Professor Maxwell

Catalyst: Grimm

Barahim: proto-Mechanist

Professor Maxwell was the director of Bishopgate Asylum, until 1873. A masterful psychosurgeon, Maxwell was also a Lemurian Genius of the proto-Mechanist branch. Obsessed with the concept that the natural state of humanity is violence, and that its propensity for murder is an unavoidable law of nature, Maxwell performed nightmarish experiments on his patients in an effort to induce violent psychosis.

These beliefs drew him close to Dr. Friedrich Magnussen, a supposed Lemurian agent, who had very similar views of the world to him. Magnussen convinced Maxwell that society must be first destroyed, as it is of course inevitable due to the laws of human nature, before this natural state can be recaptured. Magnussen also provided Professor Maxwell with the brain of a dead Leviathan, the Promised Child, a vessel of great psychic power. After receiving such a wondrous gift, Maxwell began drifting away from Lemuria, in favor of a closer partnership with Magnussen. He also reached the nadir of his Obligation, becoming an Illuminated.

Using the brain, Maxwell began work on his greatest project: Professor Maxwell's Mesmeric Murder Amplificator. A clockwork construct in the depths of his basement laboratory, the Wonder was supposed to amplify the violent impulses of people in a large area, thus causing societal breakdown. As it was revealed after the Professor's death, the machine's effects were ultimately more unpredictable than expected.

Alas, while Maxwell mostly completed his Wonder, he became trapped in Ybalashi's realm alongside the other guests of the Windham Masquerade at Windham Estate in 1873. His fate afterwards is unknown.