Creepy Victorian Cleric idea needed...

[Kid Charlemagne]

I'm a player in an alternate Victorian England game, where magic is real, elves rule Ireland, orklings prowl the West Side of London, and the closest thing to Leonardo DaVinci is an epic-level Vampire...

My PC, Nigel Spenser, is a Sherlock Holmes fan, and a consulting detective of growing reknown himself. He's also just taken the Leadership feat, and I'm looking for some ideas for his cohort, who is intended to by Nigel's own kind of weird Doctor Watson.

I've got the mechanics part pretty well figured out - Nigel is an Urban Ranger 9/Human Paragon 2 with a 17 intelligence, so he's a Skill Monkey par excellance, with decent fighting skills to go along with it. His cohort will be a 10th level cleric (I might go with a PrC, but right now I'm thinking straight-class) of a god referred to as "The Bastard", who is basically a trickster god (related to the Raven King of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell fame). He'll be either LN or NG. I've picked out the domains, though I don't have that info handy at the moment.

The cohort's primary role is going to be healing support and, most importantly, divination. He'll be doing divinations, communes, and all of that kind of stuff. We've got a pretty big party so he'll probably do a lot of guarding the exits and stuff like that so he won't need to participate in a combat role much (though he won't shy away from it).

What I'm looking for is ideas of ways to make this guy a little bit of an oddball, slightly weird and maybe a little disturbing - all in a way consistent with Victorian England, or at least a Victorian England where magic exists and one of the PC's is from Atlantis...

Any thoughts?

 

[Pbartender]

Wheee! I've just started in on a Victorian Age Dread campaign, so I've got loads of ideas. Try this on for size...

Can he originate from of the more oriental British colonies? India, Singapore or Hong Kong perhaps? I'm thinking incense, meditation, I Ching and tea-leaf reading sort of style for most of his divinations, and odd tinctures and home-made herbal remedies made from truly exotic ingredients for his healing.

Another option might be to make him ex-military... A combat medic back from the Zulu Wars or the Boer Wars or Afghanistan.

Incidentally from Wikipedia: "Watson is a physician of some experience (as was Conan Doyle). Watson had served in the British Army medical corps (attached to the 66th Foot) in Afghanistan, but was discharged following an injury received in the line of duty during the Battle of Maiwand. Watson was almost killed in the long and arduous retreat from the battle, but was saved by his orderly, Murray."

 

[Meowzebub]

How about a Dr. Livingston instead of a Dr. Watson. Someone who has been around the world "doing the Native thing". He has picked up a wide variety of effective but disgusting cures for just about anything from primitive tribes across the globe. He could carry a variety of trinkets and ritual items he has collected from his travels.

 

[Kid Charlemagne]

How about a Dr. Livingston instead of a Dr. Watson. Someone who has been around the world "doing the Native thing". He has picked up a wide variety of effective but disgusting cures for just about anything from primitive tribes across the globe. He could carry a variety of trinkets and ritual items he has collected from his travels.

That might fit well - one idea I had was of someone who didn't really use one method of divination; instead he just used a grab bag of traditions, almost irreverantly, kind of a "this is Tuesday, so I think Tea Leaves are appropriate" kind of thing...

 

[Sir Brennen]

• On a expedition to the Dark Continent, his life was saved by the bone vest his native hosts had provided him with. He now continues to wear said vest in lieu of a normal vest under his jacket.

• A pocketwatch chain dangles visibly inside his coat, but rather than the expected watch, the good Dr. will occasionally pull out the attached shrunken head, which he gazes at in a Hamlet-esque manner, contemplating the meaning of mortality. (Possibly his divination focus: "Ah, my diminutive friend says the outcome would be woeful." )

• Two words: Pet leeches. (Think of the disgusting possibilities when the owner knows he can heal up after feeding time...)

 

[Herobizkit]

Oozemaster PrC. You can't get much more weird or disturbing than a priest who hangs out with slime. And flings slime. And eventually BECOMES slime.

 

[smootrk]

Consider an Archivist as an alternative to cleric (available on WotC website (was a preview, or Heroes of Horror). More skills, knowledge, and group boosting abilities... and of course, the ability to heal. I think the occult/outsider/undead orientation of Archivist, as written, would lend well to your Victorian style campaign as well.

Another concept you might consider is a Dr. Frankenstein style Archivist/Cleric, obsessed with necromancy (to create life). Not evil, just a weird obsession with death and life forces, and very Victorian.

 

[Rabelais]

That era produced some rather...disturbing... medical/healing artifacts. Do a google search on Quack devices. some are definately of the 20th century, but you should come up with some really twisted stuff from the 19th C

 

[roguerouge]

I may be getting my religious history wrong, but could you have him be a puritan?

 

[Rechan]

Have him obsess over objects. Or talk to someone who isn't there, as if he had a side kick.