Gustaf Karlssen

Gustaf Karlssen, later also known as Hjarna, was a Swedish lieutenant in the international crime empire of Henry Maurice Allard. He ran his operations in the slums of Stockholm and beyond out of his cramped and crummy rundown inn in Sodermalm, acquiring both considerable autonomy and respect. Quite what went wrong after that remains unclear, but at some point after Allard's disappearance, Gustaf went to ground, leaving his inn to his son Erik (who promptly turned it into a hangout for wannabe left-wing revolutionaries) and pursuing a newly found interest in the occult.

Following the emergence of Schwarzmeer in 1914, Gustaf has resurfaced as well, after a fashion, becoming one of his first new servants that were not bound to him by blood. Though a mediocre ritualist, his connections, criminal knowhow and persistent lust for power made him an ideal lieutenant for the mad magician, who gave him the means to transform himself into Hjarna - the Brain, a grotesquely huge human head on spider legs endowed with the unique ability to control those marked with his brand, turning all but the most willful - or fateful - of his victims into powerless puppets.

Setting up shop in the tunnels created by the Underminers, Hjarna positioned himself as the foremost of Schwarzmeer's servants in Stockholm, serving him with true fervour and pride, boosted by the promise of power and immortality. However, either the transformation or old age had warped Hjarna's once keen intellect... or perhaps he was simply never cut out to command what he increasingly thought of as an army. His arrogance, poor judgement and lack of subtlety earned him the contempt of Schwarzmeer's other agents in Stockholm, especially Ms. Rivka, who arrived to take charge of the local Black Sea Shipping Company branch. As the rivalry escalated, Hjarna grew increasingly desperate to impress his master through some grand victory. To that end, he hoarded as many of his artifacts as he could find and conducted brute force experiments on his thralls, to mixed effect.

Matters came to a head with the arrival of the Saint Haven Team. Although initially concerned with fellow crime lord Anthony Starks, Hjarna soon saw a chance to prove himself once and for all by killing Lin Tsao, who had just survived an attack orchestrated by Ms. Rivka. However, his own attempt to bring down Lin and his confederates in the Battle of Saint Haven was a costly catastrophe that literally drove his forces underground once more, as they not only failed in their task with heavy casualties but also finally drew the attention of the Swedish military. The next blow to him was struck by El Gancho, who inadvertently revealed the hidden tunnels and made Hjarna butt heads with the Communist militia and the Underminers.

A cornered rat, Hjarna recalled all his remaining forces to defend the tunnel and attempted to use the accumulated Schwarzmeer-related artifacts and substances for a summoning ritual, not seeming to realise that Schwarzmeer may be less than pleased by being summoned. Independently of each other and sometimes by sheer coincidence, the Centurions stormed his underground stronghold, meeting up with each other and with their enemy in the "Skull", the heart of his entire enterprise. After a grueling battle in which most of Hjarna's armies were destroyed, he narrowly managed to complete the ritual... only to be immediately executed for senselessly wasting his resources and his master's time. That was the end of Hjarna.