The Surgeon

Fighting the Coven's worst vileness.

Written by Francesco Lanza.

"We know two things about this creature. The first is that it was here, the second that it is inhumanly tall. And here is a third thing: we must catch it, or all is lost!"

The Character

The Surgeon is a Witch Hunter, or simply a "Hunter". While apperently weak, the Surgeon is incredibly good at wounding or disposing of wounded opponents: he commands a "precision strike" that makes him the best friend of any Reiter or Austringer. He's also rated as very efficient in questioning Heretics and is a good barterer in the Market Phase. He's not very fast, especially when wounded, and like the Inquisitor, benefits very much from a good equipment.

Surgeons are not magical healers, and this character doesn't represent a learned physician or Medical Doctor who studied his art (such as it was in period) attending a great University. It's, well, more like a bonesaw enthusiast or some other lowly craftsman with a practical knowledge about what was perceived as minor ailments of the human body, like broken limbs, teeth to be pulled or boils to be lanced. Often these duties fell in the purview of the barber, but hey, maybe a real Doctor with a dutiful streak or some traitorous backstory could be found to serve His Eminent Grace (just like happens in the case of the character showcased in the short fiction below). Some of the duties of the Surgeon pertain to the fight against the Plague, which in the world of Hexerei is literally like a miasma or an influence breathed by the Coven-- which controls the very course of the stars. Life in Early Modern times could be horrible, but never horrible enough to pass a good story... Because these are just stories right?

Portrait

by Igor Krstic

by Alessandro Depaoli

Masteries

These abilities set each Hunter apart from their colleagues -- and make them worthy of the consideration of such a powerful enemy as the Coven.

Tithes

This guy knows about money. Of course, he is not gathering it from desperate communities for himself, but for the Prince-Bishop coffers, so that they will be used to fight the plague. If some of it finds the way to his pockets, well, the Surgeon is already a condemned man. He can draw from plague-ridden Regions a Treasury Die and some Common Item.

Cleanse

The surgeon knows how to stop the Plague from spreading, and it's not really a matter of healing sick people. He orders houses walled over, he burns down farms, he ships hundreds of sacks of quicklime and dozens of shovels to the survivors and he prays for the Angels to blow some of the worst away. He can spend Treasury Dice to Remove Plague Tokens, but the price is steep.

Tactics

Useful in a fight, each Witch Hunter can count on two special abilities to wreak havoc against the minions of the Coven.

Anatomy

This can make the difference: an attack that pierces armour and does increased damage. It's one per Combat, but the Surgeon will make this count.

Suture

When the Surgeon survives an encounter, he can patch himself up-- or help a colleague.

A Silent Village

“My name is Agrippa.”

The Falconer -- thus Agrippa named him in the privacy of his own head, his real name already forgotten -- watched him and sneered. Agrippa the Surgeon had just met the man, and already loathed him: such a loose-lipped cur, with those old, faded greys, and followed everywhere by the stench of that damnable raptor-bird of his. More than the reek of a chicken coop, it was so strong a smell that reminded him of an old, ill-cleaned pharmaceutical laboratory. “You just call me Agrippa, and let us keep it at that.”

He wouldn’t divulge his real name. He was the only respectable Doctor of Medicine in this rag-tag band of mercenaries, fanatics, sinners and -- God have mercy! -- barber-surgeons. His love for holiness and his blameless life had led him on this dire road, and the only thing he was left with was the dignity of secret. He wished he could run far away, but alas… Agrippa silenced his traitor thoughts. They had come upon the village.

This will be a lot of work, he thought, counting fireplaces and noticing a hovel already a-flame. Somebody had tried his hand at some useless act of containment. Since coming to this region, he had found nothing but pestilence, fear, and the undeniable touch of madness. He had seen bodies piled in ditches, white with quicklime. He had ordered building burned and walled over. He had organized supply-chains for the afflicted and held vigils among the dying. And -- he really wished he could forget that -- he had seen with his very eyes a dead man walking like the living, and the vanquishing of such an insane manifestation of the powers of Hell had cost a lot of lives. He had since given up any chance of a good night of sleep.

by Matteo Weber

Yet, his world-weariness and preparation betrayed him once they were among the huddle of rustic buildings. It would have been smarter to ask the Falconer about this beforehand, to make him tell what he had seen of such significance that it required the presence of such a man as Agrippa, but his distaste for the man had forced him to keep his own counsel, and he let the knave lead him hither. The dead were everywhere, yea, but none of them had died in a fever-begotten torpor, nor moaning about pustules and blood-heavy lungs. They had been slaughtered with abandon, a long, concerted effort at mayhem. Their heads were oft smashed-in, others were twisted in vain attempts at defence or in abject terror. Neither crow nor wolf had come to partake of this bloody banquet yet. Agrippa wandered around, accepting that such Divine Providence as was known to act here in Germany was at times awful and mysterious in its motives.

“Soldiers, and a bloody-handed lot it was indeed, would you not say? A vanguard of that avaricious and cruel King marching against us with his army of devils, maybe,” he said to the Falconer.

“Nobody escaped with his or her life, my lord the Doctor,” the knave answered, as if this meant something. And he had called him “Doctor”. This cur knew entirely too much about him for comfort.

“I can see it well that no living souls dwell here, thank you very much, but we may expect a lot of the farmers just fled when the regiment marched in. We are at war, and this place is sad. Who were these butcherers?”

“We can ask about them to those ‘survivors’ you were telling me about, sir, once we find them.” Was he actually joking?

“Then go and find them, I bid you. Torment me no more!” said Agrippa to the Falconer, annoyed. He had to go back to the city, if he cherished the slim chances he had to stop the plague in its tracks, for he was losing precious daylight among these unrelated troubles. Yet there really were no survivors. Disbelieving, Agrippa joined the search with the Falconer, but they found just a lone trail. Some desperate fool running away blindly. With a feeling of foreboding they followed, until they came upon a derelict hunting cabin in the woods. The runaway was there, but he was no survivor, such as it was. Agrippa was mostly indifferent about the miserable remains that fleeing souls left lying around, no matter the conditions, but the Falconer had lost any appetite for uppity reproach.

“Saints! Holy Virgin! What have they done to…” The knave seemed unable to finish the sentence, and swallowed, cursing. Agrippa went to the body. For long minutes he examined it, and tried to puzzle under what circumstances his life had been claimed, smelling the iron-tainted stench of clotting blood. He was brought back to the moment by the urgent mutterings of his companion.

“My lord the Doctor, you can see it on your own. This is no soldier’s work. Something evil maimed this poor man. Look, he has no more ears! And his nose a mere stub, who could do such a thing? And the belly has been cut open… This is the Devil’s work!”

“Nay, my dear Falconer. A common man was responsible for this grisly spectacle.”

“You are pulling my leg, sir, or— Did they send me a daft man? You are useless to me, my lord the Doctor, damn your bones!”

Agrippa barked a humorless laugh, and the Falconer put hand to his dussack with a growl.

“Stay your hand, dog,” said Agrippa. “Watch closely: the corpse still grips a knife. And look again, hand, blade, haft, forearm, everything is caked with blood. Come, come nearer to see it well.”

“I saw enough.”

“The wounds are self-inflicted: the handiwork of a human being, as I said. The cuts grow erratic, both at the face and the left breast. He was getting fainter, there, he had lost so much blood, and was crazy with pain and madness. Maybe somebody aided him with spilling his own guts.” Agrippa had thought himself unflappable until this moment, but he felt his speech growing heavy.

“You are mad, 'Agrippa'. And now you will tell me that all the rest killed themselves too, perchance?”

“You foolish cur.” Agrippa’s breath was labored, now. “It is not an easy feat to brain oneself from behind, like it happened to many of those farmers. Somebody -- some thing -- did that, and then came upon this man, and drove him to act against his own God-given body. How? With pure fright, mayhap. Who knows the power of this awful voice? But it was a corporeal danger, no mere ghost or presence, of this I hold proof. And yet no foot tracks, for you found none, did you?”

The Falconer stood silent for a long time, still holding his weapon. “There are none, save his and our own.” He let his arm slacken. “But how? Wouldn’t it be more useful for your cause, my Lord Agrippa, if there were nobody else to blame but this man, his insanity and his own knife?”

“You are wrong. We know two things about this creature. The first is that it was here,” Agrippa was forcing himself to speak. “The second is that it was inhumanly tall. And that it was capable of…” his voice finally failed him there, while he was turning his eyes upwards to watch. Ears, a human heart, maybe drawn out somehow from the cut in the belly. That and other unmentionable trophies, nailed to the old black wood of the cabin, almost lost among the weathered buck horns that decorated this dwelling.

“Mörderin… Mörderin… She must be still near,” said the Falconer in the low, raspy voice of stirring dreamers. Agrippa welcomed that name like he would have an axe-blow, but it chopped off his own anxiety. A word steeped in the tight-lipped fear of these farmlands. For the first time in weeks, he stopped planning countermeasures for the plague. If he wanted to save lives from this contagion, first he had to keep everybody from getting drowned in their own blood.