Hayden Montag

"I presided as Innsmouth's headmaster over a run of good form for fifteen years. Naturally there have been the usual accidents, maiming, well within accountable risks. As I would tell parents, before I was retired from the reparation committee, "You can not vivisect a ghoul without breaking a few legs."."

- Hayden Montag

Hayden Montag is a contact in the M.M.O. The Secret World, he is head of the Innsmouth Academy in Solomon Island, Maine. Montag is a licensed professor, medical doctor and anthropologist. Though in truth Hayden's greatest skills lay in his expertise in all things magical and occult. Montag is a member of the Illuminati and appears to be sociopathic, however Montag looks out for others to the point of being wiling to sacrifice his own life, not for moral reasons but rather for practicality sake in the face of the disasters that face Solomon Island and his beloved academy of Innsmouth in particular.

Innsmouth Academy
Innsmouth Academy was founded in the early 1700s on the Savage Coast district of Solomon Island in Maine U.S.A.. The founders of the institution were all Illuminati, a secret society dedicated to the pursuit of power for it's members. The Illuminati founded the academy to train the children of it's members in the ways of magic. Over time the academy opened it's doors to even non-Illuminati legacies, publicly this was spun as a form of equal-opportunity, not wishing to cater to the wealthy elite for the finest in education, but in truth the policy was reformed to allow the Illuminati to get there hands on students with natural gifts for magic. Students are taken in and given a full education in math, science, literature, anthropology, biology, necromancy, animation, demonology golemetry and many other occult subjects in addition to the more standard forms of education. Students are all brought to the attention of the Illuminati and the teaching staff all groom their students for placement in the secret society. By the time student graduate, they have been immersed in the Illuminati mind-set, contacted and given cryptic but tantalizing offers to their dream careers if they join the sponsors of the institution. Those that turn down the Illuminati are turned away, blacklisted and the organization wipes their hands of them entirely.

The Solomon Island disaster
In the year 2012 a strange fog hit Solomon Island. A fishing ship called the Lady Margret had stumbled upon a ancient treasure out at sea, a glowing golden sword (Excalibur), long sine lost to antiquity after a battle at sea with cursed sea demons called the Draug. The fisherman Joe Slater saw the treasure and fished it out of the sea, as the crew sailed back to Solomon Island it brought with them the sword and unbeknownst to them at the time, a horrible curse. The Sword brought with it the deep sea fog the Draug lived in and so the demons followed the sword to shore. Slater along with the rest of the crew were all going mad from being at the forefront of the curse and the sword was confiscated from them, it was decided to bring the sword to Innsmouth for further study. The staff immediately recognized the sword was cursed and quickly placed wards on it and locked it away for the good of all. Despite the best efforts of the staff the curse had already taken hold of the island and the fog was not letting up. In the fog the Draug began to propagate. The Draug kill and reanimate people as part of their reproduction cycle and using some of the corpses as incubators for their young and the rest as soldiers to kill more people for the process, thus with the fog Solomon Island became infested with zombies, created and controlled by the sea-demons summoned by the blade.

Innsmouth Academy was heavily warded and so teachers and students were spared from the cursed fog's call but with zombie hoards at the gates, those within were trapped. A warlock named Beaumont had been searching for the sword for centuries and sensed the moment it was fished out of the sea. Beaumont used his powers to have the Draug focus on any and all who might be hiding the blade until he found it's resting place in Innsmouth. Once Beaumont arrived he broke down the gate-wards protecting the school from evil, though the innate magic of the residence still protected them from the fog's lure the gate wards were all that was keeping out the zombies, who promptly began to devours the students and staff, while Beaumont made for the Innsmouth archives to retrieve his prize.

Headmaster of Innsmouth
Most of the teaching staff fled the grounds the moment the gate wards were removed to escape the zombies, none of which survived, students were either killed or too weak to resist the fog without the wards and were called out to sea. The only two staff members willing to remain within Innsmouth were Hayden Montag and Annabel Usher, both of which managed to persuade their prized student Carter to remain inside with them. Miss Usher was the residential witch-doctor, Carter a magical prodigy and Hayden a master mystic, between the three of them they were able to keep themselves safe from the fog and destroy the zombies, though unable to do so in time to save most of the students.

The player will arrive in Innsmouth to track down Beaumont and the sword at the root of the zombie curse. Though the vault is of prime concern they may stay to attend to the safety of the academy. Hayden's primary concern is re-establishing order within Innsmouth. Montag is no stranger to slaughter, ancient curses or the undead and views the situation as just a larger scale problem than any other average magical disturbance. Montag is far more appalled at the violation of the school grounds than the lose of life. Montag will instruct the players on how to restore the ground's wards. Not simply to keep him Usher and Carter safe, but also to keep Solomon Island safe from the creatures native to the school grounds, normally kept under lock and key. The wards are merely the first of several matters that Montag means to resolve and he also wishes to prevent the school's innate magical properties from leaking evil spirits due to the fog. Montag states that the foundation of the school-buildings were actually laid with the human sacrifices inside, in order to stock-pile magic for the grounds. Montag will send the player to seal the breaches in the foundations and dispose of any angry spirits seeping out of them, the final one of which will be a wraith called Mal'un, the Accursed. Returning to Montag will reveal that several of the ghosts of teachers are wondering the halls, most of whom were assumed to have retired to the grave peacefully but who are currently being controlled by some malicious presence. Montag states that in additions to preferring his friends and predecessors were freed from spiritual enslavement that if all of them gather they could be used to reactivate an undead war golem and thus the staff had to be laid to rest to prevent Innsmouth's most feared pet monster from running wild. Attending to the ceremony will once again reveal Mal'un, the Accursed as the one controlling the spirits and focusing their efforts. Reporting to Montag once again and telling him of the wraith will grab Montag's concern. Montag realizes only a Yazidi curse could summon such a creature and as a child, just starting out in the field of magic, he had accidentally unleashed a Yazidi death curse, one which claimed the life of his a mother, neighbors and a passing couple. With the sanctity of the school grounds violated by Beaumont the wraith Montag inadvertently summoned seemed to have finally honed in on him. Montag offers his own life to remove the curse and prevent any more deaths or spiritual perversions. Usher and Carter have no intent of allowing Montag to kill himself and the player will begin preparations to complete the ceremony using a small sample of Montags blood instead, to lure the wraith out and then destroy it.

Personality
Hayden Montag appears emotionally detached to the point of demented. Hayden feels some sense of pathos for spirits perverted by black magic and is horrified at the destruction of antique magics but by-in-large feels no remorse, empathy or sorrow for the living. Montag also has an ultra literal affectation that often leads him to state some extremely macabre scenarios simply based on turns-of-phrase. Hayden is socially maladjusted and will test out social formalities and graces purely for the sake of understanding their context, as common curtsies are entirely alien to him. Though he sees maiming as a common mishap like unto scraped knees he is beyond appalled by ceremony violations, because of this, though the Illuminati kept him on as headmaster they retired him from the reparation committee to deal with angry parents. What Montag lacks in empathy or human understanding he more than makes up for in knowledge and principle. Montag will go to any length to protect his institution's legacy and his prized students such as Carter. Montag wishes to help and save all those he can, not for conscience-sake but rather just to preserve talent and knowledge.