From Unofficial Handbook of the Virtue Universe

"Come here, let me take your arm off with this icepick. Now tell me how that feels... I really want to know. It hurts doesn't it? Enough to make you do anything to end that pain. Kill the closest thing to you? That's how it feels to be away from Eric. My life slowly dripping away, and puddling on the floor. This is where we began, St. Martial. Our life started in blood and pain; our mother's screams brought us into this world and our father's pride kept us here. We were born to this life, both given the same advantages and gifts. But now is when we start taking. We are the Blackthornes." - Erin Blackthorne

Family History

The history of the Rogue Isles (aka, the Etoile Islands) is a sordid one, with a common theme of being the safe haven for fleeing criminals, opportunists, and their hangers on. The Blackthorne family traces its history back to the original colonial settlement of the Isles. The first wind of their coming was in the form of Thomas Pillage whom hailed from Devonshire, England and his wife Maria Hosking Pillage originally of Kingsbridge, England. The Pillage couple crossed the ocean in 1762 fleeing the effects of the Seven Years War that still raged between the European royal courts. Thomas was by trade a sailor and immediately took up work in the shipyards of what the world then knew as Grandville. This would turn out to all be a ruse, as Thomas was working directly for English interests and played a major role in the Rogue Isles Rebellion of 1766. It is a mixed sadness and pride for the Blackthorne family that Thomas Pillage died on the return voyage from delivering to England the official Treaty of Protection with the Rogue Isles.

In the winter of 1766, Maria Hosking Pillage nearing the end of a term of pregnancy with Thomas Pillage's child, remarried to the newly appointed Gouverneur Andrew Blackthorne of Grandville. In the early spring, she gave birth to two male identical twins named Thomas and Andrew Blackthorne II in memory of the two most important men in their mother's life. Recovered census records indicate she had no other children before her death ("of natural cause") in 1782, and her children would succeed both her and their step-father by several score years. Thomas Blackthorne is recorded only in the census as being "in contract of the English Navy" and spent little enough of his time ashore to barely leave a footprint, while Andrew Blackthorne II went on to follow in their step-father's profession as secretary to the two following Gouverneurs. Andrew Blackthorne II's death is attributed to a "fatal stomach poisoning by tainted foodstuffs" in the first half of 1810.

After the passing of Andrew Blackthorne II under what many viewed to be suspicious circumstances, all trace of Thomas Blackthorne disappears from the Rogue Isles until 1903. In the meantime, Grandville experienced a nearly fatal eruption on April 3rd, 1833 that split Grandville into the Isles now known as Cap Au Diable, Port Oakes, Bloody Bay and Grandville itself. With the rise of a volcano on modern day Cap Au Diable, much of the islands was uninhabitable. It would be nearly 70 years before serious settlement might again be a possibility and that fact did not pass John Tremaine Blackthorne by. Moving to the site of what would later become known as St. Martial, JT Blackthorne claimed ancestry from Thomas Blackthorne of Grandville and used his historically relevant status to meet what remained of the Isles elite and gain a stranglehold on all trade in spices to the Isles from the Americas. This hold would dwindle over time, but not before JT Blackthorne became incredibly wealthy and entrenched in Rogue Isles society. It was rumored that when the spice trade died and World War II broke out while the Rogue Isles declared themselves neutral, the Blackthorne family (by this time quite numerous in number) took up the role of arms dealers to the burgeoning Arachnos organization.

This rumor has persisted to this day as the Blackthorne family was one of the few left unmolested in the wake of Arachnos' military coup of the Isles in the 1950s. Despite this obvious security, the takeover the Etoile Islands region wrecked havoc on the economic standing of the Blackthorne family. As time passed and the money ran out, many members of the family fled the Isles in favor of America nearby to the west. One solitary sub-family of the Blackthorne ancestry stayed on, tracking its lineage directly through Thomas Blackthorne to Thomas Pillage. Taking a note out of the pages of JT Blackthorne's methodology, a young Edgar Blackthorne established the Blackthorne Trading Company (BTC) in 1963 and became a principle supplier of imported food products to the Rogue Isles and the Arachnos organization itself. This safer and very much necessary service allowed the family to again attain the wealthy status it enjoys today in the St. Martials region of the Rogue Isles.

Blackthorne Manor

This ancestral home, Blackthorne Manor is a heavily guarded and sprawling mansion structure from the early formation period of St. Martial. The architect (Josiah Hampshire) built it for his own family in the late 1800s, but when the Isles became less and less hospitable the family fled the country but not before selling it to the returning JT Blackthorne. It resides in the rough area of Black Mariah, a neighbourhood rife with struggle between Arachnos and the Freakshow. Yet strangely, little to no collateral damage is ever seen on the property itself possibly due to the strong lead-ridden reprisal for those that try. There has not been a time remembered since the gaslit era when the streetlight in front of it was put out, burning in memory of those that have passed on and as lighthouse for those yet to come.

Loose Canons: The Dangerous Scions

All of the following is common knowledge in the Rogue Isles. The Blackthorne family is a well known and carefully respected institution, especially in St. Martial where they have strong ties with Johnny Sonata and Arachnos' local assets. The reach of the family is far and their claws sink very deeply into each aspect of everyday life. It is the BTC trade barges that bring the food many of the island's inhabitants consume on a daily basis, it is the taxation abatements on ship traffic lobbied for by BTC that allowed the Rocco corporation to bring steady ferries to the island, and lastly, it is the charitable contributions of the Blackthorne family to their local community over the years that have funded most of St. Martial's struggling social programs. They were one of the founding families to endorse the creation of the St. Martial Academy, and they helped break ground with Johnny Sonata when the Golden Giza was built.

Despite all of these wonderful things brought to the community by James and Laura Blackthorne, it is their own legacy that has grown to haunt it. On April 3rd, 1983 Laura Blackthorne gave birth to fraternal twins, Eric and Erin Blackthorne. It was a difficult birth and warranted a lot of social attention in St. Martial's elite circles, as it heralded a new generation for one of the island's oldest nearly-aristocratic families. After two days of labor, the children were introduced into society on the front steps Black Heart Memorial Hospital by a still shaky mother while friends of the family toasted to them with champagne and confetti. News reports following that day speak of endless parties and reverie clear into the following week, while the twins were brought around for formal introductions to each major local family. It has been rumored that Johnny Sonata may in fact be Godfather to the children, but this has never been confirmed.

Eric and Erin grew up ensconced in high society, attended to by the best private tutors and governesses until they were highschool age, when they enrolled as freshmen at St. Martial Academy. A tremendous party was thrown to congratulate them on meeting the stringent requirements for attending the school (despite allegations that their entry was secured by bribery) and many of St. Martial's finest attended, in exception of James and Laura Blackthorne whom were out of town on business that weekend. This would set a theme in the life of the twins, with their father heavily embroiled in lobbying for trading sanctions while their mother spent most of her time supporting local social service ventures. This left them all but forgotten, except by the public.

In the course of attending St. Martial Academy, Eric was awarded a coveted position on the St. Martial Minotaurs basketball team, and Erin became very popular among all of the school's social circles. The two were inseperable, taking on very few boyfriends or girlfriends during their schooling and preferring each other's company over many of their friends. They shared an incredibly tight demeanor, often running to each other to handle the stresses of being teenagers and it is perhaps a mixture of that, and the almost constant absence of their parents that lead down the path they chose...

This is where common knowledge leaves off, and only those truly determined to know what goes on have a chance of finding out... Rumor on the street is that the twins were found in a compromising position with the corpses in their basement. Pictures taken quietly on entry by the police have circulated among fetish circles ever since and draws a very high price for reproductions of the original. Twin 17 year old athletes, bodies pale and padded with the fat of an easy life, curled up naked like lovers and as sluggish as overfed kittens near the suspended, roped up bodies of the mutilated quarterback and his cheerleader girlfriend. The room was dark around them, except for flashlights propped and taped into place all over the room to highlight the suspended victims. In all, the effect of the photo is one of modern art and it can be assured that photographer wasted one of the best shots of their life on an image nobody should ever have to see. Last street value of a print of this shot was nearly a million and a half dollars US in 2007.

Suffice to say, relations between the Townsend family whom are major stockholders in Rocco Transportation, the Peck family of WSPDR's famous warzone correspondent Jerod Peck, and the Blackthorne family became quite strained. The twins were pulled from regular circulation on the island and cloistered with their parents, whom also stopped attending many if not all public functions on St. Martial for the next year. But right as the crowd of St. Martial's elite gathered for the public trial of the Blackthorne twins, the case was suddenly dismissed by Judge Joseph Van Zandt and the teens remanded to the custody of mental health professionals rather than corrections.The public outcry was terrible, but the judge refused to overturn his previous judgment.

This is the manner in which Eric and Erin ended up exiled to the Bermuda Public Health Authority's "therapeutic practice for dangerous individuals". This facility, nestled in the bosom of the Caribbean looks for all intents and purposes like Club Med. That is until you look for several days and realize nobody tends to the benches along the beach, nobody ever goes outside to suntan, rarely does anyone even go for a walk in the sand. No, most of the individuals at the facility were from privileged homes in the Rogue Isles region and being treated for one "moral ailment" or another. If one were to seek out the webpage and mission statement, and then tracked all of the barely visible clues leading from this anonymous home for the wayward, they would eventually be led back to the MAGI organization of Paragon City and its High Council.

Unluckily for MAGI, the doctors of the facility experience moments of moral laxity themselves, choosing the most "advanced and affective" therapeutic techniques possible. This on occasion leads to treatment with unearthed artifacts to see what the reaction is on the mentally unsettled. These exposures are rumored to be rare and only used in the most extreme cases by highly trained psychics and their assistants. One such psychic, Dr. Kirkpatrick (former stage mentalist Vic Magic) stumbled across a moment of true and tragic genius while treating Eric and Erin.

It was decided that the twins should be separated to prevent backsliding in treatment because of codependency, and this separation lasted nearly 5 years. Discovery over the first year showed that the further they were apart physically, the more distressed and violent they became. When in rooms next to each other, both slept easily even though they never seemed to communicate. Both went through their days nearly identically, with similar habits and preferences. But as the year past and they were moved one room further separated from each other every month, they became more and more feral. Dr. Kirkpatrick took this as a wonderful opportunity to test the bridge between the twins, to determine if a truly psychic link existed based on proximity.

Retrieving an artifact found in the Faultline excavations by Dr. Delilah Stein, Dr. Kirkpatrick began testing a small Psionospheric Crystal on each of the twins in private therapy sessions. Research done on the crystal indicated that it was highly psychically reactive and contained the ability to turn a persons fears and anxieties against them, forcing them to compensate by eliminating their fears to survive. In small doses it had been shown to have a tremendous effect on the mentally ill much in the same way that Applied Viral Therapy works on the immune system by coercing it into producing antibodies. These tests and therapies continued in the highly payed and incredibly professional clinic until the end of 2007, when the clinic caught fire, exploded from internal pressure and killed all of the inmates and doctors on the staff. It is a wonder how Eric and Erin survived, or how they managed the unskilled and unprepared trek they would then take them to Paragon City for the first time.

Consequently, Eric and Erin Blackthorne returned to St. Martial three days after their sighting, at which time their parents James and Laura Blackthorne issued a statement to the press that they would be "stepping back from the limelight of society in order to enjoy an early retirement" in light of "their children being returned home, cured, to take over as heirs to the family business".

On January 21st 2008, MAGI issued the following threat assessment and released it directly to all news sources regarding the incident that took place on December 31st 2007 in the Faultline Reconstruction Zone.