Hermann/Story
Prior to Limbus Company
Hermann was a Director of Old G Corp. before its collapse after the events of the Smoke War. She was a skilled scientist who led the research of G Corp's genetic augmentation of its soldiers. Of those she experimented on, her most successful surgery was performed on her own son, Gregor. After his surgery, Hermann continued to perform tests on Gregor to develop his abilities and check on his progress. Once Gregor was able to control his new arm to an acceptable degree, Hermann used him as example to draw in more soldiers for the Wing. During the midst of the Smoke War, Gregor deserted G Corp. and it appears that Hermann lost contact with him until their eventual reunion in Branch D-02.
After the collapse of the Wing, Hermann managed to be one of the few members of G Corp. to escape without consequences, and went on to become a director of the N Corp. board. She currently leads her own expedition for the Golden Boughs and aims to destroy the Mirror Worlds with their power.
Canto I: The Outcast
Hermann made her first physical debut, alongside Gubo and Jia Huan, when confronting the Sinners in Branch D-02. After dispatching the Golden Apple and retrieving the Golden Bough from Yuri's head, she introduced herself and announced her group's goals of collecting every Golden Bough, but not without threatening the lives of the Sinners if they dare stand in her way.
Hermann greeted her son, Gregor, telling him that there's more to his abilities than just his verminous arm. Jia Huan then used his abilities to knock all of them unconscious with a clap of his hands, at which point the N Corp. team fled with the Golden Bough.
Canto II: The Unloving
After leaving Branch J-03, Sonya met with Hermann in the Backstreets of District 10 to discuss how the Golden Bough retrieval went.
It was Hermann who proposed the idea of showing Rodion an idealized world with the hope it would convince her to rejoin the Yurodiviye, and as a result, let the Golden Bough fall into their hands. Sonya confessed that he is glad that the plan didn't work, because it meant that Rodya hadn't changed since he had last seen her, then asking if Hermann is going to scold him for failing the mission.
Though Hermann praised Sonya for his proactivity to set out to achieve his goals, she expressed disappointment on how he still allowed the Sinners to retrieve the Bough themselves. Despite this, she decided not to dwell on the failure and explained that she will keep Sonya's considerations on Rodion's behavior in mind when planning their next course of action, then concluded their meeting.
Canto IV: The Unchanging
Hermann made a brief reappearance in the past reminisced in the fathoms of the League of Nine’s egos, as part of the memories pulled from Yi Sang's past in the dungeon generated by the Golden Bough.
The Sinners witnessed a flashback to the second iteration of the League of Nine Littérateurs, founded under Hermann in the Nest of N Corp. after the first iteration’s dissolution, with many of its members either having been captured or fleeing from T Corp.’s forces. Gubo, Aseah, and Yi Sang were eventually granted sanctuary and recruited into N Corp’s fold.
Hermann desired Yi Sang to continually research and refine his mirror, assigning Gubo to keep him under control and making the aim of the research clear: to find a way to destroy every Mirror World in existence. Upon Yi Sang's initial refusal, Hermann was annoyed at his stubbornness, but claimed to have other ways to reach her goals, making it known to have only treated him with courtesy out of respect for Gubo.
Canto V: The Evil Defining
After the Sinners killed the Pallid Whale, Ahab miraculously survived the whale’s destruction, drifting on the remains of the foe she was robbed of slaying. As she muttered her hopeless delusions and aimlessly floating on the Great Lake, Ahab was eventually rescued by Hermann and her fleet of battleships.
The N Corp. director gave her a proposition: if Ahab joined her, she would allow the captain to kill any and every Pallid Whale across the countless Mirror Worlds. Reasoning that it was simply just a "single" Pallid Whale out of potentially countless others, Hermann gave Ahab her purpose again.
All Hermann asked of Ahab was her “staunch determination and conviction”.
Canto VI: The Heartbreaking
Hermann carried a certain interest in the river flowing beneath Wuthering Heights in Nest T, which she believed might help her Mirror World experiments. She established a contact with Nelly, leaving the woman a mirror that would allow her to see into the Mirror Worlds, and cultivate the subsequent despair Nelly was thrown into. After the mirror was passed on to Catherine, who was persuaded by Every Catherine to do anything in her power to erase her own existence, Hermann herself visited the manor within time and offered the help, as well as providing the Golden Bough necessary for summoning the Identity.
Hermann encouraged her to create a laboratory in the manor's basement, a deal which Catherine accepted. It appears during this time Hermann completed a first summoning of Erlking Heathcliff, as by this point he is already active in the world of the main story, having been the one to bankrupt Hindley Earnshaw and allow Catherine to acquire the manor. The laboratory was then installed, and was managed by N Corp. staff, including Aseah and former members of the Ring's Pointillist branch; they began gathering human subjects with the help of Linton, with the ultimate goal of developing a "dough" that would be used for the creation of "primordial humans".
Hermann herself eventually put Catherine into her coffin, promising the summoning of Every Catherine, and remarking that her consciousness might have lingered and witnessed the events that were about to take place, such as the arrival of a "Heathcliff that exists solely for Catherine". During the events of the Canto, the experiment came to fruition, with Linton being made into a dough, and it being used to summon the perfected Identity of Erlking Heathcliff. However, the Identity was erased together with Catherine through Dante's utilization of the Golden Bough.
After the events of the Canto, Nelly reclaimed the remaining Golden Bough from the rooftop of Wuthering Heights, intent on bringing it back to Hermann.