BPRD

Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense

## Membership

### Current Members

Trevor Bruttenholm, Tom Manning, Hellboy, Abe Sapien, Liz Sherman, Kate Corrigan, Johann Kraus, Ben Daimio, Carla Giarocco, Roger

### Allies

DEO, Shadowpact Brigette Bruttenholm, TJ Bruttenholm (Affiliates)

### Enemies

Azazel, Grigori of the Golden Gaze, and other supernatural threats.

## History

In the final months of World War II a team of Nazi occultists tried to summon the cambion Anung Un Rama on Tarmagant Island, off the coast of Scotland as a last ditch effort to change the tide of a war being lost to the Allies. However, the ritual is miscalculated due to incorrect research and the child does not appear on Earth at what remains of the ruined church on Tarmagant Island, but in the ruins of Bromwich Church on December 23, 1944. Nor was the child the imposing three-hundred-year-old behemoth that the Nazis had hoped for, but rather a small and timid baby dragging an imposing and comically oversized right hand made of magical rock. This young cambion would be discovered by occult researcher and Men of Letters scholar, Professor Trevor "Broom" Bruttenholm and an Allied special forces team known as Team Six when they came to the area to investigate a column of fire seen the night of the child's summoning.

The United States and the United Kingdom agreed that the best course of action for the young creature that Bruttenholm had named "Hellboy" was for him to be taken by the United States Armed Forces and kept on a remote Air Force base in New Mexico — far from the reaches of the Nazis.

So, Hellboy is raised by Professor Trevor Bruttenholm in as normal a home environment as possible. Following the war's end, the United States and United Kingdom agreed that neither nation should control the fate of the boy and opted instead to mutually found an independent organization known as the Bureau of Paranormal Research and Defense — ostensibly a militarized division of the clandestine Men of Letters which the two governments already were secretly funding.

Due to the success of Hellboy's first mission in 1962, at the age of eighteen, the United States government ask that the Men of Letters properly induct him into their order. The British Men of Letters disagree that this is merited, citing the age of the "creature." An internal conflict erupts between the American and British factions of the Men of Letters that raged for eight years until followers of Azazel storm all the known safehouses and bunkers of the Men of Letters, looking for Anung Un Rama — but do not find him.

The result is that the American Men of Letters are more or less wiped out, with the surviving members transferring to the BPRD. The British Men of Letters became more focused on preserving their human integrity and elitist superiority and disavowed their American branch, amputating themselves like it were a diseased limb. While the BPRD remained independent and continued to be funded by investors from American and British stock (with Canada, Italy, Spain, and other countries also investing over time), it remained firmly based on American soil and became more willing to recruit "extra-human" talent, similar to Team Six (or "Creature Commandos" as they had begun to be known in the circles they traveled in). However, following the purge of the American Men of Letters, the BPRD focused primarily on keeping Hellboy safe and so the project was more or less mothballed for nearly thirty years, only being utilized for the rare assignment.

The good news is that Hellboy had a lot of time to practice. The bad news was his partially demonic mind did not develop properly without the proper stimulation, he became something like a perpetual teenager into his thirties and forties (all while remaining in prime condition as a nigh-immortal cambion of his stock should). It would take the Manhattaning, and the accompanying surge of psychic and magical phenomena for the BPRD to be allowed to be fully funded once again.

Even in its quasi-retirement, the BPRD grew behind-the-scenes to encompass a variety of eccentric agents.

Though the BPRD had operated mostly from the shadows for most of its run, after the formation of the Justice League of America in 2004 and the creation of the Department of Extranormal Affairs, Manning was in support of disbanding the BPRD and folding them into the DEO's Covert Bureau of Investigations. Hellboy refused to work directly for the government, threatening to quit. Ultimately, a contractual deal was made between the independent BPRD and the DEO's CBI. This agreement gave the BPRD more resources and authority while maintaining their independence in exchange for sharing information and intelligence with the new government sponsored supernatural inquiry. The secret agreement between the two became known as the "Shadowpact" and has since come to be what the CBI would be called.

This relationship between the BPRD and Shadowpact remains intact to this day. The DEO often contacts the services of the BPRD when it needs a little extra firepower. The BPRD is also often "encouraged" and compensated by the DEO to investigate matters where the DEO have certain "jurisdictional conflicts".

## Trivia and Notes

### Notes

* BPRD is an organization from the *Hellboy* series and its related media.

## Links and References

* Appearances of BPRD
* Team Gallery: BPRD
* Membership of BPRD

1. ↑ Roy Reimagines... Hellboy