Hunter Nate

I died a long time ago.

I was a scholar, a student of the ancient and the forgotten. Languages, cultures, rituals and beliefs lost to the ages were my ambrosia, nourishment for an overeager mind that forgot nothing. I was content to live a life of intellectual stimulation, enlightenment. But for all my knowledge, I was caught unawares when death's icy touch caressed me. In those days, illness was common. New plagues, pestilences, vermin seemed more prevalent than the goodly people. When my time came, my body withered even as my mind thrived. It was then I met the man who would forever curse me.

He's been called many things throughout time. The most popular name, one from Shelley's book, was Frankenstein.

He approached me with an offer. He'd heard tales of the frail young lad with a mind sharper than some of the greatest thinkers of the world. A humble man who sought the adventure of intellect, not the physical. He too had heard how this mind was to be lost to the annals of time, and had decided to bar the path of my eternal rest.

His findings were inspired, revolutionary. So very blasphemous, but inspired nonetheless. My mind was like a sponge, absorbing his every word, idea, concept. Hours spent in intellectual debate, discussion. He could restore me, grant me an opportunity to continue my studies. He offered a drowning man a life preserver, and I foolishly let myself agree to my most damning choice.

His restoration, the reanimation of flesh, sinew, bone, was torture unto the greatest degree. I've no doubt that Hell would be a comfort in comparison. My mind, my most literal and visceral mind, was transplanted, kept  alert and aware through his bastard's science. My new body was, as he called it, a stroke of great fortune. A frame forged in steel of physical labor, violence, and desire. I dared not ask how the "good" doctor came upon such a body. Such speculations are left for those who devoured the fictional penny novellas of my rebirth.

The elixir which merged my mind to this body, like Lucifer's own flames coursing through my veins, it mends all, preserves all.  A devilish merger of science and sorcery. Lightning flows though me, like the strike of the heavens that awoke me to this world once more.

You've read the story. The core is true, though the specifics were quite differing. I'll not bore you to repeat them once more.

The doctor believed I would be as if a clean slate, retaining my knowledge without my soul, my personal being. He christened himself my "father," and likened himself to God. He was not prepared for my strength of self to be stronger than my old frame. I escaped, fleeing in the night to the wilds and was never seen by him again.

I traveled for ages. Studied with wise men, shamans, spiritual leaders of so many cultures, religions, and beliefs. My mind expanded in ways you cannot conceive of in a single mortal lifetime. Mortality was now lost to me. This was...is, my blessing and my curse. While I can further my studies, I am forever doomed to walk this world. I heal from even the most grievous of injuries, though I feel each one acutely. That damnable concoction within my very cells prevents my forever slumber. I do not age. I may rest, though I do not tire. I am certain I cannot expire. That horrific concoction fuels me, preserves my body in peak condition, and grants me phenomenal strength and  fortitude.

I am called many things in different cultures. Automaton. Golem. Abomination. Monster. 

I am still a man. I laugh, I love, I mourn. I have watched beloved friends, family, lovers grow old and return to the soil, while I still appear in my prime. I have birthed and buried children which did not inherit my curse. So much death, so much loss...it taxes one to the abyss.

I lost my purpose for many years, lost all will to carry on, either in my studies or my wanderings.

Until I discovered others like me. Monstrous and viscous creatures born of that mad doctor's work. Others that had taken up his research, improved upon it to create atrocities that would rain destruction down upon good, honest and true people of the world without the remorse I seem to solely retain. They joined with the darker things, the forbidden things, with only one goal. Devastation. Darkness would spread, blanketing all with its cancerous touch.

I could not abide this to transpire. If I was to have a purpose, this was it. To be the barrier between the waking world and the seeping evil beneath it. I spent hundreds of years gathering the artifacts, talismans, banes of these beasts, and stemmed their tide as best one man can. When I knew I could no longer battle alone, I sought out aid.

I will be the shield to defend the defenseless. I will be the defiant wall to hold back the crashing waves of darkness.

I am the creature. I am the monster. I am the man.

And I will remain, always to protect you.

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Name: Nathaniel Stein (currently), true name lost to time.
Occupation and Titles: Hunter, Scholar, Archaeologist
Specialty: Reanimates, Were creatures, Great Beasts  
Age: unrecorded, at least 300 years
Species: Human/Golem
Home Base: Castle Frankenstein, Germany
Weapons and notable items: Carries a multitude of charms, talismans, and trinkets from known, ancient and dead religions. Holy Water Hand grenades, silver lined gloves and boots, blessed wooden stakes. Also employs a custom shotgun/revolver hybrid, with a variety of shot depending on his prey.
Bears the Phantom Blade of Karhu, a shattered mystic sword capable of generating a spectral blade which can damage poltergeists, ghosts, ghasts, and other intangibles.
Carries the Sinistre Grimoire du Diable, a malevolent spell tome capable of banishing demons, thought reading from its blood soaked pages will burn the flesh and tear at the mind.