Tobias

Spectacles that function as a Hat of Disguise

Childhood

Tobias was born in the Flesh Market district to a family of fletchers who had been running their families shop for generations. His childhood was to be expected as somebody from his district, he spent most of his days running about with the other children getting into mischief and trouble. When caravans would come through with adventurers or magicians and wizards from far off places he would listen avidly to their tales of daring escapes and brave fights. These tales helped steer him towards an interest in magic, despite his families misgivings. They protested the idea of him learning magic and medicine, his future was to be running their shop as a fletcher with his siblings as his parents did, and his grandparents before them, and so on and so forth. Tobias' siblings were content to become fletchers and run the shop having a knack for the skills needed to craft arrows and run a busy shop. Tobias insisted he get his education and his parents relented allowing him to attend the Royal Academy and gain an education.

Once he was enrolled he focused his studies on healing and magic lying to his parents that he was simply getting a generic education that taught various life skills and classes such as mathematics and history along with fighting and other self defense. As he excelled at both his core studies he applied for a scholarship to pursue a higher education and gain an apprenticeship as a physician and to further his magical studies in healing and artificing. Tobias easily was able to prove his skill and talent at the subjects and his professors all approved him for the scholarship to continue onto the next level. At the end of his lower studies he moved into the dorms of the school without telling his family, leaving them a letter that he was pursuing a future of his own, not dictated by his family or their ancestors legacy. His parents were furious, his siblings understanding, and since that day he could count on one hand how many times he has seen his family.

Tobias excelled in his studies and graduated with some of the highest marks the academy had seen in its history. This allowed him to be granted an apprenticeship of the highest honor, studying under the Palace Physician in Castle Hill. He arrived bright eyed and bushy tailed to the palace to meet the physician, an old tiefling named Mercy who looked at him through her thick spectacles like he was a mess on the bottom of her shoe. Her teaching style was harsh and she expected better than perfection in all things he did but despite her strict nature he could tell that she cared. She was harsh and hard on him because she wanted him to succeed because it meant that a patient would receive the best care possible, and that anything less than that was absolutely unacceptable. As his apprenticeship continued he came realize that she begrudgingly liked him, even cracking the occasional joke or showing him moments of kindness. Once he even overheard her tell the King Ulric Heartvale that he was the best apprentice the school had sent her in decades, and that when the time came she'd like him to succeed her.

The Plague

Unfortunately for Mercy and himself, that time would come sooner than either one could have ever suspected. The Winter Plague struck and they were thrown right into attempting to make a vaccine and cure with the other healers and doctors of the city. Tobias had seen sick and injured patients before but nothing like the victims of the plague, the pain and savagery of the virus left him shaken. The two worked tirelessly with Tobias quarantined while he worked with Mercy moving freely throughout the palace doing her best to treat Palace staff along with the King and General as they fell ill. As Tobias watched the city go to hell around him he wondered how they could rebuild from something so horrible. Eventually the two managed to craft a two versions of a cure, they were unsure which one would work, or if they would work at all, and they risked the cure actually making things worse. To test it required contracting the disease, and without his knowledge Mercy infected herself with the disease and tested one of the cures on herself. She then quarantined herself, and when Tobias found out he was devastated. She insisted that it was better this way, that the old sacrifice themselves so that the young may get to experience the life she had already lived. The cure did not work, instead it seemed to accelerate the virus, and she passed quietly in the night.
  Tobias forged on, and with all the cities hopes tied to the 2nd version of the cure, the one he had crafted, he tested it on volunteers. Within a day their seizures had stopped, within two the fevers broke, and by the third day the cysts and lesions had begun to clear up. By the end of the week those he tested it on were cured of the plague. He quickly began to produce more vials of the cure, sending them by the crateful to doctors and clerics across the city. The cure had two stages, one a cure to clear the symptoms, and another a vaccine to prevent reinfection and protect those who had not contracted the disease. The vaccine and cure were distributed, and by the first warm rays of the late spring he had managed to cure the city of the plague. The princesses appointed him as the new Palace Physician and he nervously took up his mentors mantle, suddenly a hero to the city. To his embarrassment and quiet gratitude a statue was erected at the Sanitorium of Mercy and himself, with a plaque dedicating it to their hard work and Mercy's sacrifice in curing the Plague.
 

Present Day

  As the newly appointed Palace Physician Tobias spends his days alternating between caring for Ophelia and attending to his other duties in the palace. He offers his healing services to any who come to the palace, and has patched up Demetrius and his city guard on more than one occasion. When he isn't actively working on his duties or with Ophelia he spends his time trying to find a diagnosis or cure for what ails her. His life work has turned from trying to help others to doing everything he can to keep the young Princess healthy and happy, and the mystery of her and her late mothers illness completely fascinates him. He hopes that with enough time and funds he'll be able to at least find a treatment to allow her to live a mostly normal life, or at least extend it so that she can live past what her mother had.

Tobias received his medical as well as magical education at the Royal Academy finishing it with an apprenticeship with the late Palace Physician.

He is currently employed as the Palace Physician of Knotside. Prior to this he was employed at his families shop.

Tobias, with the help of the late Mercy helped craft the cure and vaccine that ended the Winter Plague that afflicted Knotside in 1346.

In an attempt to warn Ulric Heartvale of that dangers of Dredaria and to showcase the power of bioweapons and biocurses he accidentally unleashed the Winter Plague on Knotside. In secret he managed to regain the power to stop the curse but the time needed resulted in the deaths of thousands of Knotsiders.

Centuries of trying to thwart Dredaria wherever he can and having watched the Empires bloody history unfold before him has left him emotionally numb. Very few people in the past century or so have been able to get truly close to him, and he dedicates himself fully to his work to hide his unhappiness at the state of the world, and at himself and what he has had to do.