Doctor

Doctors come in many shapes and sizes: apothecaries, shamans, field medics and more, far beyond the healer of faith. They're known for talking with their patients and treating ailments through accessible, non-magical methods, and also for invasive procedures that save lives, like surgery or helping a difficult birth. Doctors are expected to be paragons of good, bound by a code to do no harm and give their best, so it's no surprise they often see the worst of people. Moral dilemmas follow those who hand out a limited good, and temptation can easily turn a doctor into a monster.

You gain: +1 Intellect; the Battle Medicine talent; 2 ranks in Medicine and Investigation.

Starting Equipment:

• Bedroll and blanket
• 2-person tent
• Notes on your specialty
• Common clothes
• Healer's tools
• 15 gp

Feature — This Ought to Help: Choose a non-humanoid creature type: you know what helps and harms it, can extrapolate to new species, and owners of valued beasts (steeds, familiars) respect you greatly.

Field of Practice (1d6): Healers differ widely in method. Some treat everyday aches, some specialize, and some keep old traditional remedies alive. Your healer's tools look like whatever suits your field of practice. 1. Shaman (ancestral remedies), 2. Modern (family medicine), 3. Plague (humors, leeches, surgery), 4. Holistic (home remedies, acupuncture), 5. Cosmic (energies, stones, meditation), 6. Folk (poultices and brews)

Quirk (1d8)

1. All I think about is saving lives, or the lives that were lost.
2. I practice in the name of my faith, nation or clan.
3. I'm cold and calculating in every word and act, even when furious or afraid.
4. When the bodies hit the floor, my hands go to work on their own.
5. I see magical healing either as cheating or as the future partner of real medicine.
6. I'm waging a personal war on death itself.
7. The brilliance of the living body enthralls and inspires me.
8. I'm deeply involved in the medical society and love theoretical debate.

Ideal (1d6)

1. Life. I was put in this world to preserve life. Everything else comes second.
2. Oath. I swore an oath when I took up medicine, and I'll live by its every word.
3. Vigilantism. No one gets to decide who dies, or when. If the law won't stop them, I will.
4. Profit. Suffering people pay well for relief. Is it my fault the sick always come with coin?
5. Survival. We're all in this together, for better or worse. Keeping each other alive is the whole job.
6. Right. Every person deserves a chance to live, no matter who they are or what they've done.

Pledge (1d6)

1. I owe everything to my village or clan, who pooled their money to have me trained.
2. My parents pushed or encouraged me into medicine; one of them may have been a doctor.
3. My professor is the most important person in the world to me.
4. My patients are everything; losing one is like dying, over and over.
5. I became a healer because someone close to me died of something treatable.
6. I taught myself from texts I got hold of by my own means.

Flaw (1d6)

1. I took the healer's vow without understanding everything it meant.
2. No one can know I've broken my promises before...
3. I feel contempt for many of my patients.
4. I think I'm better than other doctors, and other people in general.
5. Sometimes I go too far in my search for knowledge.
6. Human suffering frightens or sickens me.

Roll or choose one of each, then pair each with a Virtue or Vice (2 of each).

Features

This Ought to Help. Choose a non-humanoid creature type: you know what helps and harms it, can extrapolate to new species, and owners of valued beasts (steeds, familiars) respect you greatly.

Starting Equipment

• Bedroll and blanket
• 2-person tent
• Notes on your specialty
• Common clothes
• Healer's tools
• 15 gp