Post by NPC1 on Nov 7, 2007 16:27:58 GMT -5
The Asylum is named after Elizabeth Arkham, founder Amadeus Arkham's mother. The original name of the asylum is Arkham Hospital. Its dark history began in the early 1900s when Arkham's mother, having suffered from mental illness most of her life, committed suicide. (It is later revealed that she was actually euthanized by her son, which his mind repressed.) Amadeus Arkham decided, then, as the sole heir to the Arkham estate, to remodel his family home (known as Mercey Mansion) in order to properly treat the mentally ill, so others might not go untreated and suffer as his mother had. Prior to the period of the hospital's remodeling, Arkham treated patients at the State Psychiatric Hospital in Metropolis, where he and his wife, Constance, and daughter, Harriet, had been living for quite some time.
Upon telling his family of his plans, they moved back to his family home to oversee the remodeling. While there, Arkham received a call from the police notifying him Martin "Mad Dog" Hawkins — a serial killer referred to Arkham by Metropolis Penitentiary while at State Psychiatric Hospital — had escaped from prison, and sought his considered opinion on his state of mind.
On April 1, 1921, Arkham returned to his home to find his front door wide open. Inside, he discovered the raped and mutilated bodies of his wife and daughter in an upstairs room, Hawkins having carved his nickname on Harriet's body.
Despite this family tragedy, the Elizabeth Arkham Asylum for the Criminally Insane officially opened that November. One of its first patients was Martin Hawkins, whom Arkham insisted on personally treating. On April 1, 1922, after treating Hawkins for six months, Arkham strapped him to the electroshock couch and purposely electrocuted him. The death was treated as an accident but contributed to Arkham's gradual descent into madness, which he began to believe was his birthright. Eventually, Arkham was institutionalized in his own hospital, where he eventually died.
To date, the current director of Arkham Asylum is the original director's nephew, Dr. Jeremiah Arkham.
NOTICE: As a villain, you may choose whether or not you are incarcerated at Arkham. A villain need not begin their posts here, but be aware that you may end up as one of its inmates.