Etienne Corbeau was born in New Orleans, LA in 1897. Age as of 1940 43. Alias Agent Smith.

Born to a wealthy family who made their money in importing and exporting, Etienne had great tutors,
and as he got older, thanks to one of his nannies, he was introduced into the world of voodoo.
While never a full time practitioner, Etienne never the less learned what he could because it was
interesting to him. The lore, the history and the like spurred on his desire to learn other practices and
religions, and as such he learned some of Native American, the Spirtualist Movement that was
sweeping America at the time, and others. His family indulged his interests to by importing in strange
items and relics from different regions. Etienne became a member of the Autumn Society (a club made
up of spirtualists, paranormal researchers, and other well to do occultists) shortly after his 12th
birthday, becoming one of the youngest members of a Spiritualist, Paranormal and Occult organizations
in the US.
In his teens, news of the Great War reached Lousiana, and Etienne knew from listening to local talk
and his parents that the US would eventually be drawn into what was a horrific war. At 17 (1914),
Etienne signed up for service in the US Army. Two years into his service (1916), he was transferred to a
new unit to serve as an infantry man and special advisor role with a clandestine company - L Company
(company patch is a lighthouse), known by the other men as the Spook Lights - thanks to his years as a
researcher into the spiritualist realms.
The new units purpose was to find and eliminate supernatural threats from the enemy. Reports had
been coming into the US government for some time about strange happenings of a non-normal nature,
and this new unit was created to deal with those threats should the US join the war in Europe - which it
did shortly thereafter when Etienne was 20 in 1917.
Etienne spent most of his time in Europe with the Spook Lights in Project Firelight following rumors
of the supernatural and fighting occult menaces from within the enemies ranks - including sometimes
authentic monsters. Moving from PFC to Sargeant during his time overseas in the War, Etienne retired
from the service a few years after the war even though the war had ended in 1918. By his retirement at
the disbanding of L Company (1920), only 13 out of the original 80 members had survived.
It was shortly after his retirement, Etienne was approached by some men from the US Government
about joining an agency created by Woodrow Wilson during the War - the Bureau of Paranormal
Investigation and Monitoring. Agents are known as Watchers - typically in the field, they use the alias
Agent Smith. It is the agency's job to monitor and if needed, eliminate paranormal threats from any
source man or monster to the US while on domestic soil.
By the 1940s, Agent Corbeau has been a field agent for over a decade, and has dealt with everything
from charletans mascarading as monsters, to actual monsters. Part of his job entails finding and
cultivating new talent for the Bureau, a task he does not take lightly. This also allows him to monitor
practioners of the stranger arts should they become a threat as well.
From his time in the Spook Lights, Etienne carries with him a flask engraved with his company's patch
on it (a lighthouse), his service 1911 engraved with L Company and their nickname, and an ornate
glyph covered trench lighter made from strange bullet casings he with his company found in an
abandoned castle that the Ottomans had occupied while trying to summon a nightmarish creature to
wipe out the Allied Powers. Whenever he uses the lighter, the flame always burns with a black and gray
flame, regardless of fuel used. It also never seems to run out of flint or wick.