Dr. Jack Bartholomew Hallow, a renown Biology professor at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island from the 1890s, has since undergone an incredible transformation from a gifted, gregarious educator of life-sciences to  a reclusive immortal master of necromancy and insanity.

​

Jack Hallow, born in 1865, was the son of a Providence shipping magnate and millionaire.  He lived the life of the rich and famous, literally fed with a silver spoon.  His mother died giving birth to his brother in 1867.  Jack's father began to hold elaborate parties at his mansion to help hide his sorrow and loss, but in 1880, he died from liver disease, leaving the family fortune and estate to his 15-year old son, Jack.

​

Jack, who had a near-OCD level of thirst for knowledge, graduated from Brown University in 1886 and gained his doctorate by 1890. During his time working his doctorate, he 'aided' many young women in their studies, seducing most of them.  He was considered quite the 'lady's man', with his dashing looks and witty demeanor.  Regardless, he became a University educator in Biology and Human Sciences (Medical Doctor).  Always fascinated with cellular decay, he applied much of his spare time researching how to stop or reverse cellular decay. His obsession led him to mystical and arcane stories, voodoo, and dark magics. His obsession was so complete, he built a new family manor in Philadelphia were he'd been told many 'unethical' yet 'scientifically fascinating' medical studies were being performed in the city.  As such, he turned the basement into five sub-levels of labs, libraries, operating theaters...and cells for animals that were to be experimented on.

​

Even though his cellular decay obsession took most of his time, Jack Hallow still enjoyed being a gregarious man about Providence and Philadelphia, holding lavish parties at his mansions, on the college grounds, and in private, expensive clubs.  Each Halloween, Jack was highly regarded to his annual event, the "Jack Halllow"een Ball", one of the biggest events in either Providence or Philadelphia.  With thousands of rich and young guests, Jack eventually took on the nickname "Halloween Jack" for incredible Halloween parties. More to the point, Jack always had the pick of the ball's women to seduce that night.

​

In 1895, Jack, in his obsessive overdrive, began to court a voodoo priestess from New Orleans.  He believed she had knowledge to raise the dead and return them to full health, albeit controlled by the voodoo priestess.  As such, his torrid affair with her caused a scandal, wherein Jack was released from his scholarly duties at Brown University.  Jack instead would take the priestess' info and created what he believed to be a cellular regeneration potion.  Jack tested the potion on a local dead bum's body, reanimating the body.  Overall it worked, wherein the bum's muscles and internals changed to a more hardened substance, yet the body's skin would continue to decay.  The body also lost all memory and knowledge, and instead operated much like a zombie's brain, for which the priestess would take advantage of and use another potion to control it's baseline brain functions.  Jack was excited over his discovery. Not needing the priestess anymore, he unceremoniously threw her out into the street, penniless. Her scorn would eventually be the death of Jack.

​

On Halloween night later that year, as Jack was once again hosting his exorbitant and lavish Halloween Ball, this time in Philadelphia, the priestess snuck into the mansion, poured Jack's cellular regeneration potion in with rat poison to his toasting chalice.  At 9pm that night, when Jack led his traditional toast to his guests, he drank from the chalice, choking from the poison and died mere seconds later. To add further spite to murder, the priestess had Jack's signature forged on his last will and testament, giving Jack's entire estate to the priestess.

​

Days after his burial, Jack awoke in his coffin...alive, yet not completely alive.  his skin was decaying from his body, yet his organs, muscles and skeleton were instead alive yet blackened.  His nervous system was nearly gone, preventing him from feeling any pain.  Jack clawed his way out of his coffin and above ground only for the priestess to stand there awaiting him.  Jack maddened by what was happening to him, attempted to kill the priestess,however the priestess set up traps to immobilize Jack's body while she did a voodoo spell to attempt to take control over Jack's rotting body to torture him further and use him as her zombie-like slave.  As the priestess was completing the spell, Jack broke free (ripping his arm out of its socket to get free) and killed the priestess .  Due to the timing of her spell, Jack was infused with life, improved strength and immortality...but still had to deal with the issue of rotting skin. 

​

Jack, the day after killing the priestess, set up a new will and testament for her, making "Robert J. Hallow", a cousin of Jack's, as the new heir, for which Jack masqueraded as.  Due the nature of Jack's new powers, Jack could cut off and apply a victims's skin over his skeletal frame and it would adorn his body like fresh skin and tissue for the duration of a week with no rot, smell or discoloration.  The skins of people's faces, when adhered to Jack's skull, would make Jack look just like the victim, face an all. Back in these days, he had just about an hour's time to remove a victim's skin or it would begin to rot (before refrigeration changed that time-frame). As such, Jack could easily masquerade as the person for whom he was wearing the skin of.  He eventually even became excellent at mimicking other people's voices, right down to the accents.

 

For the next few years, Jack had to force mental patients to work for him to do the skinning and killing so that Jack could wear the skins he desired, which were predominantly young men. He still acted as a lady's man, but once he took them to bed, well, it was usually quite a horrid experience, always resulting in the woman's or girl's death. Since his income was now gone, he also learned how to steal from the people who's skins he took.  He'd take over their persona (and skin), and would have their fortunes, money and belongings transferred to Robert Hallow or the estate.  He became a billionaire long before most famous business magnates became millionaires.

​

Regardless of all of this, "Robert J Hallow", in 'tribute' to Jack's demise, would annually still hold a Halloween Ball in Jack's honor. This also provided Jack, disguised as 'Robert', a veritable smorgasbord of youthful bodies he'd line up for his attacks for the next year's time.

​

Over the next century, Jack stayed in the shadows, moving in and around the world, stockpiling bodies, investing in refrigeration companies, and continuing his obsession with cellular decay...but now, in trying to prevent it for himself.  As such, he got into more arcane books and methods, and as such, became an arcane sorcerer in his own right, using dark energy as his weapon.

 

A few years ago, Jack was visited by cultists from an sect calling themselves the "Dark Overlords". As such, they demanded his help in formulating a team or extraordinary like-minded people that were to unlock a dimensional gate that was holding back a two millennia old demon calling himself Lord Stygian. This demon had an army of millions, and through Jack and his proxies, expected to be released from his otherworldly prison to take over Earth and rule it. 

 

After obtaining Lord Stygian's trust, as well as appointed a new Dark Overlord cultist himself, Mad Halloween Jack, as he now called himself, decided the release of Lord Stygian upon Earth was too severe for his plans to eventually get the world to realize his own incredible self and brilliance. As such, Jack formulated a secret plan to pull the massive energies of Lord Stygian's realm and use it to empower himself and his fellow new Dark Overlords to become over 2000% more powerful than they already were. 

 

In a brazen attempt of 'crossing over' Lord Stygian and his army of demons into Earth's dimension, Jack instead utilized an unearthly arcane weapon that instead sapped all of the arcane energy from Lord Stygian and his "Dimension of Exile", killing nearly all of his army and supposedly killing Lord Stygian as a result. In a strange turn of events, an old Dark Overlords cultist stole the weapons before Jack could empower himself (which was his plan all along; he didn't want to empower his fellow teammates, but they never found that out), and the cultist instead destroyed the weapon, releasing the arcane powers into Earth's Ley Lines, empowering the planet itself with another enormous charge of magical energy, making Earth one of the most saturated planet of magical energy in the universe. Jack, losing the chance for cosmic level powers, instead, reformed the Dark Overlords into a new more modern group of evil anarchists called the "Masters of Maleficence".

​

Today, Jack still resides in his family's mansions, either in Providence or Philadelphia as a reclusive millionaire descendant (now named Robert Hall) who only shows himself every Halloween for the 'party of the year' at his Halloween Ball. Jack also continues his study in dark magics, science and medicine while at times enacting as a guest professor at Brown University's Science department...whenever he's looking for more young bodies to consume...

​