Top Secret: The Family

Top Secret: The Family

Federal Bureau of Super-powered Affairs
***CLASSIFIED***

Much of the material herein was provided by a key government informant, Lucien “the Soulman” Melchionni entered the Witness Protection Program and was relocated to Montreal.

Harry Frost had one son, Sebastian. Harry’s wife, Sebastian’s mother, was out of the picture – presumed dead, but possibly just separated. Her identity is unknown, but Harry had a string of girlfriends through the 60s and 70s. He was known as quite the player.

Sebastian grew up hanging out in the streets of Paragon’s rougher districts. The family had money from Harry’s success in crime, but Sebastian was left on his own for long periods. There were no regular Sunday night dinners for this Mafioso family. Still, despite the distance between father and son, Sebastian looked up to and arguably idolized his father. He was a smart kid with a terrible record in school, and hung about with other street punks engaging in petty crime, rough-housing, and running errands for Harry’s friends.

Harry, it is believed, confided to his close circle that he didn’t want this lifestyle for Sebastian. He wanted something better, or at least more legitimate for his heir. But analysis suggests he either was lying to himself, or had no idea how to encourage his son in a different direction. Everything he did embellished the criminal lifestyle and he clearly reaped the rewards – respect, fear, numerous women, money, fast cars. It’s no surprise that Sebastian followed in his father’s footsteps.

What is a surprise, however, is how the path was laid out for Sebastian. He was reportedly devastated by his father’s death during a conflict with the Regulators. Sebastian reportedly once confessed that while going through his father’s things he discovered a secret room in their house, which had served as his father’s office. He found his father’s journals, a significant stash of hard currency, and a letter from his father. He also discovered a small reservoir of pure, original Superadine formula.

Sebastian claims that his father wrote expressing his hopes that Sebastian would not follow the same path, and would instead take the money and build a better, more respectable life for himself. He instructed Sebastian to destroy all traces of the drug and his criminal past, and instead “make something of his life.” Sebastian vowed to do just that, but his grief and rage twisted his father’s words.

Harry’s consigliere, Melchionni found Sebastian overdosed on nearly the entire supply of pure Superadine, but the teenager survived. Melchionni stated for the record that Sebastian gained significant super-powered abilities – super-strength, speed, and toughness at the least – although to date there have been no documented reports of Sebastian Frost using super-powered abilities (In point of fact, there are very few reports from law enforcement agencies that can even confirm that Frost is still alive let alone in charge of The Family; he has kept out of the public eye since before the Rikti War).

After his recovery, Sebastian apparently vowed to rebuild his father’s cartel into something Paragon had never seen, a veritable drug empire. He burned his father’s papers in order to purge his grief and to erase part of his past. Backed by the young Turks of his generation, and by several of his father’s key people, Sebastian visited each of the ruling bosses of the Sicilian Families and convinced them to throw in their lot with him. Sebastian was obviously clever and intelligent and Machiavellian in his ability to play dissenters off each other until the survivors all agreed that serving him as soldiers in The Family was the best – and perhaps only – solution for them.

Sebastian needed a hook, of course, to keep the many dons and underbosses aligned with him, and the best bait was money. In order to keep it rolling in, he had to reestablish the Superadine connection. He took the remainder of the pure source and hired several top drug chemists – some say these were the very scientists the Regulators uncovered behind the drug in the first place – to replicate it, and produce even greater volumes. Sebastian had once told Melchionni that his father’s journals described Superadine as the product of a US military-created soldier enhancement drug for the Second World War.

Melchionni also claimed that Sebastian ordered his chemists to create two very different strains of Superadine. There was the “pure” line, closest to the original serum, which was kept strictly for made-men of The Family. As his men earned each promotion they would be rewarded with stronger doses, increasing their super-powered abilities. His bosses are nearly as powerful as Sebastian himself.

And there was the “cut” strain, which was also much more addictive. This street version of the drug was seeded throughout several street gangs. Those who overdosed became the first of the Trolls, and some say Sebastian turned one of his childhood friends into the first Troll. This rumor is uncorroborated, however. It is clear that The Family deals to other groups like the Skulls, although how much influence The Family has over these street gangs is unclear.

PHOTOS courtesy of the Paragon Times freelance corps: Robin King (Triumph Server) by Aaron M., Wilson, MI; Lektrik (Virtue Server) by Shawn M., Pittsburgh, PA