Born to Jewish American parents Anna and Joseph Isaac on 3rd March 1891. His father worked as a coachman, ferrying customers between the port and inner city of New Orleans. A slightly willowy and vaguely effeminate looking man, his body had some impressive scarring sustained during an accident as a teenager where he became trapped in a burning building. His unemployed mother was a plain looking woman with a bookish nature who enjoyed reading pulp adventure stories and who was a keen scuba diver. Nathan had a fraternal twin brother, Caleb, who unfortunately suffered with mental health, mainly clinical depression.

Nathan lost his parents at the age of 6, when Anna accompanied Joseph on one of his coach runs and the coach overturned, killing them both. Caleb and Nathan were then raised by their Aunt and Uncle. Aunt Emma was a kind and gregarious woman with several close friends. She had unfortunately lost her left eye as a child and despite her apparently cheerful aspect suffered somewhat with bipolar disorder. She worked in a local clothes factory and in her spare time offered up her services as a maid and cleaning lady. This side of her career actually took off so well that eventually she gave up her factory job and ran her own maid and cleaning service which gave the family enough wealth for both Nathaniel and Caleb to be sent off to university.

Uncle Edward was quite a few years older than Emma and was an ex 3rd Class Petty Officer in the Navy. An overweight man who had a serious demeanor and unusually webbed fingers. Behind closed doors he exhibited a sadomasochistic nature that fortunately only exhibited itself during romantic trysts with their aunt and never turned into actual violent behavior towards her or the two boys.

Caleb studied religion at university whilst Nathan studied Archaeology. During his studies Caleb fell in with a monaethestic cult that made him withdraw from society. He was to emerge a few years later after escaping a mass suicide organised by the cult leader. At that point he had also developed delusional psychosis as well as Quiotism and was committed to an asylum where he remains to this day.

Nathaniel had a keen interest in ancient Egypt and travelled there as part of his studies. Becoming fascinated by the Egyptian religion and their skills with astronomy. This also gave him an interest in astronomy himself.

By the age of 24, Nathaniel had graduated and was offered a place at the university as a lecturer on ancient Egypt. He also was responsible for organising field trips for the archaeology department. It was on one of these field trips that he managed to save the life of one of his foreign students, a Chinese woman by the name of Nuwa Zhejiang and five years younger than him. He prevented her from falling down a shaft during an exploration of one of the pyramids near Saqquara. The pair became close friends after that and embarked on one of the new "trial" marriages that were becoming fashinable in the U.S. on July 3rd 1916 (a year later). The following year Nuwa gave birth to a baby girl, Sying. The pair remained "married" for 4 years but because both Nathaniel and Nuwa lead busy lives that often took them to different corners of the world, they eventually underwent an amicable seperation in 1921 with Nuwa retaining custody of Sying. Despite the separation, Nathaniel and Nuwa remain good friends and he dotes on his daughter whenever he has time to visit her.