Shen the Meek
Saint of Medicine, Healing, and Science
Titles: Saint Shen the Meek, The High Vivisectionist, Saint Sawbones, The Leechmonger, The Angel in Black, Godhand Shen, The Beakermaster
Favored Weapon: Dagger
Alignment: Light
Elemental Lord: Vidixath, Lady of Luminescence
Obedience: Spend one hour tending to the wounds of an injured patient. If no patients are available, spend an hour studying the anatomy of yourself or a nearby creature whose racial anatomy you have not studied already, taking notes all the while.
Effect: You can deal precision damage and sneak attack to creatures normally immune to such things with a 25% chance to succeed that stacks with other effects that provide similar bonuses. Gain a +4 to healing and a +2 to Knowledge(Nature), and gain one of your choice as a class skill.
Divine Domains
Healing, Good, Knowledge, Protection, Madness
Holy Books & Codes
The Sawbones Field Manual
Divine Symbols & Sigils
A beaker with a heart inside
Tenets of Faith
Each dead patient is a stain on the soul. Make every effort to save every patient who comes to you no matter who they are. Medicine is amoral and uncaring - it heals and helps equally.
Action over prayer. Faith and empty words will not save the injured and dying - take action where required immediately and never spout empty platitudes.
The ends always justify the means. Do all you can for others no matter how you choose to do it. So long as the result is good, the means are as well.
Strive to elevate your craft. Experiment, Theorize, and Study new ways to hone your craft no matter the methods. Always seek improvement.
Be the caring, honest light the world needs. Live kindly, help others, and do your best to live a good life.
Divine Goals & Aspirations
To expound upon and further the fields of medicine and science.
To heal the sick, injured, and dying.
Relationships
History
A strange relationship, Reina seems to be especially fond of the Saint of Medicine - and has long had a standing order to all her followers to not harm those who follow the teachings of Saint Shen. This order is absolute, and is punishable by exile - though none have determined why Reina is so fond of the meek master of science and medicine. Shen, for his part, has issued no such decree to his followers, though they often take on followers of Reina as patients to try and heal them in whatever ways they are broken, creating a friendly(or at least noncombative) atmosphere between the two faiths.
History
Though he only knew him for a short time while the legendary Saint served at his father's side during the Invasion of the Infernal Host, Thorgrom thought extremely highly of the Saint, believing him an example of how his people and Zheng-Kitarans should act. Even long after his death, Thorgrom remained an avid supporter of his faith and remembered him fondly.
Followers & Priesthood
As the patron saint of doctors, medicine men, healers, mad scientists and more, Shen's followers are often learned men and women of great intellect - often harboring a deep desire to help others, no matter how twisted or misguided that desire might be. His followers can come from most any walks of life, but are heavily biased towards those leaning towards goodness or intellectual pursuits - cultures where helping others or being selfless is considered a weakness are not well-suited to producing members of the Sheni faith, though exceptions have been known to exist. His followers can often be found in most any large or populated city or town or area, often forming Unions or other worker's groups with other similarly skilled members of the faith - both to share knowledge they gain and hone their collective craft as well as to keep friends who share the same interests and levels of intellect as they do, as well as to protect the rights of their kind.. Followers of Shen to rank themselves based on merits alone as well as total knowledge and experience possessed - the more years worked and the more patients one has worked on and/or attempted to save, the higher one tends to be ranked among the faithful. His followers tend to wear garb befitting healers or medicine men, but dressing in black tends to be most common color - black labcoats, black slacks, etc - to them, the color black symbolizes the madness inherent in the soul of all so thusly dedicated to the craft of helping others, and the failure to save a patient. They tend to carry full-facial masks they don exclusively during their grisly work, to keep blood and viscera spatter from entering their eyes - these masks can range from simple porcelain visages to elaborate crow-like masks with smellingsalts and other odorous plants in the beak to ward of the stench of death. Their rank tends to be worn in the shape of metallic bars and symbols worn on their lapel as pins, or otherwise on their shoulder or some other clearly visible location. Though the lesser known of his followerbase, plenty of his followers are made up of mad scientists and doctors who yet hold a powerful desire to better the world or do good, but whose souls have become stained with a fleck of madness as their Saint's was, so long ago - these souls are often solitary, having laboratories where they work in quiet creating things and performing experiments many would commonly shun as abominations against the gods. Shen, however, welcomes them all - even these outcasts are welcome at his table and other gatherings of the faithful by Sheni laws, though they may face persecution by other members of the faith for their methods.Ethics
Central to the Sheni faith is the phrase "The ends justify the means" - they are obsessed with doing their work, whether that be research into various sciences as a researcher, healing others as a medicine man or performing hardcore surgery as a field medic or physician, and are more than willing to do anything it takes to see their work completed. They do not believe in the notion that performing evil deeds will stain the honor of a doctor - human experimentation and other normally forbidden means such as necromancy, forbidden alchemy, and more are perfectly acceptable to followers of Shen - so long as it all done in the name of saving others and bettering society and the collective "good". Those who take these ethics to the logical extreme tend to be outcasts of the faith, but are not neccesarily forbidden from it. Followers of Shen also despise the notion of turning away a patient, and tend to take each failure to save someone or help them successfully personally - seeing it as a stain upon their soul. They are unlikely to ever turn away someone in need of medical aid or help no matter who they are, and believe in leading good, honest lives - helping others and being truthful and the like. They will almost always give someone in need a fair shake, and try their best to save them no matter how evil or vile their deeds. Similarly, they believe in advancing their own field and craft - in pushing the boundaries and blazing new trails in the field they work in. This often leads them into territory considered unethical at best and vile at worst - but that is of no consequence to them. These are often the things felt by those who push the boundaries - and "Great men break the walls they are contained in" is a central belief of theirs. Uniquely, they do not believe in prayer - one will rarely find a follower of Shen praying to him to help them or to save a patient. They believe in seizing the future with their own hands, in taking action, and serving the idol they see as the ideal they strive to reach one day with action and deeds rather than words and platitudes. To this end, Sheni tend to be decisive and sure of their paths, and are the most likely to not despair at their supposed helplessness - they will instead quickly shift focus, breaking down a problem scientifically to ascertain how best to go about solving or fixing it. Above all, they despise and fear the notion of failing a patient and looking back and realizing they could have done more.History
Shen's history is short but well-known, as the poor Saint did not live a very long life - he is believed to have died before he even reached the age of 22. However, this only serves to show how powerful of a life he lead in the process. Shen was known to be born to a middle-class family in the lands of what is now modern day Seoghar, who studied his father's craft of medicine and, for a time, seemed to be the next in line to inherit the family business and continue the name of his lineage and carry it honorably. However, during the Age of Descent, word came down from the far north that the Dwarves of Nan Dhurgalir had become embroiled in a mind-numbingly violent conflict with armies from beyond the pale - hordes of demons, devils, and daemons ran amok in the northern tundra. However, none jumped to helped the Dwarves of the north, much to Shen's surprise - the reaction of the world was to hide behind the Dwarves and let them die by the millions, placating their consciousness by sending supplies to reinforce them in small ways. Shen, outraged, left in the dead of night for the north and threw himself at the gates of Nan Dhurgalir with a small band of other young boys skilled in medicine - begging the Dwarves to let them help and apologizing for his people's cold-heartedness. The dwarves quickly accepted his offer of help, and in a very short time Shen and his band of boys became the foremost doctor unit in the entirety of the Dwarven war effort - the Dwarven High Thane at that time, Lomdael Blackgranite, was said to keep Shen at his side at all times, seving him and his Rockcrusher Legions as their High Medic. Shen worked tirelessly for untold months, throwing himself into every field hospital and battlefield he could find, desperate to make up for his people's indifference which he saw as being complicit to genocide - he was a man possessed, and sometimes did not sleep for hours at a time, even days on end. The dwarves quickly came to call him "Shen the Mad", but none could deny his godlike skill with a scalpel - thousands upon thousands of dwarves and giants saw their lives saved on his operating tables, and he treated every wound of the body and even some of the mind, as well...but in time, as the war raged on, Shen's madness began to consume him, as the bloodshed had no end in sight - he began to despair, and desperately sought a means to become more efficient at his bloody work. So it was that, in his desperate quest to hone his craft to save more lives in the shattered hellscape in which he had thrown himself headlong into, Shen worked himself to death - he made dozens upon dozens of breakthroughs in the years the war raged on, and died after performing a legendary heart transplant, the first of its kind, on the High Thane Lomdael Blackgranite, saving him from devil's poison. Though he died of exhaustion afterwards, his brethren went on to become a crucial factor in the Age of Descent - saving untold lives from the horrors of the war as Shen's selfless sacrifice and maddening obsession and hatred with his countrymen for abandoning the Dwarves inspired hundreds upon hundreds across the continent to flock to the north to help the cause. His legacy was one of livesaving dedication and legendary medical skill - as well as a maddening fury at the complacency of his countrymen that drove him deep into madness. After his death, as if to soothe his maddened soul, Vidixath, Lady of Luminescence welcomed Shen into the ranks of her Saints as truly worthy of her high standards...though rumors abound that, so stubborn was Shen that even in death he would not relent, and demanded Sainthood to keep helping those he left behind.
Meek? Who gave him that title? He was anything but - you just needed to study him in his element. On the battlefield, sure. He was a wimp. A spineless coward. But put him in a packed field hospital, and you'd never see a more steely-eyed devil. He was mad, in his own way. A broken boy who never got put back together right. But what boy who saw such carnage wouldn't be?
Divine Classification
Elemental Saint
Alignment
Spouses
Siblings
Children
Example Divine Oaths
Oath of the Physician: Respect and protect the gains and achievements of those who came before you, share your knowledge with others for the sake of those who will come after, and do your best to save every life you come across and keep them safe from harm and injustice. Do all you do wherever you go for the benefit of the sick and suffering.
Oath of the Caregiver: Protect children and infants, and keep them safe from injustice and harm where possible. Provide better means or the means to achieve them to those without home, shelter, or place of rest or sanctuary. Never turn away those down on their luck or downtrodden.
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