Van Helsing, Abraham

Little about the early life of Professor Abraham van Helsing is known. Born in 1837, he speaks little of his past, and it is unclear whether the details of his history have been purposefully obscured by the professor and his associates. Despite his Dutch name and residence, in moments of stress or alarm he breaks into German, implying that is the language he speaks most instinctively. It isn't until age 15 that Abraham enters the public record, as a new and unusually young student at the Municipal University of Amsterdam. As a an adult, he became a professor of medicine at the same university, specializing in obscure diseases.

Some believe Van Helsing to be the most educated man on the planet. Even if this is an exaggeration, it is hard to imagine who would compete with him for that title. His doctorates are in medicine, law, literature, philosophy, and theology, supplemented by lesser degrees in half a dozen other fields.

He is said to have an absolutely open mind, capable of accepting any claim which is established by sufficient proof. This might be a weakness for a less gifted mind, but Van Helsing is said to embody the quote "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." That saying, of course, comes from his sometime associate, the detective Sherlock Holmes of London, to whom Van Helsing's own deductive ability has been compared. While Holmes may be the greater solver of mysteries, Van Helsing's knowledge of occultism and the metaphysical branches of science is second to none.

Little is known of his private life, but certain associates have heard him on rare occasions mention a son who passed away. Van Helsing once told his aristocrat friend Arthur Holmwood that his son would have resembled Holmwood, had he lived. It is also known that Van Helsing is married, but his wife lives in a mental hospital; some say that Van Helsing's wife went insane from grief after their son's death, but as a Catholic, he refuses to divorce her.

Forbidden Lore
Denizens of Gothic Earth know Van Helsing as a famous scientist, philosopher, metaphysician, and benefactor of humanity. Few know of the man's mastery of magic, nor of his leadership of one of the most established qabals, “the Watchers”, or Die Wächtern. From his family estate in Amsterdam, the professor keeps close tabs on all the information collected by his qabal, transmitted with the astonishing speed afforded by new technologies such as the telegraph and even the telephone. Like a protective father, he keeps vigilant watch over the whole world, via a vast web of cells and informants that stretches across the globe.

Van Helsing's devout Catholicism is not enough to explain the extremely high-level connections he has in the church, allowing him an "indulgence" to use the consecrated Host (communion bread) sacrilegiously as a weapon against the undead. He was also introduced to Sherlock Holmes by Pope Leo XIII himself, during the affair known as “The Case of the Vatican Cameos."

As described in a popular "work of fiction", the book Dracula, Professor Van Helsing was called to London by his former student, John Seward, to assist with the mysterious illness of Lucy Westenra, the 19-year-old daughter of a wealthy family. It was Van Helsing who first realized that Lucy is the victim of a vampire, and who guided Seward and his friends in their efforts to save Lucy. Unfortunately, they failed, and were forced to destroy Lucy after her own transformation into a vampire.

Nevertheless, they were able to win a decisive victory against Dracula himself after Van Helsing organized this small group of British socialites into a formidable team of vampire hunters. Two of his associates in this triumph, Jonathan and Mina Harker, later secretly became members of Die Wächtern, with Mina compiling, typing, and organizing the documents that later became the Stoker novel, published as a fictional novel to obscure the truth of the story. Mina is Van Helsing's most promising protégé, and she recently assumed leadership of the qabal's London cell.

Descriptions
"A man of medium height, strongly built, with his shoulders set back over a broad, deep chest and a neck well balanced on the trunk as the head is on the neck. The poise of the head strikes me at once as indicative of thought and power. The head is noble, well-sized, broad, and large behind the ears. The face, clean-shaven, shows a hard, square chin, a large resolute, mobile mouth, a good-sized nose, rather straight, but with quick, sensitive nostrils, that seem to broaden as the big bushy brows come down and the mouth tightens. The forehead is broad and fine, rising at first almost straight and then sloping back above two bumps or ridges wide apart, such a forehead that the reddish hair cannot possibly tumble over it, but falls naturally back and to the sides. Big, dark blue eyes are set widely apart, and are quick and tender or stern with the man's moods."

— Mina Harker's Journal, chapter 14, Dracula

"He is a seemingly arbitrary man, this is because he knows what he is talking about better than any one else. He is a philosopher and a metaphysician, and one of the most advanced scientists of his day, and he has, I believe, an absolutely open mind. This, with an iron nerve, a temper of the ice-brook, and indomitable resolution, self-command, and toleration exalted from virtues to blessings, and the kindliest and truest heart that beats, these form his equipment for the noble work that he is doing for mankind, work both in theory and practice, for his views are as wide as his all-embracing sympathy."

— Letter From Dr Seward to Arthur Holmwood, chapter 9, Dracula