Victor Frankenstein

## Description:

Victor Frankenstein is a mad scientist who previously dedicated his life to the creation of the perfect human, an obsession which drove him mad and led to Frankenstein's extensive research into Undead and the process of reanimation via Pseudoscience. Frankenstein is a human of Italian-Swiss descent who originates from an affluent background with a loving family. Officially, Victor Frankenstein died in the early Nineteenth (19th) Century; in truth, the Alchemist still lives.

Victor Frankenstein is often described as a thin and gaunt man, standing at at least six (6) feet tall and weighing only one hundred and forty (140) pounds; despite his apparent weakness, he is capable of great passion and enthusiasm. His skin is pale and sickly and his brown eyes are set deep in his skull with large black bags under them from exhaustion. His hair, described as the most striking of his features, is wiry, wild, and dark black in color with streaks of white running through it, believed to be the consequence of his tests with electricity.

Victor's intelligence is his most important aspect. Frankenstein was considered a polymath in his age, an expert in fields of Pseudoscience, Alchemy, medicine, physics, chemistry, and electricity; additionally, he is known to have spoken many languages, including Italian, German, French, English, and Latin. Frankenstein's intellect is a true force to be reckoned with; when set upon a goal, the man is said to be impossible to stop or delay. What he possesses in intelligence he lacks in wisdom, however; Victor has an addictive personality prone to bouts of obsession that can quickly evolve into unhealthy habits; his obsessions replace the importance of his own health, the feelings of those around him, and anything not entirely related to his newest work. His research into the reanimation of dead tissue left a permanent mark on his psyche, and is the reason for his reputation as an arrogant, stubborn, and selfish genius. His intelligence drives him to forego the morality of normal people, often leaving those with whom he interacts feeling disturbed or suspicious; Frankenstein is also infamous for his poor social skills and distaste for anyone possessing of less intelligence than him.

As would be expected by a man of such mental acuity, Victor Frankenstein possesses a mighty understanding of technology, even into the modern era. His knowledge of chemistry and electricity is encyclopedic and his Pseudoscientific skills unmatched, granting him access to possible inventions far beyond the scope of any average mind. His estate, located on a small island in the north of the Orkney Islands, is said to be filled with wondrous artifacts and equipment never before seen.

As stated previously, Victor Frankenstein is an educated authority on several Magical topics, Alchemy and Pseudoscience most notably. Starting as a young child, Victor developed a burning passion for Alchemy and studied every book on the topic he could find, dedicated to a search for the Elixir of Life; that passion developed into an interest in Pseudoscience as he got older, an interest which pivoted into a specific talent for medicine and research into Undead. While he never possessed a talent for Magic itself, Victor always skirted the arcane's edges with his Alchemy and scientific endeavors, stretching the boundaries of science to their mundane limits in the hopes of achieving his goals; only by combining science with Alchemy did he eventually succeed at creating an Undead of his own.

Victor Frankenstein was born the son of Alphonse Frankenstein and Caroline Beaufort; his father was politically connected in Italy and Switzerland, a fact which accounted for their extensive resources and considerable wealth. Victor's mother died of scarlet fever when he was seventeen (17). He has two (2) younger brothers, William and Ernest. Early in life, Victor's parents adopted a peasant girl, Elizabeth Lavenza, whom Victor would eventually marry. Both William and Elizabeth were slain by Victor's Undead creation, and Victor's father died of heart strain from the sudden grief shortly thereafter; Victor would inherit his family's wealth and connections, resources which he would use to construct his laboratories and fund his research. Ernest's fate is unknown, and Victor refuses to speak of him.

### Personality:

Victor Frankenstein's singular goal has and always will be to accrue as much knowledge as possible; specifically, he claims, he wishes to learn all there is to know about life, death, and Undeath. His goals have shifted since his younger years, however, and he has developed a burning hatred for his past mistakes; his grief and regret drive him to learn all there is to know about *destroying* Undead.

Victor's fragile temperament does not refer to a sense of anger or a quickness to rage; instead, it refers to his sickly nature and weak immune system which lends him to bouts of illness. Great amounts of stress or grief will induce mental breaks, often resulting in full catatonia, which can last for up to several months at a time; Victor uses the Society of the Hidden Quill as a sort of group therapy for himself, through which he can work out better ways to address his issues and trauma. Victor's frail body is exaggerated by his inflated sense of ego; he expresses selfish habits, a decreased sense of empathy, inflated sense of self-importance, an inability to accept the consequences of his actions, anxiety, and an inferiority complex which requires him to prove his intelligence to all that he meets. This level of egoism prevents Victor from making friends, although his arrogance has been tempered greatly by time and experience; nowadays, he is just glad to receive visitors to his isolated Orkney estate.

Victor Frankenstein was never a hedonistic or pleasure-seeking individual. His life, although privileged, was never excessive or unnecessarily opulent; he foregoes his basic needs for the sake of his research and spends all of his time working, a lifestyle which prevents him from developing any hedonistic habits. Victor has admitted to having suffered from a cocaine addiction shortly after he faked his death, an addiction which he created in himself by inventing an alternate form of the drug to keep himself awake and working for longer periods of time without rest; the drug use backfired and almost killed him, however, an event which induced a mental breakdown and drove him to reject all forms of potentially addictive substances, excluding the occasional glass of wine.

Victor's high-intensity anxiety-inducing lifestyle makes him prone to paranoia. His mind sees patterns where others do not, which often makes him seem manic, frantic, and delusional; he may connect two (2) totally disparate events and refuse to elaborate on their connection until much later, simply requiring others to trust him at his word. He trust no one with his research and has few friends, choosing only to socialize with those other members of the Society of the Hidden Quill. His distrust does not make him rude, however.

Victor's lack of religious affiliations should not be surprising to anyone who knows his tragic tale. After playing god himself, Frankenstein declared that no entity, divine or otherwise, should have the power to act as god without checks or balances in place; as such, he refuses to worship any gods and actively protests against religion.

## History:

Victor Frankenstein was born in Naples, Italy, in the mid-Eighteenth (18th) Century. He spent his early years traveling Europe with his parents and siblings, moving from seasonal estate to seasonal estate, during which time he developed an obsession with Alchemy.

As a young adult, however, his love of Alchemy dissipated after hearing a lesson from a real scientist. This interest led him to begin studying at the University of Ingolstadt in Bavaria; there, he quickly found himself to be average compared to the great minds which surrounded him. Determined to stand out amongst his peers, Victor sought additional learning from his favorite professor and began work on his life's project: a Homunculus, a man-made human being created through Alchemy.

Although unable to create a true Homunculus, Victor succeeded in reanimating his creation via electricity and Alchemical solutions. Victor found his creation abominable and fled, eventually resulting in the death of his younger brother, William, and the arrest, trial, and execution of other adopted sister.

Victor then had several encounters with his creation, including one in which the beast demanded that Victor create a second (2nd) monster, a bride for the male original. Under threat, Victor agreed and set off for the Orkney Islands, where he constructed a large estate and conducted his work. Fearing that the monsters would breed, or worse grow to resent one another and turn on him anyway, Victor destroyed the bride and enraged his original creation, who would wreak his revenge by killing Elizabeth on the night of her wedding to Victor. Victor's father would die of grief shortly thereafter, sending Victor into a spiral of obsessive hatred that would lead him on a global pursuit of his monster.

### Death

His hasty pursuit of the monster into the Arctic resulted in his incapacitation at the hands of the hostile climate. Luckily for Victor, however, Cpt. Robert Walton's ship spotted him on the ice and saved his life, at which point Victor recounted for the obsessive captain his life story. Victor then appeared to die of exhaustion and exposure to the elements, a fact which greatly disturbed Cpt. Walton; the appearance of Victor's Monster, however, frightened the Captain more. The monster declared his life's purpose fulfilled and fled the boat, explaining that he intended to light himself on fire on the ice and kill himself, although neither Walton nor his crew were ever able to confirm the Monster's death.

And that is where Victor's story ends, as far as the world at large is concerned. In reality, however, the story continues on...

### The Society of the Hidden Quill

Cpt. Walton suffered a third (3rd) fright that frigid Arctic evening when he discovered Victor still alive, albeit on death's door. He claimed to have faked his own death with Alchemy so as to fool his Monster into killing himself; Victor recognized that he was too weak to slay the beast on his own, even had he been in his best condition, so he decided to trick the Monster instead. Triumphant, Victor instructed Walton to send the letters to his sister in London but not to include any mention of his survival, a favor which the confused Cpt. Walton gladly completed.

Walton's ship dropped Victor back at his Orkney estate on their way back to London, at which point Victor resumed his work immediately, discovering that a group of thieves had stolen is research on reanimation during his months of absence. Rather than working to create the perfect human, he sought information on monsters; he researched the various beasts of the world and ways of killing them, studied Necromancy and Magic, worked to erase his past work from the world, and eventually attracted the attention of the Brothers Grimm.

The Brothers Grimm then introduced Victor to the Count de Saint-Germain, a founding member of the Society of the Hidden Quill. It was also during this time that Victor achieved his childhood goal, with help from the Count de Saint-Germain, of creating the Elixir of Life; with but a single glass of the Alchemical substance, Victor Frankenstein became immortal, his aging process halted completely. While he could still be killed by blade or Magic, he could now work to undo his past crimes without worry of the frailties of age, even if it took him eternity.

Pleased with Victor's change of heart and earnest desire to change, Saint-Germain then explained the nature of the Society of the Hidden Quill and the intent behind their work; he extended an invitation to Victor, one which he gladly accepted. Construction on the Heron's Perch underneath Victor's estate began immediately.

Shortly thereafter, Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde was allowed to move in with Victor at his estate. Together with Nikola Tesla as the supercomputer at the base's center, the trio kept each other company and drove their innovations farther and farther into the realms of imagination and impossibility. Other members of the Society would eventually join the trio at the Heron's Perch, and their Society would swell with unimaginable potential.