Leopoldo

_{All dates are As Of 1891}

Secondary NPC

Associated Player Character: Tristine

Name: Leopoldo Amadori

Born: Rome, 1280 AD

Age: 611

Physical Age: 25

Height: 5’10”

Hair: Dark Brown

Eyes: Light Brown

Faction: Disciple

    Leo is content with his place in the city, but he isn’t above questioning the Organizer and his methods. He is incredibly empathetic with his patients, and he has heard as many stories of being made anew by the city and its opportunities as those of fear or dissatisfaction or anger. He sympathizes with both sides of the argument, but he will always espouse nonviolent means to come to an understanding, which tends to align him with the city’s defenders.

Profession: Surgeon

    Nerves of steel and deep sense of compassion combined to make for a doctor who isn’t afraid to address nasty wounds and won't cave under the pressure of having someone’s life in his hands. He’s dedicated his eternal life almost singularly to his craft.

    By day, Leo runs a private practice specializing in physical rehabilitation from Sybal injuries, serious or otherwise. By night he works in earnest, stationed at the Ambrotos Emergency Ward where he employs his Sybal’s abilities and his own personal skill to stabilize seriously injured citizens.

Sybal Form: Filius Vejove

    Leopoldo’s Sybal is a full two feet taller than his human counterpart, not counting his horns. Leo attributes his vaguely goat-like qualities to Vejovis, a Roman god of Healing and Justice. His Sybal body is identical to a human’s in most respects, the most obvious difference being an additional two arms. His Sybal also benefits from superhuman physique, with muscle strength nearly triple that of his diurnal body. Below the surface, his biology and immunities are incredibly robust, shaking off minor injuries with hardly a bruise and clotting open wounds very quickly.

Sybal Power: Empathic Strands

    Leo’s Power is linked to the six long ribbons attached to the shields on his back (and the one on his forehead). When he channels power through them, a soft smoky glow pours from the shields and down the length of the ribbon. He can light the entire length of fabric in under five seconds, and once lit, he has a loose psychic control over their movement.

    When someone is touching the illuminated cloth, Leopoldo can access his or her surface physicality. With this, Leo can pick up on powerful emotions (only if they’re eliciting a physical response), detect areas of physical pain, and diagnose complicated injuries.

    The true power of Leopoldo’s ribbons, however, is their ability to channel his target’s pain and injury onto himself. He can do it in two stages: the first is a mental diagnosis of the issues, so the mirrored pain or damage is only in his mind and not actually affecting his body. He uses this connection to determine the extent of a patient’s physical injuries, especially injuries that might not be readily visible. He can take it a step further, however, and transfer the actual damage to himself. When he does this, the patient’s injury vanishes and appears on his own body in an imitation of what would have happened to him in that same situation. Because of his sturdy build and pain tolerance, he usually considers this a fine trade-off for relieving someone else of suffering.

    It should be noted that in most cases, Leo can only initiate an injury transfer if the patient is willing. This makes things difficult if his patient is unconscious or incoherent, but in his first hundred years in the city Leopoldo learned that he can assume the injuries of an unwilling or unconscious patient if he contacts them with all six ribbons at once. Channeling power into all six of the ribbons quickly becomes an exhausting affair, however—compounded by the damage he’s taking from his patients—so it’s a situation he prefers to avoid.

Docile or Feral: Docile

    Leo is just as much of a keen observer at night as he is by day. He talks less at night, but he is an excellent and engaging listener.

Personality:
<sub>+ Calm, Empathetic, Intelligent, Circumspect
-  Judgemental, Nitpicky, Analytical</sub>

    Leopoldo’s life is ruled by empathy. He is drawn to people. When they are happy, he is happy. When situations anger them, he echoes their frustration. and when they suffer, he suffers. But he was never one to flee from those in pain for fear of sharing it. He finds his center when he is actively fighting back against pain and sorrow, and he finds his greatest joy when sharing in happiness that he helped cultivate.

    This empathy trained Leopoldo to have a keenly observant eye. He surrounds himself with people, but doesn’t speak half as much as he listens, watching and analyzing their words and actions. Whatever information he gleans, he usually employs constructively, but his intent stare has been known to make people uncomfortable.

History:

    Leopoldo Amadori was born in Rome at the end of the 1200s to a prosperous family. He displayed an early aptitude for higher learning, so his parents sent him away to Naples to study medicine at one of the finest universities in the region. While he was away, he courted a young woman named Osana, the daughter of a wealthy Neapolitan trader, and eventually married her. He made plans shortly thereafter to return to Rome and continue his studies in medicine, surgery and autopsy, but everything came to a grinding halt when Osana fell suddenly and irrevocably ill.

    Even with all of his knowledge and skill, his wife died of a sickness he couldn’t understand. The Traveler’s Woods opened up to him barely a week later. He wanted to go to a place free of such unfair suffering. He wanted to be able to act to prevent death and pain, not just sit idly by while he watched—and felt—the people he loved wither and die.

    Sybal Heim was a haven, and he took to the life of an immortal with renewed purpose. Time healed his wounds, and he has only continued to enhance his trade, using both natural and supernatural gifts to keep his fellow citizens free of suffering.

    One particular citizen that he had to attend repeatedly over the years was Tristine Serral. Her stunts often landed her in the Ambrotos Emergency Ward, and Leo was always charmed by how positive and upbeat she managed to stay even when she was in obvious pain. But one evening in 1731, Tristine was rushed into the Emergency Ward with two bloody holes in her midriff from falling onto a spiked iron fence. It was a very close call, but with the timely aid of Leo and his colleagues—and their combined Sybal powers—she survived the incident.

    Even in such dire straits, she still tried to make him smile, and after reverting in the hospital bed the next morning, she kissed him for the first time—partially as thanks, partially to chase away his frown, and partially because she was still under the lingering influence of some rather potent Sybal powers.

    The rest, as they say, is history. Even after Tristine broke things off twenty years later, they remain good friends—if a tad more cautious around each other.

Additional Info:

• Leo is an incurable neat freak. He likes for everything to be in its proper place, and takes great care of every item in his possession. It’s a good habit for a doctor, but it can be a little intimidating—and annoying—to feel him judging a messy space.
  
• Leopoldo has an intense distaste for blood sports and professional fighters. The idea of deliberately harming someone else goes against everything he is.