Shattered Realities: Creating Characters (Part 1 - The Doctor)

Surprise! It's a series.

If you haven't read the previous Project post, I want to create a comic story thing around some characters that I'll play with as if they were my action figures, dolls, or plushies. I have 8 of them to design and plan, and I am theming them around certain themes and ideas I like, so these designs are gonna be very self-indulgent.

I've already given them some WIP titles to differentiate them, all themed "The ___". This one is the Doctor, which is more themed after a plague doctor, and less of a time lord.

Influences

The plague doctor design was always one I found cool. I don't know if the mask was just coincidentally themed after a bird beak, or if they invoked it intentionally, but it sure as hell makes for some awesome creepy designs.

Bonus history lesson for today: plague doctors had their outfit designed for a purpose, and it sorta worked as intended, but for the wrong reasons.

• There was a theory that the smells of sickness were infectious, so to counter that the bird beak was filled with all sorts of aromas. While the "miasma" theory wasn't correct, the mask did act as a filter against airborne pathogens and the likes, especially with all the flowers and other strong smells they put in their mask.
• Their robes were made out of specific materials because it was thought to repel the plague better than others. While this is obviously not true (it still sticks to them, and then they can carry it over to other people), it did protect from the fleas that started the plague.

Eventually, they got wiser and did things like washing their outfit and accessories with something that isn't just water, and bringing a cane to gesture and examine stuff without getting near it, but they soon became suspect to superstition. As a culture, we think of plague doctors as those that spread the disease nowadays, rather than trying to cure it. Wikipedia states that the Plague Doctor, much like the Grim Reaper, became a symbol of Death.

With all that said, there's quite a few plague doctor like characters in fiction, and most of them are some of the most dangerous doctors you'd ever encounter (assuming that they are doctoring). I chose some of my favorite plague doctor characters and designs to use as inspiration for my own design (and if I feel like it, their backstories could influence my character, too):

SCP-049 (The Plague Doctor), SCP Foundation

Being a fan of SCP, I naturally thought of this one pretty quickly. The SCP Foundation (here forth referred to as the Foundation) tasks itself with capturing anomalies in our world, to protect humanity from those that aren't normal. Being one of the earlier SCP's in the wiki's history, 049 is one of the more simple SCP's out there. It's a plague doctor that wants to cure others from a disease it's noticed. However, only 049 can see this disease, and when it attempts any sort of surgery on the subject it deems as infected, they die and become zombies (which get designated as SCP-049-2). The Foundation doesn't want this, as turning people into zombies is considered an anomalous effect, so now 049 is being held under a tighter watch.

As designs go, much like its story compared to the other SCP's, it's fairly simple. It's got a hood over its head, which naturally dons what the wiki calls a "Ceramic" plague doctor mask. It also wears some thick robes, which if I am to be believed, look like a thick hide or leather.

Percival de Rolo / Orthax, Critical Role: Vox Machina

[Spoilers for the character of Percy]

While not a doctor, and certainly doesn't spread any sort of plagues, Percy is another inspiration. Critical Role is a live-play DnD podcast, set in a world created by Matthew Mercer (and expanded upon by everyone else), and Vox Machina is the name of the first campaign they did for the series (and also the name of the group in said campaign). Percy is a human, tormented by a darkness that came to him after the Briarwoods overthrew his ruling family within Whitestone. This darkness turns out to be a shadow demon named Orthax, whose body is made of dark smoke, and their head containing a beak with some circular, glowing white eyes. Percy made a pact with the demon to help him get back at those who wronged him and his family, creating the first ever firearm in existence (named The List) under its guide. There's an animated show based off of the campaign that lets us see what happens when Percy encounters someone who was on his list of targets: He puts on a plague doctor mask (which, in-universe, was inspired by the appearance of the shadow demon itself), which produces dark smoke, as he seems to be taken over by an unstoppable hatred and wrath. Later on in the story, the rest of the group have to fight Percy, who is currently being controlled by Orthax. The fight is mainly the crew trying to get through to him and help him while he pulls out all the stops, meanwhile Percy is fighting within himself against the demon controlling him. At this point, at least in the show, he loses the mask, but has glowing eyes to signal that he is currently not his own.

Like I said, not a typical plague doctor at all, but the mask's design being modelled after the demon that made the pact with him is fucking awesome. It's also great symbolism, as whenever he dons the mask, it dehumanizes him to others, while also letting us know who is currently in control. It's a very soulless mask on purpose.

Plague Knight, Shovel Knight

While I haven't currently gone through the game, Shovel Knight is on my backlog, so eventually I'll get to it. However, I still know some things about the game (as they're pretty hard to forget). One of these things is the existence of a plague doctor-themed knight. Plague Knight isn't a doctor, but I personally wouldn't call him a knight either. He's more of an alchemist. He's a boss fought a few times in the main game, but more importantly, he's also a playable character in his own campaign/game. Because of that, I sadly am not going to search that up to explain here, as I don't want to make myself remember things regarding the game (so that I can re-experience it).

I will talk about his design though. I believe he's a bit short, but he has a hooded robe with huge-ass sleeves. He's got some sort of armor leggings, and some shoulder plates that are connected by some sort of chain. His mask is a sickly green color, but so are his hands, so I'm not sure if this is his actual face, if his face just matches his skin color, or if he's wearing gloves that are the same color. He's got a thin belt that has a pouch, and his little cane-staff has a bird head on the end of it. One of the cuter designs that we'll be seeing here.

Plague Doctor, Lobotomy Corporation

[Spoilers for Lobotomy Corporation]

Remember earlier when I was talking about SCP? Lobotomy Corporation is basically SCP in video game format. I haven't played the game myself, but I've read a lot of TV Tropes about the game. While I love the site, I'm going to refrain from using it to talk about this character, and instead refer to its wiki, which due to the nature of the game's story, might not fully explain everything that we want. All I can gleam is that the Plague Doctor is an abnormality that chose to come to the Corporation, and that a similar event is going on where it wants to cure a plague that affects all, with the Corporation unable to find any info on the pestilence it is trying to cure. It's one of the more helpful abnormalities, as it provides blessings to the employees that go to it. However, as it blesses more and more, it starts changing shape, ultimately becoming a new abnormality entirely: The WhiteNight. This happens after it blesses 12 employees, who then get mutated into His apostles. WhiteNight is an abomination of an angel, who thinks He is darkness and light, life and death. Because of His nature, He thinks he can make a new world by ridding Himself of the old one. The only way one can truly stop His rampage is by taking His twelfth apostle (called the Heretic) and making them pray to another abnormality, One Sin and Hundreds of Good Deeds, though this makes you lose said employee.

The Plague Doctor's initial design has a black, fur-lined (feathered-lined?) robe, a full-head plague doctor mask, a black "fedora," and strangely enough, doesn't have arms. Instead, crow-like wings take the place of its arms. As it blesses more people, it gains more of these wings. At 6 blessings, its hat and robes turn white. Its wings go white too at blessing #7, the mask joins in at 8, and loses the hat at 10 (and also shows a faint sign of a halo). At 11, the robe (but more importantly, the mask) are tossed to the side, revealing what the game describes as an "underdeveloped embryo" within the center of the wings. You can also see the halo a lot better, and it gains some sort of golden collar. Once it gets all 12 blessings, it opens its blood-red eye, and its halo gets many thorns as He becomes WhiteNight. Man, I love abnormalities and anomalies, they're so much fun to make.

Plague Doctor, Darkest Dungeon

Haven't really played this game, but I can look it up this time. This plague doctor is actually probably the closest one to an actual doctor, though like Plague Knight, she also dabbles in alchemy. She's not a weird shadow demon, nor a hellish angel in disguise, and her treatments actually cure her fellow party members, unlike SCP-049. Another historical fun fact: a lot of plague doctors weren't fully qualified doctors, they were mostly inexperienced. No wonder they had a higher death count than cure count. I mention this because one of the wiki's quotes on her is from a character within the game, calling her potions experimental, and herself, blindly faithful in her abilities. Truly plague doctors were our original mad scientists.

Another quote from the wiki is that she wears light cloth. The justification being that you don't want her on the front row, since she's more prone to lobbing one of her failed experimental health potions at the enemy than just stabbing it or thwacking it. Judging from the sprite, she has a silky dressrobe going on, a separate hood, a scarf(?) behind said hood, her plague doctor mask (which I think has goggles on it too), a thick belt with a pouch, spiked shoulder pads, leather gloves, and some sort of bandage wrapping on her arms. It's a pretty badass outfit, honestly.

Here comes the hard part: designing my own character. One of the few things I need to keep in mind is that I want this character to be his own, while still filling a niche within the party that has seven more characters. It would suck if I get the same style of character several times.

The Process

My notes, which I made in the previous post (where I didn't search for references) talks about the Doctor doing alchemy, so maybe he does status afflictions and debuffs. I can't have him buff the party, considering that I have another character (the Cursed) that in her main form mainly boosts the party, so he's going to fill in as the more aggressive status-giver. I also talk about him having a "weathered gunslinger hat," which isn't the right hat I'm looking for (apparently it's a fedora, m'reader), but hey, it's there. "Wears some old-timey clothes" is another note, which from my research, is mostly thick garb, from head to toe. I don't have it in the notes, but being a plague doctor, if he needed to, I think he should have a cane for close-combat. I also mention him drawn towards the dark arts, so maybe he's into some ritual stuff, which for an icon that symbolizes death, feels appropriate. I apparently also want him to have a cape, though I don't know how I would fit that into this design. We'll see, though.

"There's a sickness emanating from that man, the Doctor. He hides it well, but it's there. If you manage to catch him out of the corner of your eye, you'll see his symptoms, as if his mask had slipped. His behaviors show it too; he never takes his mask off around company, keeps to himself, and he's frail enough to need a cane. Don't let him fool you, though, he's quite agile for a sickly man. It's almost uncanny. You know what worries me the most, though? His interest in alchemy, potions, and poisons. He seems almost obsessed with it. I've seen him fight only once, and let me tell you, he's got a deadly throwing arm. I don't know if it was some sort of poison or if it was straight up acid, but the end results aren't pretty. I feel like he takes samples from the beasts he kills, too. We had travelled for a few before we realized he was missing, but with his inhuman timing he was just catching up to us. When questioned, he bluntly changed the subject. I'm telling you, there's something... off, about him."