The Medicine Showman Mountebank

Life, Career

Sterling wanted to distance themself from magick, but continued to perform as a showman. He turned towards science/nature -based Medicine Shows, and traveled around the Dividing plains. They have become more attached to the Millstone city, but have traveled to Grimgard, Derval, Honeyward, Therpena and smaller towns in the surrounding region, as well as Solacia and Thon’t.

A Medicine Show is a performance that will sell you a “health” product; often in a Medicine Show there will be some kind of feigned injury. (Someone faking a limp, Oh you have a limp, Drink this Tonic! Limp is cured). It’s like a live infomercial There’s Got to be a Better Way! At a time when magick is taboo and other medicinal practices are not as effective, Sterling’s overconfidence and hasty promises is reassuring. His was primarily a one-man show but he would sometimes perform at larger shows, or sometimes another entertainer would perform with him.   The distrust in magic still caused much distrust in entertainers. As health science became more popular as magick was more feared, the Medicine Show became surprisingly more accepted, as Sterling would learn / fabricate science-y words. A doctor will cut out your umbiculous and remove your tweedium! It almost started to legitimize his Medicine Shows in the public’s mind. His Medicine shows were occasionally the preeminent form of entertainment on a workday - they were free to attend after all.   It was a lengthy show, about an hour or two, to lull people into feeling like they were being entertained instead of sold to. At any other large shows that were still being performed near or in the city, Sterling’s Medicine Show would be featured. He takes pride in his Medicine Shows, so he doesn’t allow some races and genders to perform with him.   Sterling does not often use their Bardic magick outright, especially not in their performances. He wants his Medicine Shows to have a clean reputation, and to convince his audience that the remedies have foundation in science and nature rather than in magick. So they don’t even mention magick during their Medicine Shows, though it is implied that using magick for healing was not something considered here. Their player-piano is primarily mechanical / natural, though they can’t always help imbuing their playing with bardic magick. They don’t fear their innate musical magick, and consider it to be good.   Sterling’s Medicine Shows included tooth pulling, quackery, people on display, false healing, and Proprietary Remedies. Here are some of the Proprietary Remedies Sterling might peddle at one time or another: Safe Cure Yeast, Gloomdreamer Balsam, Ginger Tonic, Hindercorns, Widow Read’s Ointment for Itching and Lice, Nostrum, Owlbear Fat, Seven Darks (an herbal remedy), Belle Dyspepsia Tablets, Nutriol, Lungardia, Cherry Pectoral, Health Belts, Lydia Pinkham’s Vegetable Compound, Compound Extract of Sarsaparilla, Chill and Ague Specific, and Blood Bitters, as well as the simpler, Cough Killer, Boschee’s Syrup, Cough Syrup, Teething Syrup, Soothing Syrup, Expectorant, One Day Cough Cure, and Eye Salve.