Dr Egil Wijk (Oxienstierna)

Born into a noble Swedish family, Oxenstierna, in 1600. He was trained early as a child to become a knight, and was one of the last ones. He had a wife and three children. Hung out with the Swedish king Gustav II Adolf and his daughter king/queen Kristina. Sometimes he had the privelege to give the king advice!

As a knight he wanted to join the wars and was a soldier in the name of God in the 30 years' war with protestants fighting catholics. Egil became a field marshal and lead the army. His oldest son finally joined him for the battle in Leipzig 1642. He watched his son die during that battle, and shortly after was shot in the back himself and allegedly died on the battlefield.

A friend among the ranks was apparently a vampire and couldn't let go of Egil, so he turned Egil into a vampire. Egil had no choice but to live with this man, left the life of a noble knight and his family, and retreated into hiding. It would take time for Egil to accept his new reality - this was the work of the Devil. At the same time, why did the friend save him? Egil was old on the battlefield at +40 years old compared to the many young adolescent men. Why him and not a 18 year old? Why not his son? Besides, what is a knight and a field marshal supposed to do if not fight more battles? What is Egil's purpose now? What does God want? Does God even want him?

In 1660 he joined the army again under Karl X. During the battles he was part of, he, at least in his mind, saved some men by turning them into vampires. Specially young men who are too young to die, just like his son was. Somewhere along the line and some battles and years later, Egil realized he can't keep doing the army stuff. Besides, he had seen and heard things that could only be described as not natural and had begun his own investigations on the supernatural.

It took him this long to realize the supernatural is actually not the Devil's work. He befriended various creatures and studied them. He became less religious and more scientific driven.

Witch hysteria and witch trials reached Sweden. Egil joined the new magical commission in the 1670's that handled the executions. He managed to save a few women from the inside. Egil figured supernaturals and anomalies needed protection from humans, and vice versa. Humans clearly can't handle the unknown.

Founded Tectus together with a bunch of others to protect the inhuman from humans and the other way around. He became more or less obsessed with finding out everything about supernaturals, studied folklore, sought out creatures, traveled long ways for evidence. He wanted to know how they worked, their anatomy, their powers, how some could infect humans and how, everything. Quite early on did the small Tectus group begin to do research, and as the years went by, they all realized they would have to contain some of the anomalies to keep humans safe. This only made it easier for them to do research and experiments. What are their weaknesses? What helps them? Does the stuff from folklore actually work?

Since he was already traveling Europe a lot, it was a natural step to finally travel over the Atlantic to America in the 1870's. Expand Tectus, research the new land! But also to work briefly as a cowboy. It was a needed break from books and texts and people.

Already in Germany during the early 20th century because of research at universities, it didn’t take long before he heard what the NSDAP was doing. This was a place where he could do essentially whatever he wanted. An opportunity Egil would never miss. Egil joined the Schutzstaffel as a doctor and was placed at different camps. He climbed the ranks, ultimately reached Haupsturmführer. He refused to take part in choosing who goes where and never experimented on children. But the adults? Perfect subjects for his own personal research. nomalies were in the camps, too, just like he. Egil picked them out of the crowd, used them to study, picked them apart, ultimately sending them to their deaths, just like the humans that died at his hands.

Maybe it was because of sadism. Maybe it was because of the camaraderie. Maybe it was because of something else entirely, but Egil had probably never been more excited than during this time period. He didn’t want to leave. Of course, soon enough, he had to. Somehow. He figured the best way was to die, thus let himself get captured and went to trial. He was sentenced to death and executed in 1948.

Vampires can’t die from hanging, though. But they can fake it.

He doesn’t talk about this era, and if he does, it’s very little and few words. He can’t morally or ethically defend it and he knows it. He’s ashamed about how he had no trouble looking the other way when so many got killed for no reason, and how he used it for personal gain. He never liked wars, and now he used one. It’s a stain he’ll never get rid off.

The Angel of Death's work did inspire him. As modern technology developed, Tectus getting their hands on otherwordly equipment and spectacular scientists and engineers, Egil got all the resources he needed to perform his own experiments. Genes, DNA, splicing this and that, creating more or less successful hybrids because he can, shrugging and saying "that's unfortunate" in a monotonous voice if a specimen dies and following it with "again". Letting expendable people investigate anomalies. If people die, they die.