Doc Skizzet

“Death is a condition. Conditions can be studied.”

A surgeon.
An alchemist.
A man who believes nothing is truly beyond repair.

Who He Is

Doc Skizzet is a trained physician and scholar of anatomy whose clinical demeanor rarely cracks, even in the face of horror.

Where others see monsters, he sees structure.
Where others recoil from corruption, he examines it.

He approaches Drakkenheim not as a battlefield, but as a laboratory.

Why He Came to Drakkenheim

Doc has stated, plainly and without elaboration, that he intends to meet his wife in the ruins.

He speaks of it as certainty, not hope.

He offers no further detail.

Personality

• Calm under pressure
• Analytical to a fault
• Morbidly curious
• Detached when others are emotional

Doc rarely wastes words. He prefers observation to argument, and experimentation to speculation.

Reputation (So Far)

• Knowledgeable about anatomy and preservation
• Comfortable handling contaminated material
• Unsettlingly composed around death

He has already shown interest in harvesting monster components and studying delerium’s physical properties.

Recent Developments

Frankie

Doc travels with a construct of his own making.

He calls her Frankie.

She is broadly humanoid in form, built from preserved tissue, salvaged structural components, and materials Doc declines to enumerate in public company. She does not speak. She follows him with patient, deliberate movement. When the party fights, she fights. When the party rests, she stands where Doc places her and waits.

Doc has not, in so many words, explained what Frankie is. He does not describe her as a creation. He describes her as a reconstruction. When asked directly, he tends to say only:

"The pattern persists."

Those who know that Doc came to Drakkenheim to meet his wife have begun to draw their own conclusions. Doc has not corrected them. He has not confirmed them either.

The other members of the party have, by mutual unspoken agreement, stopped asking.

A Growing Collection

Doc has continued to harvest components from the creatures the party brings down. He maintains a meticulous catalogue of what he keeps and what he discards, organized by structural integrity and contamination potential.

From the road to Reed Manor alone, his field kit returned with:

• 2 Aberrant Animus
• 1 Natural Weapon (Claw)
• 1 Hide
• 1 Spine
• 1 Aberrant Dust

The Frenzied Dreg specimens were of particular interest. He had not previously had the opportunity to study the form.

A Word for an Apprentice

At Reed Manor, while waiting for Oscar Yoren to arrive in the dining room, Doc made the acquaintance of a young hedge mage named Marco.

Doc recognized him. Marco was the one who delivered the weekly potion shipments to Shepherd's Gate. Doc had seen him at the gate twice, perhaps three times. He said as much.

"You're the delivery boy."

Marco was not, in fact, a delivery boy. He was an apprentice mage. He had been studying for nearly three years. He delivered the potions because someone had to deliver the potions.

Doc nodded, as if the distinction had not occurred to him. He did not press the point further.

Marco did not say anything else for the rest of the visit.

Named by River

When River of the Amethyst Academy described the boon she would extend to whoever recovered Oscar Yoren's research, she named Doc among the two intended candidates. The boon was the teaching of a first-level contaminated spell — Academy research, not in any commercially available spellbook, not part of any standard curriculum.

"You collect what others throw away. You'd find a use for something the Academy considers too unpredictable to teach openly."

The boon went unclaimed. The contract was not fulfilled.

But the offer was made, and the offer was made to Doc by name, and that is the sort of information that travels.

Working Backwards

Doc has been mulling the patterns of delerium — quietly working backwards from what he's observed to whatever rules sit underneath it.

The Winches

Beneath the Chapel of Saint Brenna, the undercroft doors ran on winches, and there was only one immovable rod between them. Doc took one winch and Frankie the other. They worked out the timing between them, watched the stairs, and got the party through to the Hidden Reliquary.

Four New Recipes

Back in Emberwood after the Warp Witches, Doc spent the party's long rest buried in notes and borrowed formulas. By morning he had four new recipes: Champion's Weapon, Familiar Figurine, Dazing Hammer, and Aqua Delerium. The party brewed a dose of Aqua Delerium that same night, and later traded bones, dust, and a hundred gold to Aldor the Immense for a finished Familiar Figurine.

An Honest Report

Doc and Drakzen finally climbed the Watchtower stairs to give Ansom Lang the report he'd been owed since before the Chapel — the Warp Witches, the Sceptre, all of it. Ansom took it quietly. He promised Lantern support whenever the party is ready to push into Queen's Park.

Frankie, meanwhile, keeps getting left outside Camp Dawn. The party agrees a construct walking openly among the Silver Order is a bad introduction waiting to happen.

The Meteoric Iron

Doc delivered the chunk of meteoric iron the party recovered in the ruins to Tobias Crowe. In exchange, the party has continued use of Tobias's workshop at no further cost. This first sample is for learning how the metal behaves and how to work it. Tobias thinks more of it could be made into armor and weapons for the party.

Doc also picked up a Potion of Superior Healing from Aldor the Immense, ahead of the champion fight in the pits.

Present Status

Operating from Emberwood Village alongside the others.

He has begun referring to certain technical procedures by their common-tongue names with an unusual fondness. The word amputate has come up more than once this week, and not always in clinical context. He repeats it slowly, sometimes, as though it is a word he has only recently noticed the shape of.

The party has not asked him about this.

Most recent session: Session 19 - The Queen Walked Out