Name: Pox, Surgeon Prince of the Apothecaries
"Wait, don't let the mask fool you! I'm actually really nice! Really! I can prove it! Age: 20
Height: 5'10
Weight: 212 lbs
167 lbs Without Gear
Class: Wizard (See below)
Race: Human
Weapons & Equipment: Apothecary Encounter Suit - This is the uniform of a true Apothecary of the Guild. These enchanted leathers riddled with attachments, hinges, and tubes allow for its wearing to work in any fundamentally toxic environment, rending them immune to the effects of gas, spores, and other foulness. Additionally, the suit actually pierces the wearers skin with tubes that circulate the blood through various enchantments and filters, which flushes the system constantly, rending the wearer immune to hostile poisons and diseases. Indeed certain entrance ports allow the wearer to freely inject other drugs for enhancement and healing, but other methods simply fail. Most amazingly is that the suit repairs itself after damage, though this is mostly for the convenience and safety of their wards. The bird mask is part of the suit and can be opened slightly for eating purposes.
The Apothecary's Martial Arms - Apothecaries are expected to get into dangerous situations, and sometimes the best way to keep their clients from harm is to remove it. Darts (12), Simple fire (2), smoke (5), or choking (2) Grenades, and Knives (4) are their main defenses. Light, fast, and capable of being poisoned if need be (Currently has about 12 doses of a paralytic venom). Pox himself keeps a crossbow (15 Bolts) as well, for long distance problems.
Field Surgeon Pack - Sutures, Bandages, Scalpels, Salves, Disinfectants, and Leeches. Everything the bleeding body needs!
Alchemists Kit - For all your chemistry and potion making needs.
Camping Gear - Lanterns, rope, tent, and a bed sack. Its a real wonder how he's able to move around.
Skills and Abilities: Pox's expertise is specifically in the realms of the medical arts. Healing Magic, Enhancement Drugs, Curing Potions, Medical Devices and Techniques, all are taught, practiced, refined, and utilized. Indeed, the Apothecary Guilds believes itself the pinnacle of modern doctoring. Having a brilliant natural and progressive mind himself, Pox is essentially a poster boy to this ideal.
Pox's magic is centered almost exclusively into the purview of Life, Enchantment, Entropy, and Death as the spells that deal with biology and chemistry touch on these magical disciplines. He can heal at a distance, curing light wounds and drawing poison from a victims pores, but actually potions and medical techniques are necessary for more mortal injuries, with magic coming to help the wound heal quicker once the victim is stabilized. Indeed, he is more likely to use alchemy and his mind for problem solving than any simple trick. Indeed he is actually quite brilliant when it simply pertains to factual knowledge. He has always been curious, and always eager to see how things work which has served him well in the past.
He also knows a useful arcana spell of telekinesis. Without a nurse to aid him, he sometimes needs to do several small things at once. There are no excuses for being too slow and not having help when lives are on the line.
Despite all this, Pox is no warrior. He received training to be a combat medic, but in terms of raw skill he'd rather not hurt anyone if he didn't have to. His tactics would be setting off a smoke bomb and legging it to a more advantageous position, maybe cursing an aggressor with coughing fits in the process. Pox knows of particularly damaging curses and afflictions he can wrought on an enemy's body, but again, last resorts and sticks to strictly non-lethal options. A sleeping, vomiting, or paralyzed enemy is a defeated enemy.
Additionally as actual, formal training, Pox is expected to lead the Apothecaries one day when he comes of age, and part of his job functions are to act as mediators to nobility. Pox is expected to uphold any culture mannerisms and social protocols. Despite his monstrous attire, he can kneel and flatter, and rub elbows with the upper echelons of society. In fact, Pox enjoys this facet of his life the most, as he's a regular social butterfly.
Bio: The academies of Ispar in the icy North have a very rich variety of backgrounds and histories. Many of whom take pride in such things that their legends are known throughout. This is not always the case. The Apothecaries, the Vultures, as they are known stand for all the world to see, not on a great history, but on a great contradiction. They are terrifying images of plague and death, with rumors abound of what they hide behind their bird like masks and what goes on in their charnal houses, but they always come bearing the greatest of gifts. A life saved, and pain spared. For this reason, they are accepted, even sought after, but always kept at arms length, and the Apothecary like it no other way.
Apothecaries exist as researchers, provisioners of magical substances, undertakers, and most importantly, hired doctors for the wealthy, and quarantiners for outbreaks of plague and disease. Their skills are second to none and many a noble felt the assassins touch but walked the next day, with nary a worry save the Apothecary's growing bill. They are open, but secretive, dodging questions and neither accepting nor rejecting any accusation against them. The imagination can be a powerful deterrent. They have grown in such power that they have their own code and structure of social order. This is where Pox comes in.
Born within the Guild, he was trained from a young age to become an Apothecary, and due to his particular talent and eagerness to please his parents, was chosen to become heir to the Guild, a position always reserved for the most capable of their number. The Guild could not ask for a better student. He would never ask more than once for anything he didn't want to do, and he would never make the same mistake twice, under the consequence of traumatizing pain. Such was the effectiveness under the tutelage of the Guilds Master Chirurgeon Typhon. For the Guild, there was no such thing as special treatment, even for nobles; only special training.
Through grit, intellect, and various chemical enhancements (and dependencies) he managed to live up to the lofty expectations of his family and guild, with the forgivable side effect of OCD, Neurosis, and potentially self harming phobias when when it came to the details and success. The ends always justified the means afterall, and the Apothecaries always did have a results first mentality. And with that, his final test had just begun, a decade long quest as a fully fledged Apothecary out in the field. He was expected to gain clients, acquire fame, favors and fortune, uncover arcane secrets, and come home to take his mantle as leader of the Guild with years of experience under his belt.
However while he is only two years into his task, the Apothecaries would be remiss to find out just how unlike them Pox really is. Out from under their cruel thumb, Pox had learned just how effective a caring bit of bedside compassion could work more wonders than any draught or pancea. Pox learned to love people. Helping them, healing them, always willing to surround himself with those that may look upon him with fear and always trying to show them that there is nothing to fear. Still, he is an Apothecary, and thus still has a task to do and secrets to keep, thus as eccentric and opens he seems, Pox will avoid things about himself or his Guild, dodging the question or coming up with an explanation that seems a little too practiced to be taken at face value. There is no way he could abandon his own family... could he? The more he speaks, he teaches, he discovers, he becomes painfully more aware of just how isolated he is from the rest of the world, a world he can only see through lenses, and touch through thick leathers. His own kind only wants expectations from him, and the rest of the world wants him far far away. What is the poor prince to do?
Keep smiling. Everything will be okay if he just keeps working at it... Just keep smiling.
vietmyke