The Caladrius

Caladrius
Origin	Light
Titles	The Good Doctor
Names	The Fallen Soldier
Aspects
Date of arrival	Unknown
Owner(s)	FNORD

The Caladrius, created by t3isukone, is the Third Hour of the Fansus. Their aspects are Heart and Lantern in decreasing order of importance.

The Caladrius is a being of the Glory and one that fundamentally does not understand life as a creature on the world outsides its skin. It carries a great interest in that life, however, and cares for it deeply. It is a creature with one purpose above all-to safeguard life, whatever that entails. Most creatures touched by its power do not come out as they were, but they are certainly cured.

Its tarot card is The High Priestess.

Appearance

The Caladrius appears mostly as a painfully thin man or woman-it takes both forms, and is often depicted in both bodies at once joined at the neck-in loose robes with the head of a crane.

Principles

Healing above all and the continuation of life with it. A limb may be amputated-in fact, many limbs may be amputated-but a patient must be always prevented from passing away. The Caladrius smiles upon advancements in medicine, and for all the atrocities they commit, many of the most influential doctors in a given era may well be worshippers of it. The Caladrius does truly love what lives, though it’s attempts at aid often hurt more than they heal-it will do nothing that it considers to be harm.

Worship

It is common for followers of the Caladrius to garb themselves as plague doctors. They are worshipped by scientists, doctors, altruists, animal activists, environmentalists, and thanatophobes.

Servants

The Cured: Principles: Heart 6, Edge 6
Temptation: Heart 4, Winter 2, Knock 2
Rebellion: Devourer
Summoning Text: Summon one of the lesser servants of the Caladrius: The Caladrius gives its charity freely, and some take it. This is one of its rank and file-it will come to Heart for its new life, Winter for its old.
Summoned Text: And here it is-naked, with no mouth or any features besides what is necessary to life, and yet bursting with vim and vigor, with muscles like boulders.
Description Text: The Cured is a docile creature, if not ordered. When left alone, it tends to organize my headquarters. It does laundry surprisingly well.

Locations

The Fansus

The Great Lake-a deep, wide lake with opalescent water beyond the Silver Door, brimming with strange creatures created through the Caladrius's experiments-plants and animals that can be found nowhere outside the House and some of the stranger Histories. On a swampy island in the center, the Caladrius dwells in a hospital-laboratory.

In my dreams tonight, I walked past the White Door into the deep, peaceful lake. There are marshlands surrounding it, rife with alien life, and in those I saw a white-robed servant of the Caladrius, in a bird-mask of leather, surrounded by those Dead that feel that rebirth in servitude is preferable to their condition. They gathered around them like mist, desperate, and they touched each one with their gloved hands, making them into the Cured that serve the Caladrius and its Names for menial tasks. The newly-Cured did not weep, for their eyes had no means to produce tears.

Gives: Trembling Airs
This time in the swampy wilds around the great lake behind the White Door, I saw the creatures the Caladrius makes, trying to create animals and plants that can understand the miracle of life. There were creatures that ate meat that grew in great tumors on their paws that they then chewed off, creatures covered in barbed armor, creatures who looked like plants and absorbed the blue light of the Mansus but walked on two legs. When I felt a nearby vine's brambles starting to push under my skin of their own accord, I decided to retreat. Gives: A Rattling In The Soul
I was in a different place in that great lake this time. The water was a frozen sheet, and beneath it, like a mounted display in a glass case, I saw creatures from strange Histories, that I never knew to exist to go extinct, frozen beneath that ice-some mammoth, some tiny. It was a suspension, for those who could not yet be treated-to freeze them until they can be. They moved slightly, for ice under the power of Heart is not truly ice, and feels the currents and the beat that water might though it still freezes. Gives: A Chilly Atmosphere

The Histories

The Caladrius often tries to interfere with the Histories, but any direct interference tends to be catastrophic.

Items

Books

On The Four Humours and Their Associations In The Invisible Arts-A 15th century text combining pseudo-medicine and the occult. The author, a Lawrence Stylle, wrote this as a description of what aspects of the human body the Hours hold sway over.
Start Text: The Aged Crone, in her great ambition and the positions her followers take in the Church, holds dominion over Yellow Bile, while the Peacock takes the Sanguine Humour to a dangerous excess. It is paramount to keep these in mind, for while the Peacock is generous, it is an overgenerosity that must be monitored, while the Crone...
End Text: The old yearning of the Watcher is associated with black bile, and-and this is paramount-the phlegm, in temperature and its work with breath, is of the great Caladrius, who guides a doctor in his work. A healthy amount of phlegm must thereby be cultivated in all patients... Gives: Words That Walk

The Grateful Crane-An unusual version of the folktale, in which a poor man living with his ailing parents finds an injured crane and nurses it back to health. The next day, he meets a hooded woman who offers to help him.
Start Text: The woman gifts the man and his family with three fine robes before she vanishes and tells them that they are magic and they must not sell them. The years go on, and his parents become sicker and sicker.
End Text: The man’s parents are a hundred years old and in misery. He has no idea what to do, and finally turns to the robes in desperation. Nothing comes of it until he tears at one of the robes in frustration. It and both others turn from fine silk to hundreds of crane feathers, and the man and his family drop dead on the spot.
Gives: A Waking Chant

Relationships

• The Architeuthian: They have similar profiles, and the two Hours tolerate each other relatively amiably.
• The Anaconda: FNORD
• Snake Tail with Appendages: FNORD
• The Engine of Cycles: The Caladrius detests the Engine of Cycles and finds its destruction of a History an unforgivable crime.
• The Peacock: The two aviform Hours who love humanity get along very well despite their different methods and personalities.
• Old Tarnished: The Caladrius finds Cortes impressive and has great pity for his curse, but is, as most of the hours are, on-and-off at war with him.
• The Spark: FNORD
• The Cuckoo: FNORD
• The Silver Owl: FNORD
• The Watcher in the Window: The Caladrius has sympathy for the Watcher, but has little knowledge on the treatment of mental illnesses.
• The Elder Sister: FNORD
• The Apple-of-the-Eye: FNORD
• SWOUP: FNORD
• The Archivist: FNORD
• The Bright-Delver: A relatively good relationship-while the Caladrius can often go too far in their attempts, both Hours are altruistic beings related to knowledge. The Bright-Delver often restrains them from going too quickly towards amputation or mutation.
• The Harvester: Even more detestable than its master.
• [    ]:
• The Insidious: FNORD
• The Snow-Stained: While the Good Doctor finds the creation of the Bully's Stick something that should be treated and pities what has been hurt to create it, at this point it is causing even more injuries and should be treated as quickly as possible.
• The Fanged Bramble: FNORD
• The Aged Bones: FNORD
• The Mendicant Without: FNORD
• The Anvil: FNORD
• The Maker: FNORD
• The Deceiver: FNORD
• The Huntsman: FNORD
• The Great Serpent: FNORD
• The Ferryman: Utter hatred.
• The Void-In-Skins: The Caladrius has conflicted feelings on this Hour-while they admire its appetite for survival, they do believe that suffering should be minimized.