Name: Tyrell Nichols
Gender: Male
Hair color: Shaved Bald (originally black)
Eye color: Brown
Height: 6'4“
Weight: 201lbs
Clan: Mekhet
Covenant: Invictus
Sire: Cole Mckennas
Apparent Age: 26
Favored Weapons: Paired Beretta Px4s, M4 carbine
Vehicle: Cadillac Escalade

Biography:

Tyrell Nichols was born to a lower class family in Queens, NY. His father abandoned his family when he was five, and his mom worked two dead end jobs just to put food on the table for him and his siblings. Ty wanted to rise above his family's squalor, but didn't think many options were open to him. He didn't think he was smart enough to be a doctor or lawyer. And while he was reasonably athletic, even he knew he could never have a career in the pros no matter how hard he tried. He could go the route of criminal enterprise, but he saw the fate of the thugs and junkies in his neighborhood- sooner or later they ended up in jail or dead.

Ty decided he would apply to the police academy after he graduated high school. This wasn't out of any sense of justice. To him, the police was just another gang, albeit a more powerful one with badges and more resources than the two bit punks on the street. After a year or so on the force, he caught the eye of Lt. Franklin Bishop, head of a special Narcotics unit with an impressive record known as “The Crew”. Of course, the reality was that the Crew were on the take.

Ty was in the Crew for only a short while when the unit ran into some bad luck and was disbanded. It all started when they got a new recruit, Jasmine Ortega. The young Latina officer was partnered with Ty and the two became fast friends, then lovers. The problem was, she was actually Internal Affairs, working to bring the Crew down. As she continued her investigation, Ty began to grow suspicious of her behavior, but he chose to confront her first rather than going to Bishop. Jasmine denied things at first, but as Ty continued to press, she revealed she was IA and asked for his help. Ty refused, saying that they weren't hurting anyone really, except the bad guys, and they deserved a few kickbacks for fighting on the front lines of the drug war every day. They had a heated argument with her promising to take him down, and him telling her he was going straight to Bishop. Unbeknownst to them, Bishop had surveillance on all of them, and their argument had revealed to him Jasmine's true nature.

Ty spent the night mulling over what he was going to do at the local bar, and was nursing a hangover when he got a call that something had happened to Jasmine. He quickly rushed to her apartment. The investigators on scene told Ty her roommate found the body this morning, and tried to stop him from entering because “he didn't need that image in his head”. But Ty went in anyway, and was horrified at the gruesome scene- Jasmine was tied naked and spread eagle to her bed, bloody and bruised, repeatedly stabbed and her throat cut, and apparently raped and sodomized.

Ty knew it was the Crew, even though evidence pointed to a couple small time thugs with a supposed grudge against Jasmine. When Ty confronted Bishop about it, the corrupt squad leader told him that he knew Jasmine was IA and she had to be punished for her betrayal. While Ty acted like he grudgingly accepted this, Bishop began to worry that young man would betray the unit. This would lead to Ty's first brush with the world of the undead. The Crew decided to take Ty out during a drug house raid and make it look like he died in the line of duty. Ty managed to escape, despite both sides gunning for him, and took refuge with some clean cops and paramedics who arrived on the scene. When the smoke cleared, the police “won”, having seized millions of dollars in cash and drugs, but Ty's unit were all dead. The cartel Bishop was in bed with had ties to the First Estate, and the continued investigation of the unit made the Invictus think the Crew were becoming a liability. The Mekhet Cole Mckennas had been monitoring the situation on the Inner Circle's orders, and when Bishop and his men failed to kill Ty, the Archon decided to fix the situation by killing them instead.

In the aftermath, while IA knew Ty and the rest of the Crew were crooked, they had no way to prove it. And the raid was in all the papers. The brass didn't want such a well-publicized bust tainted with scandal. So they reluctantly gave Ty a commendation, and the rest of his unit were buried with honors. A new Narcotics unit was being formed, but the brass didn't want him in it. So Ty was transferred out. He wanted homicide, but there were no openings. Instead, he got sex crimes. Unfortunately, this took a heavy toll on him psychologically, the horrors he saw constantly reminding him of Jasmine's grisly fate and turning him into a sexual sadist.

Ty's human life soon came to an end while working a case involving sexually tortured and ensanguinated corpses. The investigation led him to a sex club in Manhattan and a perverted vampire named Seth, though Ty was unaware of Seth's unliving status. Seth was being watched by the Invictus for his flouting of the rules, his activities close to revealing the world of vampires to the public. But he also had the favored daughter of one of the members of the high council governing NY under his sway, so they could make no move against him for fear of what he might do to her. Her name was Talia, and her sire, Dominus, was unwilling to move against Seth while he still had her at his side. But Seth was getting bolder, and soon the Invictus would have to act. Cole and his men were tasked with finding an opportunity to take Seth out without Talia being harmed. Ty's upcoming capture would prove to be the chance they were looking for.

Entering the club, Ty was soon seduced by Talia. After an hour of so of passionate sex, which Talia particularly enjoyed, he succumbed to the poison she had slipped him during their love making session. He was taken to Seth and the two were left alone while Seth brutally beat and tortured Ty. Midway through the torture session, Ty managed to break free from his bonds and assaulted the vampire. The much stronger Seth easily threw Ty aside, shattering the wooden chair the human had been tied to. The vampire paid little heed to the escape attempt, not even bothering to call in his guards now that his victim was loose. Seth's overconfidence would end up being his downfall. Ty had managed to get hold of one of the broken chair legs while Seth was busy taunting him and stabbed the vampire in the heart with it. As Seth went into torpor, his ghouls finally responded to the commotion and mortally shot Ty.

Luckily for Ty, Cole and his men were already in the club, observing, when they responded to the commotion. They quickly subdued Talia and took out Seth's minions, taking Seth's staked body to be presented for punishment. Cole had been impressed with Ty's tenacity and ability to fight and survive against a dozen or more armed men all gunning for him during the drug house raid, and again here when he managed to overcome a powerful vampire on his own. So, Cole saved the dying young man by turning him and offered himself as mentor. The transformation was a “rush” for Ty, and he relished the newfound sense of power he felt.

With Seth destroyed, Talia was freed from his control. The young blonde took a liking to Ty, and the two began having an affair. Dominus, a man from a different generation, would never approve of such a relationship, and would probably kill them both if he found out. That was part of the thrill for Talia, but Ty was oblivious to the danger. Cole suspected that Ty, like many newly turned, confused immortality with invincibility. The Mekhet saw a lot of potential in Ty, and not wanting to see that potential destroyed, tried nipping the situation in the bud by sending his protege to Atlanta to work for the Invictus there. Little did the Archon know that Dominus was aware of the affair, and that the elder had gone outside of the Invictus to have Ty taken out.

Ty's experience before he was turned combined with the mentoring he received from Cole made him a very useful enforcer and investigator for the Invictus in Atlanta. He soon garnered a reputation as a cold and callous killer with more than a few deviant and perverse proclivities. When Constantin Shaw “defected” to the Carthians near the end of the Millenium, The Prince personally tasked Ty with killing the traitor and in a way that could not be traced back to the Invictus. Viktor suspected his Archon at the time, “Colonel” Daniel Ducane, was sympathetic to Constantin and could not trust him with the task.

Although Constantin had publicly joined the Carthians, in reality, he had secretly thrown his lot in with the Brotherhood of the Scion. Using a combination of Constantin's inside knowledge of the Invictus, moles put in place by the Colonel, and a special girl they had kidnapped named Brittney, the Brotherhood began secretly taking out members of the Invictus. With the help of Julian Astor III, a paladin of the Lancea Sanctum, and the out of towner Fi Delorme, who had been looking for Brittney, the Brotherhood's plan was thwarted and Brittney rescued. In a strange twist of fate, Brittney had been part of the assassination plot against Tyrell. The organization to whom she and Fi belonged, the VII, were the ones contacted by Dominus to take Ty out. While Fi was unaware of any such plot, Brittney knew the full details, as she was supposed to use her special abilities to track Ty down and lead his killers to him. However, as thanks for rescuing and protecting her, and for helping Fi and Brittney “disappear” and leave the VII, Brittney instead warned Ty of the assassination plot, which never came to fruition.

In the aftermath of the Brotherhood of Scion's campaign against the Invictus, Ty quickly rose through the ranks. After The Colonel's mysterious disappearance and Tyrell's role in the defeat of the Brotherhood, Ty was promoted to Archon. With the depletion of the Invictus' ranks, and not knowing who among his predecessor's men he could trust, he gathered his own group of ghouls to serve as his strike force whenever a threat against the Invictus (or the rest of the vampire society in Atlanta) would emerge. On occasion, he has procured the services of Scott Kavanaugh to help him with his duties.

Given that the upper echelons of the First Estate have long been comprised (especially in the capital of the Southland) predominantly of those of Caucasian descent, Tyrell's appointment was somewhat controversial, particularly to those vampires who still put stock in things such as race. There are those who would say he only got the position because of the losses suffered by the Invictus and being in the right place at the right time. And then there are others who view him as an Uncle Tom, as he seems to consort almost exclusively with “white folks”. Not that any of these people would say any of this to his face.

In any case, Ty finds the Atlanta Invictus to be far less stuffy than the covenant's counterpart in New York. He likes the current Prince's style of rule, allowing Ty a great deal of freedom in his nocturnal activities. The Archon, for his part, never lets his “hobbies” interfere with his duties or threaten the masquerade. He enjoys his place in the Invictus, and doesn't think he would have risen as far as he had if someone else were Prince. As such, he's pretty loyal to Viktor and is very protective of his reign.