Ludwig Ross
Now. Let's gamble.
Ludwig is a participant of Crab 3. He is a 24 year old street thug cat man from the city of Vista in the west. He is a genius mechanic, who built robots and weapons to sell to crooks in the underground market. He was recruited by an evil organization but eventually turned his back on them while stealing from them. This event made him a fugitive, always on the run and eternally escaping from authorities. He travels with a defecting android named Trina. In CRAB, he was forcefully transported through a portal, where he was marooned in a sandbar. He was eventually rescued by the Odyssey Airship and became its new crew member, replacing Pix and Mr Chammy and becoming the ship’s maintenance and mechanic. Often depicted or seen shirtless.
Appearance
Personality
Ludwig can be summed up as a thug with a heart of gold. Being a street urchin, he has a sharp and witty tongue and guile to boot, in order to survive the streets. He is charming but also a bit foolish. He is a genius mechanic and quite a tinker and scrapper. But he is also bad with money, often losing his funds for an attempt for instant gratification. He is not dumb but can be short-sighted. Despite this, he is noble by heart and has a strong sense of what is right. Often being his partner’s conscience and would try to talk his team into doing the right thing. While he is easy to fend off and scare, when push comes to shove, he will do the right thing even if it means discarding his survival instincts. When he was revived, he is considerably more chill but also scary. He is still the same Ludwig though.
Powers and Abilities
He is a tech super genius and has a real talent and skill building weapons. He has the ingenuity to tinker with mechanics and making something out of scraps or parts. He had built drones to protect the Odyssey Ship and made upgrades inside the ship himself. He can make toys that are actually hidden weapons.
Aside from this, he is quite limber and athletic due to his life as an on the run street thug. While he is not physically the strongest, he is decent and has fast hands. He also is a bit conniving and relies on guile at times. Usually, he uses his drones to fight. However, rumor has it that he has a power of ferromancy.
As Franken-Ludwig, he has increased pain tolerance and strength. His ferromancy is also enhanced and is a bit of a cyborg himself. As an undead, he is affected by any necromancer’s spells but unlike most undead, he had kept his consciousness and his memories.
Background
History
Round 2
Ludwig Ross (lost, entry) vs Davok (won, entry) in Pachinko. Match page: C3 R2 - Ludwig vs Davok
In Japan, Davok became younger with the Age Elixir, while Ludwig became a girl with the Gender Potion.
In Ludwig’s reality, he went to pachinko with Davok, whom she planned to get money from by seducing him as a girl with the gender potion (totally not gay). For that he went to the bathroom and drank it, although when he tried to seduce the hunter Davok immediately pointed out that was gender-shifted Ludwig. Caught, Ludwig went for gaslighting and threw a tantrum at Davok for saying she looked like a man, etc. Begrudgingly Davok accepted to date her. They began gambling, but after 18 games they were not making any money and Davok was just having fun. Angry, Ludwig brought one of his robots to rig the machine, but the robot refused his orders as he was a woman did not recognize him as his master. Too broke for this shit, Ludwig decided to just mug Davok, who then revealed to have a wanted poster of the cat, having been playing him in order to capture him. As the gender potion effect wore off, Ludwig nervously laughed while he heard the sirens of many police cars surrounding the Casino.
In Davok’s canon reality, a young Davok and a female Ludwig gambled at the casino in Japan, piling up money and going through casino after casino. Davok was also hired to capture the crocodile Overcroc, which he accomplished after a hostage situation with the croc and Frankie - after that they kept making money, and Davok celebrated by drinking with Kome, Hime, Wanzu, Frankie and Rhea, then more money, more luxury, racing past Feddie and Cheras, as several cameos of previous tournaments show up. In the end Overkill was captured and handcuffed and Davok and Ludwig highfived.
Before Round 2 started, Sae-Hyeon had threatened Ludwig that she will do “nasty” things to him when they finally face each other. This took a mental toll on Ludwig who contemplated running away. Ludwig is also the one to inform Frankie that Mishka had left the team to join the rebellion.
Round 3
Ludwig Ross (lost) vs Mogan Sae-Hyeon (lost). Match page: C3 R3 - Ludwig vs Mogan
Fortunately for Ludwig, Sae-Hyeon never got revived after dying to Sack. Ludwig did not know this and never appeared in the Bucket. However, he had summoned all his courage to actually appear, and did his best to go to the Bucket. However, due to an unfortunate mechanical error from his vehicle, he never made it in the Bucket and by the rules of CRAB, he was killed.
After Crab 3
During the three way tie vote, Sunny began looking for the missing Odysseans in an attempt to bring them back himself. He had found Ludwig’s corpse and reanimated it as undead. After the voting, Dylan begged Sunny to bring back Ludwig’s consciousness which Sunny begrudgingly does. He used some of Ludwig’s machinery to reassemble him and give his memory back. He is now known as Franken-Ludwig and still works as the ship’s resident engineer and maintenance. Upon turning into a Frankenstein-Cyborg-Zombie, he has a habit of jokingly limping and uttering “Brains…” to prank people off.
Relationships
Life Within CRAB
At first, he was apprehensive about joining Odyssey but having no choice, he eventually went aboard. He had no idea how he was transported in CRAB world other than he chased a malfunctioning drone to a portal. He had helped other teams when they have a machinery problem for a fee. Frankie and the crew sang “Learn to Meow” to him much to his chagrin and cringe.
Gallery
Gallery
Trivia
- His design is inspired by Tom and Will E. Coyote.
- He is usually depicted as shirtless by his team. This is because in his reference art, his skin tight shirt was mistaken to be his actual skin. However, he is known to wear punk or revealing outfits like a half-cut shirt or torn clothes.
Source
Text: CRAB WIKI, Ludwig Ross (revision 1772, 2025-02-09; by Fresbi, Sgt Keroro)
Pictures: Ludwig.png, uploaded to the wiki by Fresbi
Edited by: G
Licence: text CC BY-SA 4.0; characters, comics and art belong to their creators
