Jake Osborn

No one paid much attention to Jake Osborn in school. He was a quiet intellectual, enjoying creative writing, secret agent films, comic books and studying the higher sciences. He also had an unusual hobby: building gadgets and devices to imitate the gimmicks used in the spy movies he loved. His creativity and sharp mind allowed him to produce interesting variations on wristwatches, belts and computer equipment. By the time he reached college, his house was littered with interesting gadgets ranging from a two-way radio miniaturized to fit inside his glasses frames to a toaster oven disguised as a dictionary.

Jake was attending a lecture given my his father, physicist Dr. Steven Osborn, on the current standing of nuclear physics at Ihuu University in Attenz when he met an individual that changed his life forever. An wealthy eccentric named George Manor was attending the lecture, and overheard Jake discussing with his father the ramifications of newly developed miniaturized nuclear power plants in great detail. George engaged the two in conversation, and found the young Jake to be incredibly well versed in modern science and its potential uses. He was even more impressed when Jake showed him some of his contraptions, and shared his own plans for a self-cleaning and maintaining robotic solar panel, designed to attend to its own upkeep while providing clean power to a distant settlement from the deep desert.

Over the next few months, Jake kept in touch with George while continuing to occupy his spare time with new technological wonders. Now and then George would present him with a new concept or blueprint, and ask Jake if, given proper funding, he could build it. Jake succeeded nearly every time. It wasn't long before George invited Jake to his home in the neighboring country of Ylelon, where Jake's adventure really began.

His first great shock was meeting Sullivan, the state-of-the-art robotic majordomo of the eponymous George Manor. Jake had read all the articles about the advancements of robotics and artificial intelligence, but nothing had ever prepared him to meet a mechanical woman that could have a full conversation with him.

Shock followed shock when George introduced Jake to the other inhabitants of George Manor. They were an odd gathering of individuals with a sole purpose: the defense of Ylelon and its people from an invader dedicated to their destruction. The real upset came when Jake saw firsthand what the invaders were: creatures of myth and legend, beings who by their very nature defied the laws of conventional science. George made Jake an offer: join the Lonely Winds and provide them with the use of his talents as an inventor in return for an unlimited supply of raw materials and the most advanced working components money could buy. The rest is history.