The Embalmer

Pale, bug-eyed, ebon-haired, and portly, William Moody, son of the local undertaker, was a social outcast from the start. He knew little other than teasing and bullying, except for the happy moments spent with his father learning the intricacies of the family trade firsthand amongst the quiet, unjudging dead. Even after inheriting the business and be­coming one of the most skilled and respected members of his profession, he found himself still shunned as a filthy handler of the dead, and ridiculed behind his back as “Weird Willy.” This exclusion made the lonely Moody all the more fascinated by death, and resentful of the living.
When a clumsy widow recoiled from a reassuring touch on the hand meant to ease her bereavement, she toppled his beloved father’s urn and scattered his ashes, and with that, Moody could endure no more from the living. He vowed to use the tools and methods of his trade to make himself wealthy at the expense of the society that mocked him, using its own foolish dread of the grave to teach it some respect. Calling himself the Embalmer and backed by his criminal “Pals,” Moody em­barked on a decades-long spree of ghoulishly themed robberies. Now well into middle-age, the Embalmer shows no signs of slowing down. He’s weirder and more audacious than ever, robbing graves and reading Poe in the cemetery at midnight, having the time of his life surrounded by the dead.

Physical Description

Specialized Equipment

The Embalmer is in better physical con­dition than he appears, and with his skill and training can more than hold his own in a fistfight. He employs a variety of wea­ponized undertaker’s gadgets created by his monomaniacal genius, such as his customized Hearse and folding coffin traps. Moody’s years as a supervillain make him a formidable criminal mas­termind, and a surprisingly good gang leader.

Mental characteristics

Intellectual Characteristics

Moody’s behavior is as weird and creepy as his ap­pearance. His every statement—delivered in a high-pitched lilt and punctuated by baleful moans—makes overly-cheery references to death or dying. Despite being comfortable with macabre things like corpses and grave­yards to a disconcerting degree, Moody himself does not kill unless there is no other alternative. Death, he believes, has its own designs, and murder presumptively in­terferes with them—something Moody feels mortals are unworthy of doing.

Social

Contacts & Relations

Moody is assisted by “His Pals,” a gang of loyal hired henchmen which accompanies him on every caper.
During his long career, Moody has battled both the second and third Ravens, as well as Foreshadow. On occasion, his schemes have unearthed some evil mystic entities, drawing the attention of Adrian Eldrich and Lantern Jack.