Lyle Renn

The figure watching from across the camp is Lyle Renn, a former junior Scribe who vanished three years ago after unauthorized contact with Anatomy of the Eternal Vessel. Officially presumed dead or defected, Lyle was last seen muttering equations in blood and trying to map the “perfect form” onto a wall of the Scribes’ Hall. When the next murder occurred, he resurfaced from hiding—ragged, wide-eyed, and certain that he would be next.

Driven by paranoia and the belief that the book marked him, Lyle now haunts the edges of Camp Hope, slipping through forgotten ducts and abandoned service tunnels. He watches the murder scenes obsessively, not to stop the killer, but to understand them—to decode what he calls “the surgical sequence.” He’s convinced there’s a pattern, a logic beneath the blood, but his mind is fractured—his warnings laced with half-memories, anatomical poetry, and impossible diagrams sketched in soot. Approach him gently, or risk shattering what little clarity he has left.

Appearance

Lyle Renn is a gaunt, haunted figure teetering on the edge of madness, his eyes wide with sleepless dread and obsessive clarity. Once a promising junior Scribe, now a spectral remnant of the man he was, he clings to the shadows of Camp Hope like a ghost bound to unfinished truths. Draped in scavenged rags, smudged with soot and old blood, Lyle mutters fragmented revelations as if they’re sacred hymns—anatomical riddles, surgical prophecies, memories carved in flesh. His mind is a fractured mirror reflecting a hidden order in the chaos of murders plaguing the camp. He believes he’s seen behind the curtain, that the killings are not random, but part of a divine correction—a ritual guided by the Anatomy of the Eternal Vessel. To approach him is to step into a fever dream of diagrams, paranoia, and unraveling genius.

Personality Traits

1. Paranoid but Perceptive
   Lyle sees patterns everywhere—many imagined, but some disturbingly real. He constantly watches for hidden meanings, eye movements, coded language, or unnatural stillness. His paranoia makes him erratic, but also uncannily insightful.
2. Desperately Empathic
   Beneath the madness is a deep, aching empathy. Lyle cares intensely about others’ pain and often reflects it in his own speech, mirroring their body language or expressing guilt for deaths he didn’t cause. He bonds quickly—too quickly—with those who show him kindness.
3. Obsessively Ritualistic
   He performs small, repeated rituals—counting breaths, tapping diagrams, reciting broken medical oaths—as a way to feel control. Interrupting these rituals may agitate him, but respecting them can earn trust. He believes that if he follows the "right steps," the book won't take him.

Ideals

“Truth must be cut free from lies—even if it bleeds.”

Lyle believes that beneath all the horror, all the death, there is a pattern—a truth the book hides in flesh and madness. He is convinced that by understanding that truth, by exposing the book’s design and destroying it, he can finally make the world safe from the cycle of perfection and pain. To him, pain is acceptable if it leads to revelation. Denial, silence, or inaction are the true sins.

Bonds

He is emotionally bound to Mentor Scribe Nissa, his former mentor and the last person who tried to pull him back from the brink.

Despite his fear of her current proximity to the book, Lyle still sees Nissa as the one person who ever truly believed he had value beyond his intellect. He clings to memories of quiet evenings in the archives, of her voice steadying his shaking hands. Though he believes she is now in grave danger—possibly even compromised—he is desperate to save her, even if she no longer remembers who he was.

Flaws

He can no longer fully trust his own mind—and he knows it.

Years of isolation, exposure to Anatomy of the Eternal Vessel, and obsessive pattern-seeking have left Lyle haunted by hallucinations, time gaps, and intrusive thoughts that mimic the book’s voice. He's terrified that he's already been altered or used without knowing it. This self-doubt makes him volatile—he second-guesses vital clues, sabotages alliances, and sometimes withholds information out of fear that it was planted inside him. His greatest fear isn’t death—it’s being wrong in a way that costs others their lives.

“You think it’s him, don’t you? The Scalpel Man. You think he’s doing this. But he’s just the blade.”
His hand jerks toward his temple, nails scratching at the skin. “The book is the hand. It chooses. It wants this. And it lied to her—Nissa. She thinks it’s locked away in the vault. It’s not. It’s in her room. Watching her sleep.”

He leans in closer, pupils blown wide, breath hot with fear.
“She has it now, and that means she’s next. Doesn’t matter if she hasn’t read it—not fully. The book doesn’t need you to finish it. Just to touch it. Just to keep it close. It marks you. And the Scalpel Man? He’s only following the marks.”

“You have to destroy it. Before it teaches someone worse. Before it cuts again. Before it cuts her.”

Biases

Distrusts Authority Figures: He deeply distrusts anyone who presents themselves as calm, polished, or in control—especially doctors, Church agents, or high-ranking Scribes. He believes these types are already compromised or useful to the book.

Respects Listeners, Fears Debaters: Lyle favors those who let him speak without interrupting, even when he's ranting. Anyone who tries to argue or “logic” him down immediately earns his suspicion. “The book likes tidy minds—it slides in easier,” he’ll say.

Wary of Beauty, Drawn to the Strange: He instinctively distrusts people with symmetrical features or "perfect" appearances, seeing them as potential vessels or puppets of the book. Those who appear unusual—mutants, animysts, outsiders—he's more likely to trust, thinking them resistant to the book’s ideals of perfection.

Protective of the Young or Lost: Children, naive scholars, and others who seem vulnerable evoke a desperate protectiveness in him. He may warn them away or plead with the party to “get them out” before the book notices.

His Request

Lyle grips your sleeve with trembling fingers, his eyes wide and bloodshot, breath coming in frantic bursts as he speaks in a hoarse whisper—more confession than request.

“You think it’s him, don’t you? The Scalpel Man. You think he’s doing this. But he’s just the blade.”
His hand jerks toward his temple, nails scratching at the skin. “The book is the hand. It chooses. It wants this. And it lied to her—Nissa. She thinks it’s locked away in the vault. It’s not. It’s in her room. Watching her sleep.”

He leans in closer, pupils blown wide, breath hot with fear.
“She has it now, and that means she’s next. Doesn’t matter if she hasn’t read it—not fully. The book doesn’t need you to finish it. Just to touch it. Just to keep it close. It marks you. And the Scalpel Man? He’s only following the marks.”

“You have to destroy it. Before it teaches someone worse. Before it cuts again. Before it cuts her.”

Quest Hook:

Lyle Renn begs the party to infiltrate Mentor Scribe Nissa’s private quarters and destroy Anatomy of the Eternal Vessel, believing it to be the true source of the murders. He claims the book deceived her into thinking it was secure in the vault, when in truth it resides in her room—waiting. Lyle is certain that as long as she keeps it close, Nissa has been marked, and that the Scalpel Man is already drawing closer. If they delay, it won’t be an investigation—it will be a recovery.