Things didn't go well for neither the scots nor the norsemen in 10th century England. Æthelstan, king of the anglo-saxons, had driven the latter out of York in 927. A mere decade lader his armed forces did the same in what would later become known as the Battle of Brunanburh, a massive onslaught whose outcome effectively put an end to the first attempt of vikings to colonize Great Britain. Most of them were slain, but a small number survived and made a hurried escape further northwards. Along those was a man called Rókur, an impressive warrior that had suffered a major blow, but could still run. He never reached Norway though, but died from gangrene even before leaving English soil. To his honor the effort was made to bury him on site. Since then Rókur was supposed to rest in his hastily constructed burial mound, but noone could see and check if things were going alright below the earth...

Vladimir Kondratyuk was – and still is – someone who can deem himself very much upper class in Santa Celia. Situated close to the upper end of wealth and power he can afford a lifestyle that suits his need for extravagance and luxury. He's a lover of art and antique, but pratically noone has a true idea about how far his network of smugglers, thieves and other criminals actually stretches out in order to keep his residence as exquisite as it reasonably can be. Or probably also more unreasonably... The man had already an aegyptian mummy on display in his home, along with pretty much all of the objects found along with it. By the time he had set his mind for 'expansion' towards other regions, cultures and historic times of the world.

He had organized for a special delivery to be retrieved, wrapped up and put into a maritime container to be delivered to the US. The ship's destination was the Pacific Port of Santa Celia which not only helps in keeping the metropolis supplied, but also larger parts of California around it. The operation went perfectly smooth until the vessel approached the east coast. Only two dozen miles away from the city a distress call was received, yet by the time coast guard and other local authorities arrived at the scene there was radio silence. With the ship still moving it couldn't be boarded in time, causing it to crash into one of the docks with engines still running at cruise speed.

Officially the carnage of steel and concrete at the size of many million bucks was sold as a 'series of technical malfunctions, leading to loss of control' to the general public, but behind the scenes the follow-up investigation found proof that this was not what had happened. Modern freighters are giant monsters with a comparably ridiculous small number of civilians on board, assembled from different nations depending on who's the cheapest bidder. The majority of these men were found hiding themselves somewhere deep in the bovels of the ship, but a few others were found dead with no visible injuries. Instead they all seemed to have found a natural death, but according to the records none of the crew was particularly old or had known, severe illnesses.

Of course, utilizing his widespread connections, Vladimir kept track of the event since his special delivery was still on board that ship. He naturally was quite worried about its integrity, so he bribed, threatened and cheated his way back into the equation as soon as possible and went on a search of his own. He found the container in question completely intact and still sealed standing on deck, but as it was unloaded and opened in his backyard it turned out that the most important part, somehow, had gone missing. It appeared to him that Santa Celia, already known for unique abilities to occur in people, had triggered and woken up something extremely rare that had already been lingering for over a millennia. Almost needless to add that this was very much to his concern: Losing a very pricey asset that apparently had turned ghost and could now do nothing but spend its time in Santa Celia, probably completely overwhelmed by the situation while very well knowing the concept of being harmful. His shady business had picked up its own dynamics that could both reveal it and come back to haunt him.

In the meantime, Rókur did not know anything of this. He was facing different issues, the primary one being that over thousand years had passed since he had been able to see, hear, smell and posess any kind of consciousness for the last time. Whatever kind of world that was around him -- it didn't seem to be Valhalla. To his luck though the streets in this more industrial part of the city were rather populated by trucks than densily crowded by passenger cars or pedestrians. Ignoring traffic lights and plenty of other rules of the modern world he spent days roaming around cluelessly, just barely hovering below the threshold at which people would start to call in the cops. His strong magical presence invoked others though...

The tourists picked him up, or rather they arrested him in a sudden assault. The decision had been made to get him off the street before anyone else with more malicious intentions could do it. After all, disposing of him in a lethal manner still was an option if he would not cooperate in any way. On the other hand a massive mutual exchange of information about the past and the present would give their 'client' a real chance. Faced with means of containment Rókur could not escape from he was forced to listen and to try to understand what these people had to say.

To say that trying to get Rókur up to speed was a laborous and more often than not rather difficult undertaking would be an understatement, but within roughly a year at least the basics of surviving in the US could be achieved: Speaking modern English (though with a severe and strange accent), essential societal rules, papers that would identify him as a legal immigrant to the US. Even a job, even though it's a more lousy one. He doesn't need much money to live. The lesson that there were alternatives to attacking people -- for the sake of his own long-term survival -- was probably the most important thing though. Alternatives nobody would care or even mourn for.

At this point the next logical step was to 'release' him onto the streets, letting him walk on his own again. That doesn't mean that he doesn't have to do anything with The Tourists anymore though. There's still a more or less loose bond between him and them, with the latter rather taking a bit of a supervising role.

An austrian university teacher and professor with a long-running career of studying superhumans. He applied the scientific methods of his time, trying to explain what was going on with those special snowflakes instead of fearing them. One of his findings was that superhumanism does not necessarily become symptomatic at birth, but frequently only manifests itself in later stages of a person's development. His conclusion was that there is a significant fraction among the superhuman population that learns out their respective abilities as a surprise and that this might make them much more prone to psychological instability, especially in an environment that more often than not behaves hostile towards them. With his advice not taken seriously by those organizations that already existed he decided to help build up a new one: The Tourists. He was one of their founders, focusing on the superhuman side of things.

An industrial tycoon who also is a weirdo and a lover of art. He bribed his way into local politics and also utilizes his money to control a more or less extensive network of criminals in order to satiate his special kind of cupidity. He lives in an almost ludicrously large and expensive residence in Paradise on the Water with probably more than just one panic room.