| “ | You see, doctor, I am such a restless man. | „ |
| ~ John Amherst explaining his immortality to his doctor. |
| “ | I found the source of this sickness in the parkplatz opposite the train station. The cars had been pushed to the side, clearly at great cost to the bodies of those that pushed them, and in the center was a figure from whom the rot clearly flowed. He was sat upon a most dreadful throne, formed from a dozen, two dozen bodies mixed together like putty. Eyes staring out like horror-stricken stars twinkling in the night, and their hearts beating for all to see. A moaning came from that awful seat: voices trying to scream through things that weren’t their throat. And it is a sound I shall be glad to leave behind me when I go to my rest. | „ |
| ~ Adelard Dekker describing John Amherst's throne. |
John Amherst is a supporting antagonist of the Rusty Quill horror podcast The Magnus Archives.
He was a sadistic man, empowered by the godlike entity known as the Corruption. He possessed a form of immortality, dying on a regular basis, but always returning, allowing him to spread pain throughout history. He was known to spread various horrific paranormal diseases, finding isolated places and tormenting the inhabitants with torturous supernatural plagues of his own creation.
Appearance[]
Amherst was a tall, thin man who generally looked in his forties. He was described as having watery blue eyes, unruly dark hair, and always wore a too large brown suit. He was usually surrounded by flies.
Personality[]
| “ | He told me he had come from the concentration camps, that there were many among the Boers that shared his state, and that he longed to touch me with all that we had visited upon them. He talked of disease, putrefaction and the writhing creatures of filth. He breathlessly talked of his revelation. Then he died, as did the man who came to bury him. | „ |
| ~ Sir Frederick Treves on John Amherst. |
John Amherst was a sadistic and self-centered. He despised human beings, and enjoyed experimenting on them, seeing just how much fear and pain he could inflict before they died. He loved filth and disease, and others' disgust at it amused him, leading to him spreading it, seemingly as a way to feel superior. He was an egotist and enjoyed feeling above those without his powers, so he insisted on not seeing them as living things, but as literal building blocks he used to build a throne meant to symbolize his supremacy. He was entirely beyond empathy and had a narcissistic complex he dragged to horrific lengths.
Amherst dislike of humans was more than simply seeing them as inferior. He seemed somewhat uncomfortable with being around them when he was not torturing them. Although he showed visible joy and false politeness when surrounded by suffering, he always preyed on those he saw as weaker than himself and was prone to violent rage when defied in any way.
Biography[]
Early History[]
John Amherst's origins are unclear. It is possible that he was somehow linked to Jeffrey Amherst, the American colonist known for deliberately giving Native Americans smallpox infested blankets. He was most likely a regular human who at some point came into contact with the Corruption before the Second Boer War and was given his powers.
Amherst served in the British military during the Second Boer War, burying bodies for a field hospital. There, he met Sir Fredrick Treves, a doctor and aspiring writer. Amherst died of Typhoid suddenly one day after saluting Treves but came back to life shortly thereafter and returned the hospital two months later with a broken thigh, seeing Treves again. He was placed in a bed, but insisted on sleeping on the floor, giving the bed to other soldiers. The other soldiers who slept in his bed began dying suddenly when their wounds became infected. Eventually, Amherst's wound became lethally gangrenous, and he died and was buried again.
He once again came back from the dead, and this time when to the Boer concentration camps, where he learned more of disease than he had anywhere else, and began to spread even more disease. As he began to die of the sickness there, he returned to Treves' field hospital and told the man of the disease he had witnessed. He then died suddenly and was buried by a man who died of disease shortly thereafter.
Later Years[]
In the early 2010s, Amherst moved to Manchester and filled his new house with thousands and thousands of ants. While he was out one day, his neighbor, Laura Star, called an exterminator, Jordan Kennedy, to get rid of them. Amherst returned just as Jordan was beginning his work, and attacked the man, trying to strangle him. However, Jordan lit him on fire with a lighter, killing Amherst temporarily.
Around this time, Amherst purchased the Ivy Meadows Care Home, a state funded nursing home full of seniors with no real family. Amherst began to experiment on these people, giving them horrific diseases for his own enjoyment. Eventually, he killed a resident, and some funeral directors came to pick up the body. Amherst request the body be cremated and the ashes returned to him, but this request was not fulfilled. Around this time, Amherst became more ambitious, using disease to torturously kill most of the residents in the home. However, this got the attention of monster-hunters Trevor Herbert and Julia Montauk, who burned the place down, killing everyone inside, including Amherst temporarily.