Dungeons & Dragons 2024 (D&D) Background: Plague Doctor

Languages: One of your choice

Plague doctors are the brave (and sometimes mad) members of a community who are willing to risk illness and injury in their efforts to heal the sick. Plague doctors are equal parts scholar, healer, and student of esoteric medical arts. Some attend academies as physicians only to find the long apprenticeships difficult to endure before taking their skills on the road. Others are healers following their community’s healing traditions. Still others are wandering scholars, collecting specimens and recording the characteristics of the foulest pestilences. The path of the plague doctor is often a lonely one; but personal motivation spurs them on to the next account of disease and illness.

Features

Esoteric Physician

Your training allows you to treat diseases without the aid of magic or prayers. You can spend one hour tending to a creature to place it in your care until it finishes a long rest. You can have up to four creatures in your care at a time. While in your care, a creature can perform only light activities and rest; otherwise, the creature loses the benefits of your care and can’t be placed in your care again for the next 24 hours. A creature that finishes a long rest while in your care has advantage on the next saving throw it makes against a disease it is suffering.

Suggested Motivations

Plague doctors are both brave and curious. Though their training strays toward the esoteric, plague doctors are intelligent and motivated learners. Some may be cold and analytical scholars of pestilence, while others are inspired to heal the afflicted. In their darkest moments, a plague doctor is a detached spectator to suffering, struggling to feel for others through the thick skin their profession has provided.
Trait Ideal Bond Flaw