Member
Alexander Henry Northam
Age: 32
Appearance
The tall stout built man stands at a towering height of nearly two meters (Six feet two inches). Graced with dark hair, hazel eyes, and sharply defined features he is every inch the prodigal son of the Northam family returned to right the families fortunes. From his time abroad he has developed a slightly darker than in fashion tan and his body sports muscles from moderate labor that the vast majority of English gentleman would never be caught doing. Despite his position at the head of the family now the young man rarely smiles. In fact, his face sports a particularly dour look that borders on a perpetual scowl most of the time. Despite the less than fashionable tan and glaring expression, he is considered handsome by most standards and more than a few of London’s ladies were rather put out when he accepted the marriage arrangement that he took.
Occupation/Relation
Lord Northam, the new head of the household
While he has been gone for many years Alexander quickly assumed his place as the Lord of Manor North with little delay or ceremony upon his return from London with his new bride in tow. For the vast majority of the manor’s residents, it was an abrupt and less than preferred change. After several tense days of waiting to see how the new Lord would change things, the staff finally relaxed and the manor fell back into a strange silent status quo.
Personality
Few if any can accuse Alexander of being given over to fits of pique or bouts of melancholy. For many, the shocking lack of emotional response to his parents’ death was enough to seal their opinions of him as only having returned home to claim his inheritance. In conversation, he is engaging and philosophical though he is often given over to lengthy stories. Publically he is every bit the traveled, storied, implacable, son of Henry Northam.
In private Alexander Northam is a man caught in amber suffering a slow death by asphyxiation within the walls of Manor North. In his youth, he left the manor hoping to force his parent's hand into disowning him so that his late brother might inherit the house. He is a driven academic and expresses his feelings plainly though none of the members of the household have experienced such a thing to date as Alexander left all of his close confidants when he came home to the manor. Now his personal demons are his alone to face and with them, he has taken it upon himself to unravel the mysteries of his ancestral home.
History
Until his return to the manor, Alexander was a world traveler, having partnered with a variety of trade companies that had started up over the last decade to fill the vacuum left by the end of the East India Company the young man continued to support his families business interests as well as fulfilling his own need for adventure. Much to his shock, he discovered that despite his flight from the haunting manor where he had grown up he still could not shake the strange prickling feeling he occasionally got. Once upon a time, it had correlated to a strange happening or other unusual phenomena in the manor. In the open world, however, it was much harder to tell.
After years of doing business in the middle east and the Orient Alexander would come face to face with a truly frightening experience. In Istanbul six years before his parent died, he was kidnapped. To this day he still lacks part of his memories in regards to the experience but what he does remember chilled him to the bone. It was his first initiation into a realm of strange cults and frightening revelations. Following an escape from the kidnapping, Alexander went on to search maddeningly for the next six years for answers but none ever came. In the end, he had assembled a small collection of occult objects and knowledge. There were no answers only a maddening collection of questions.
After receiving news of his parent’s death while tagging along with an expedition in Egypt he was forced to cut short the trip and return to England for the first time in almost a decade. On his way home he received word that the estate would pass into the hands of another family member unless he was married. Much to his surprise was a letter from the family’s solicitor. By the time Alexander stepped off the boat in London, he had made up his mind about the list of families and young ladies. Included with the copy of the Will was a discreet list of families willing to marry off their daughters either for a tie to a political family, to legitimize their own family, or because they believed that the Northam family was the best match they could make for their daughter.
With the new Lady Cora Northam on his arm, he finally made his fateful return to Manor North and from the look on his new wife’s face and his own feelings about the place. His return could not have been more timely. As if like clockwork the feeling returned and somewhere deep in his soul he knew. The old Manor had called him home. He wasn’t sure how but it had. And he had answered.
Quirk
Alexander is an avid collector. In his travels, he brought home a variety of occult objects. Many of which have questionable origins and it would appear that Alexander knows more than he lets on about the strange collection.