The Haunted Doctor

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"I fear it was my training that let me see the world for what it was - its corpus infested by malignancies with human faces. How could I dare face Hippocrates in the hereafter if I just stood by and did nothing?"[1]

The Haunted Doctor is a doctor and former revolutionary, originally from the Surface. He gave one of his eyes to the spider-council at the Observatory in exchange for knowledge;[2] the visions the council shared with him led to his joining the ranks of London's anarchists.[3] For years, he believed the Liberation of Night was the only path forward,[4] and developed a misanthropic outlook that led him to begin his work as an assassin.[5]

At the same time, the Doctor gradually gained repute in his medical career, and he took several opportunities to kill patients whom his allies wanted disposed of.[6] Eventually, he was ordered to kill March[7] of the Calendar Council, who was already a regular patient of his.[8] This caused a crisis of faith, leaving him a lost soul with not much sense of purpose;[9] he now throws himself headlong at any cause he deems just, even at the expense of those around him.[10]

References[edit | edit source]

  1. ↑ Ask about his medical career, Sunless Sea
  2. ↑ The Haunted Doctor shrinks from a sorrow-spider, Sunless Sea "Have you visited the Observatory, where they nest? [...] It was a full year I found myself there, with the Lady. She wrapped me in silk and her children kept me warm. She gave me her sight, and all she asked in return was my eye." [Editor's note: You can recruit the Doctor from Saviour's Rocks, but he implies he went there on his own, in search of his eye.]
  3. ↑ The Haunted Doctor shrinks from a sorrow-spider, Sunless Sea "It was a dream I can not call a nightmare, yet one I woke from with shivers and a revelation. If it is in light that such sorrow breeds, only in darkness could there be hope. In the Liberation of Night, I believed I saw hope for us all."
  4. ↑ Chat about politics, Sunless Sea "It's true: I fell in with - restless elements. The usual reasons, of course. Watching the Bazaar devour London, year by year. The iniquities of the rich and the pities of the poor. But more than that - [...] I thought the city was safer in the dark."
  5. ↑ Ask about his medical career, Sunless Sea "If two drops of medicine can cure the body, could two drops of poison cure the world? For a moment, it actually seemed that easy."
  6. ↑ Invite him to drink with you, Sunless Sea "[...] the Haunted Doctor talks candidly [...] of a status that allowed him to the bedsides of many of London's most infamous, and the black medicine bag that carried the tools of both his trades - doctor, and anarchist-poisoner. "I was a fool," he adds. "[...] drinking in the rhetoric of the Calendar Council, thinking myself more than a mere poisoner. What I did, I do not regret. Would though that I had seen their true hearts before giving myself so freely to perdition.""
  7. ↑ The Mysteries Revealed, Again, Failbetter Games "What happened to the working man's friend? [...] The Haunted Doctor/Calendar Council killed him."
  8. ↑ Drink with the Doctor, Fallen London "I offered my medical skills to the Liberation. I healed society – by killing, permanently, those I tended. [...] One day, they ordered me to treat a member of the Council. His religion conflicted with his politics, and since I was already seeing him for headaches, they— [...] He offered me his shilling coffee every time I visited. Maybe his politics were unwise, but – I owed him better."
  9. ↑ Haunted Doctor, Sunless Sea ""I was a fool," he adds. "A child. Just a boy on a crusade, drinking in the rhetoric of the Calendar Council, thinking myself more than a mere poisoner. [...] It is a disappointment I well deserved. [...]""
  10. ↑ Demand an explanation, Sunless Sea ""Why would a man throw a life-preserver to a drowning child?" The Determined Doctor looks up, revolutionary fervour in his eye. "You were not there, or you would know! Our only salvation is in anarchy... in burning London, bringing down the Khanate, in sealing the Cumaean Canal! Taking back what is ours! They understand that. In the Shadow, they understand.""
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