Baraka are known to be gentle hearted, kind, and compassionate, steadfast species. This is not the case for Aschenbach.
Back in the day, he used to be one of such kind Baraka, but after getting his face literally mauled off by an Argon while collecting research samples, his demeanor changed completely. One could argue it is a combination of Argon taint left in his body combined with part of his brain damaged to the point that he lost any function of compassion. He became a psychopath in nature, unable to feel sadness, pain, empathy, or joy.
Despite his brutal injury, his intellect was stronger than ever. After repairing what was left of his face, he rose through the ranks in the Mysterium with his pursuit of science and knowledge. His life goal is to push past the limits of science and see how far it takes him in the world. Unfortunately, the science world has a moral code of ethics, one that often got in the way of Aschen’s work.
Where scientists follow the basic principles of research, Aschenbach ignores them entirely. They delay any sort of progress made and provide extra paperwork which is not necessary for his research.
At first, he received a few penalties here and there in the Mysterium over his methods of research, but eventually it got to the point that Aschenbach had literally grabbed his assistant, who was protesting to his methods, slammed their arm down on the examination table, and proceeded to start cutting open his assistant’s arm for his current experiment without their consent. The final nail in the coffin, he was expelled from the Mysterium order and a warrant for his arrest was made, but by then, he had disappeared before the guards could detain him.
While he lost major funding from the government, Aschenbach had already planned ahead should he end up being fired. He had already found networks of support within the black market for corrupted politicians and nobles. Even though he no longer had his main laboratory within the Mysterium, he had set up hidden ones in various cities around Arborea. Hidden trapdoors leading down to small basement safe houses that also served as personal examination rooms equipped with a cage to hold any rowdy test subjects.
His test subjects are not just limited to homeless, lower-class individuals, if someone garners his interest, he will attempt to capture them to try and open them up to see “how they tick” so to speak. Anesthetic is too costly so Aschen doesn’t use any. Being unemphatic, he doesn’t care if his test subject is screaming in terror on the table, the walls of his hidden laboratories are soundproof so they can make as much noise as they please.
To aide him with his ongoing research, he created three homunculus projects. Originally he planned only to have one, but after the first two were faulty upon creation, he managed to perfect the third one. These homuculi are a mixture of organic and inorganic cyber-like humanoids. In order of creation and their flaws are as follows:
Quinetra, Elin-appearance: Made first. Needs constant fuel of fresh blood and uncooked flesh to function often
Garavan, human-appearance: Too much of a pacifist, making him useless as an assistant
Lailafel, Made last. Castanic/Deva-appearance: no problems, carries out all orders, best deadly maid. Her body fluids are also highly corrosive and poisonous.
He is also slowly attempting to build an army of sleeper agent homunculi by creating such humanoid-like individuals, letting them loose into society to rise within the ranks of top officials and, when the signal is given, turn on them and cause chaos.
While he is considered a villain, he does not feel the need to ally himself to any other dangerous criminals. If he does ally with a villain, they best be on their guard at all times as he will sometimes take back any sort of alliance and contract just to simply add them to his test subject list.
If you ran into this man in a dark alleyway, you’re already doomed once he has set his eyes upon you.
