nazi doctor, he realized at that moment he had no way of controlling his new find. Nina thrashed the lab, freed the remaining prisoners and let Eli die. She was last seen walking off naked into the snowy countryside.

Mengele was the only survivor and left Auschwitz a week before the camp fell to the Soviets and years later escaped to South America. His extensive notes on [i]die Todkinder[/i] (the deathchildren), as well as those from other Nazi researchers who conducted similar experiments on other camps, made their way to the Allied brass, who swore never to let that happen again.

After the war, however, their priorities changed. There was much wringing of hands and endless discussion about the morality of conducting Todkinder experiments, but in the end those that argued they had to do it, otherwise they would be in a disadvantage against the other powers, won.

At first, only the American, British and Soviet governments had programs — and they remained the leaders in the field --, but as the decades went by, other countries acquired the technology to create their own twisted super-humans.

Today, the puppet masters of the psychologically-damaged paranormals are on the edge, because there's a new mysterious player on the field. Someone who's freeing the Todkinder from their strings and sending them to exact revenge for their life of abuse.

Who are the PCs?

They are Todkinder. Adults who have undergone extreme psychological abuse as children at the hands of a black budget government program and gained superpowers of a mental nature, but also had their minds shattered.

They performed secret missions for the agency, usually sabotage, espionage or assassination. The PCs had handlers who controlled them by judicious use of antipsychotics, antidepressants and anxiolytics.

The characters can be from the same agency or different ones, but they all end up in the same place in one of their missions, where they meet each other and the Friend, a mysterious Todkinder who uses his ability to right their minds and induce a semblance of sanity.

The Friend urges them to take the fight back to those that destroyed their lives and leaves, his or her identity unknown to the PCs, who now have to decide what to do.

When creating their characters, the players should think about what sort of derangements his PC suffered. Although the Friend changed them enough so that they are functional without being on a constant influx of drugs, they are not completely cured and their mental imbalance can resurface in moments of stress.

As such, all characters should have something akin to an uncontrollable limitation on their powers. This makes them extremely dangerous if they lose control and adds another layer to the roleplaying. Also, as I explain later, depending on how long they have been field agents, their abilities should have destructive side-effects.

An option is to play the characters as children and teenagers, during their training. You can run this as a regular campaign, with no exterior motive for rebellion except being an adolescent, and let the campaign evolve naturally into an ìescape and get revengeî type of game.

To raise a deathchild

Discussions about the creation of Todkinder programs started at the end of the 1940s, but it took years to get off the ground. The main problem was how to control eventual successes -- Mengele's experience with Nina was considered a cautionary tale.

The answer came in the early 50s, when the first antipsychotic drugs were developed. Suddenly, there was a tool that could stabilize the erratic moods of psychologically-damaged people. It was the last piece in the puzzle of the Todkinder project.

The American, the British and the Soviets started independent programs, but that shared some similarities: their base was in out-of-the-way locations, their main subjects were orphans, their funding came from black budgets and their existence was one of the well-guarded secrets of their respective governments. Even Josef Stalin made sure his people never knew what went on in a quaint old village in Siberia.

The first Todkinder were created in the mid-fifties, with ages ranging from eight to 10. These were immediately put on a regimen of mood-controlling drugs, intense therapy and heavy conditioning. Their abilities analyzed and catalogued.

As they entered their teenage years, they received handlers — agents assigned permanently to a Todkind, who was made to feel a deep bond towards the handler and become emotionally dependent on him or her. The Todkinder also received training directed to expand and refine their abilities.

By the end of the 50s, this first generation of paranormal teenagers was being sent on dry runs or heavily supervised low-priority missions. Despite all the effort put into shaping these kids into weapons, many didn't make it past this phase.

Their shattered minds just couldn't handle the additional stress or they were simply incapable of functioning in an appropriate manner. Some programs disposed of these failures in a terminal way, but there are rumors that the agencies keep ìretirement homesî for Todkinder who flunked their training.

Secluded away from everyone and everything, these deeply damaged individuals are employed in logistics or as a reserve force in case something really bad happens.

Finally, the early 60s saw the first ìofficialî deployment of Todkinder in the field, forever changing the way the powers of the world conducted their affairs. Nuclear weapons were still important to maintain the balance of terror, but the deathchildren soon proved to be as powerful as them.

And as dangerous.

A precious few

Todkinder take a long time to create and train, around 10 years, and don't last long. Their fragile psyches can tolerate the stress of field missions only so much before cracking.

Sometimes, a Todkind's mind just crumbles and he enters a catatonic state from which he never recovers. In other occasions, a particular derangement becomes progressively stronger, until such time when the handler is forced to eliminate the Todkind to prevent her going rogue.

All things considered, a deathchild usually lasts from six to 10 years in the field (there are exceptions), which led the agencies to establish new ìbatchesî or ìclassesî of subjects every five years. So, the first generation ìgraduatesî in the early 60s, the second around 1965, the third in the early 70s and so on.

The number of children varies in each batch, but it's usually high, since the success rate is extremely low, and can range from 20 to 50 subjects per station (stress programs to awaken powers are handled by auxiliary centers, successes are sent to the main facility). This usually yields three to six field-capable Todkinder per batch.

The twisted powers of the mind

Todkinder superabilities are all psionic in origin and usually of a destructive bent: telepathy that erases memories, mind control that fries the target's mind, telekinesis that crushes manipulated objects, teleportation that shatters everything around the user's point of departure and entry, etc.

Obviously, not all of their powers are so grim, and younger deathchildren tend to have milder versions of these psionic talents. More direct forms of delivering destruction, like energy blasts, are common as well.

Others abilities associated with regular super-hero fare are not unknown. There are deathchildren with such powers as animation, element and energy control, transmutation, intangibility, time manipulation, etc.

No physical alterations are created by the development of powers, so you won't see Todkinder sporting wings and tails, or with a different color of skin, for example. Even those that display super-strength actually have a limited form of telekinesis.

All of these powers have been catalogued and studied for decades now by the agencies that control thee deathchildren. They are still a long way from understanding how the human mind can create them, but their effects are well known and have inspired several research lines in secret government labs.

No gadgets have yet been produced from these labs, but the agencies have access to some supertech thanks to a few gadgeteer Todkinder. Devices produced by these deathchildren are the real deal -- functioning tech, not something that only works for its creator. Unfortunately, they are so advanced, government scientists still have no clue what principles power them.

That's it for this installment. I usually try to get some seeds in the first part, but this time I'll leave them for next month, when I'll also talk about the American, British and Soviet programs.

I hope you liked it. Feel free to share any comments, suggestion and criticisms on the forum.