Dr. Leonardo Cerebelli, 1830—1897(?)

Although no official written documents remain, credible accounts indicate that Leonardo Cerebelli was born in 1830 in New York’s Flatbush community to grocers Enzo and Aurora Cerebelli.  Nevertheless, Cerebelli was dogged for much of his life by rumors he was truly the son of notorious Cosa Nostra mafioso Nunzo “Il Capo” Tosto, fearsome patron of a post-feudal Sicilian cosca, or crime family.  Il Capo had reputedly sired dozens of illegitimate children and sent them abroad to appease his domineering spouse.  Anecdotal evidence suggests that Leonardo was spirited out of Sicily as an infant, hidden in a shipment of castelvetrano olives bound for New York.

Clever and industrious, young Leonardo excelled in his schoolwork but chafed at his duties in the family business.  This fractious state of affairs was typified by one of Leonardo’s earliest experiments, an inquiry into chaos theory in which the eight-year-old prodigy dropped hundreds of fragile inventory items to the floor and took detailed notes.  His father was horrified, as was his instructor, who labelled Leonardo’s pioneering work “unadulterated rubbish.”  Leonardo’s wry humor began to emerge as he coined derogatory Latin nicknames for regular customers, until his sly linguistic indiscretions were detected by one of his father’s business associates, after which time Leonardo took up Ancient Greek.

Dr. Anton Karswell Valkusian, 1829—1899

Anton Karswell Valkusian was born in 1829 in the tiny hamlet of Pigniu, in Switzerland's Graubünden canton.  An extraordinarily gifted child, he was also profoundly quiet and unsociable, preferring the solitude of his mother's garden to the company of other children his age.  By the age of four, he had yet to utter a word, prompting his worried mother to consult with a physician in Geneva.  After a brief examination, the doctor pronounced the boy mentally deficient and recommended institutionalization, whereupon young Anton reportedly swore at the doctor in four languages and unfavorably critiqued his most recent monograph on the topic of ringworm.  Thus cured, he nonetheless remained quite taciturn well into adulthood, despite his rare talent for language.

When Anton's parents enrolled him in the village school, he astonished his teacher by completing all of his lessons for an entire school year in one evening.  The teacher took the precocious child under her direct tutelage, schooling him with her own library of books and with a variety of texts ordered by mail.  He was a brilliant student, but as the unquestioned "teacher's pet," Anton's interpersonal difficulties with his classmates intensified.  He became an accomplished fighter through multiple schoolyard scraps, many of which arose from unkind words regarding Anton's family.

Eldridge Compost, 1840—1911(?)

Eldridge Compost was a brilliant, well-educated madman, and the de facto leader of the League of Miscreants, a loose confederation of the most unbalanced crime magnates of the late Nineteenth Century.  An inscrutable radical, Compost was regarded by many intellectuals of his time as one of the century's most influential Utopians.  He was an outspoken social critic who longed to raze modern society, reversing what he called "Euro-American Technomorphic Hegemony," replacing it with a complex social system he dubbed "Frolicking Neo-primitivism."

Compost's hatred of Western civilization sprang from his singular childhood and adolescence.  The child of anthropologists, Compost was a mere infant when he was lost in an African jungle on one of his parents' many excursions to the largely unexplored continent.  Found by tribesman, he was raised in their culture, and enjoyed an earthy but idyllic youth.

Pierce Coburn, 1840—1915

Pierce Elijah Coburn was born in August of 1840 in Sydney Cove, New South Wales and raised by his father and mother in an inconspicuous home near the penal colony.  His father earned a modest but comfortable living as a farrier and horse trainer for the military police and his mother schooled young Pierce in the hopes he would one day attend university.

Pierce grew tall and spindly and presented an introverted and meek demeanor.  He rarely uttered a word, and when he did, it was but a whisper.  He was energetic, nimble, and blessed with extraordinary visual acuity.  He was also a voracious reader, which in Sydney, necessitated ordering innumerable books from abroad.  Pierce loved to read about warfare and prominent warriors of the distant past, particularly Alexander and Hannibal.  He had an enduring interest in weaponry of all kinds and when he was not reading he spent his idle time making sketches of catapults, cannons, and warships, sometimes building scale models of his fanciful designs.

Atticus Satyros, 1839—1907(?)

Atticus Satyros was born in Millinocket, a small town in central Maine's Penobscot River Valley in February of 1839 to Greek immigrants Mikael and Lauren Satyros.  The young Atticus manifested an abiding passion for sleight of hand at a very young age, a passion which intensified with each passing year.  However, his practical nature and analytical mind led him to accept a position down river in Bangor as a clerk at the Venal Bros. Merchant Marine Bank.  Though Atticus was unaware of it, the institution had long been suspected by local police as a front for underworld business transactions.  The bank owners, brothers Brutus and Luigi Venal, were charismatic and personable in spite of their clandestine criminal activity, and became endeared to Atticus and his delightful feats of magic.

Phineas J. Magnetron, 1843-1901(?)

Phineas J. Magnetron was born Phineas J. Mugglesworth in West Chester, Pennsylvania, in June of 1843.  The child of merchants, he was a poor student and exhibited no indications of mechanical or engineering promise even as young adult.  In April of 1861, he enlisted in the Union Army and went to war.  An adequate soldier at best, he was wounded two years later at the battle of Chancellorsville, and disappeared into the chaotic fog of wartime.