The Master of Ceremonies
Age: 41
Eyes: Pale, sharp, wears glasses
Weight: 125 lbs
Height: 6' 10''
Predominant features: blind eye, deformed mouth, cleft lip, ratlike teeth,
burns on one side of his face. Healthy, though sometimes undernourished-looking.
The van Wyck Estate, long fallen into disrepair, was the property of the late James Alder van Wyck; an heirless, eccentric, shotgun-wielding paranoid isolationist with rheumatism and a chip on both shoulders.
It was widely believed he must have been some kind of occultist madman, but more likely he was simply what he was: ancient, over-educated, and a widower.
His reputedly vast family fortune had been in no way utilized in the upkeep of his manor, and in fact, seemed to have no physical manifestation at all.
It was believed that the old hermit had squandered it in his youth, or else had it buried somewhere, and it was a local tradition for boys to go off searching for the van Wyck fortune-- raiding the house, digging in the basement, looking for clues in graveyards; until the treasure hunts went out of fashion and the manor became simply an impressive facade with a derelict interior.
Too obscure to be of historical importance and too outmoded to be bought by the stylish elite, the house had been for sale for years at a very reasonable price, but no one wanted a dilapidated rattrap with 49-and-a-half mold filled rooms and a leaky roof.
It was speculated that it would be demolished within the year if no one purchased it. The price was lowered by disinterested relatives, eager to have the last of James Alder out of their lives.
It was purchased, with three months left before its scheduled demolition, by a desperate stranger, a mysterious young man carrying several hundred dollars in cash, who looked like he'd escaped from a circus. He said, upon questioning, that he had slept in worse.
The young man with a covered face and a quiet lisp had, in fact, just come from the circus.
Cristoff had joined the traveling carnivale after abandoning the man who had raised him, an old hobo who had treated him something like a strange pet with conveniently light fingers, but had fed him and kept him alive while riding the rails until an argument that culminated in the side of Cristoff's face being horribly burned by the coals of a roadside fire had ended their relationship.
Some months after he struck out on his own, he was to meet a young man, a musician of grand romantic sentiment and a student of literature and history. They rode rails for a number of months, in which time the young man taught Cristoff how to read, and told him all about myth, fiction, and history.
The boy had joined the circus with hopes of being a dancer, but was unfortunately billed as a simple freakshow. He was known as "the Ratchild" up until the day when he commandeered one of the dancing girl's performances, and danced before a crowd for the first time, wearing layers of bandages and scarves to hide his deformities.
To the manager's surprise, the act was an instant success due to the boy's natural grace and wild, gypsy-like vibrance as a dancer. He was allowed to continue, though he refused to dance without his face covered as his manager wished. Cristoff wanted to be recognized for his skill as a performing artist, while the carnivale leader's thoughts were of the profits to be made on a dancing novelty.
One day the decision was made for the boy when a stagehand yanked off the concealing fabric, revealing him before his public with a naked face. He was kept on stage forcibly until the crowd had seen their fill. This humiliation payed double what his other acts had. The manager was thrilled.
The following events are not clear, however-- weeks later, the traveling carnivale was closed due to the death of the troupe leader, the St. Louis Ratchild had disappeared, and the cash box that had been stored in the floor of the manager's wagon had vanished with him.
The Van Wyck estate fell into Cristoff's hands shortly thereafter, and soon the countryside community was surprised to discover a millionaire in their presence.
A repressed love of literature had led the new owner of the manor to pull out the vast majority of the damp, rodent-eaten books on the shelves of the study in order to read them, and had by complete accident discovered a false back on the bookcase.
This had led to a locked vault, which had opened upon the insertion of a key, which had been inside a hollowed-out dictionary. And this is what led to a vast sum of accrued wealth falling into the hands of a strange, rootless boy with no family and half a face.
-Cristoff spends his time these days tutoring children, employing ambitious outcasts, and collecting antiques, books, and oddities of all sorts.
In order to once again pursue his passion for the performing arts, Cristoff purchased the old Nonpariel Vaudeville Theater on Sixpenny Avenue, restoring it to working order and creating the Sixpenny Cicero Theater Company, which hosts a variety of unique acts and strange talents.
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