Dr. Silas

Jenny Matellan (✝ Cousin)

Abigail "Abby" Imeris (Great-grand niece)

Copperwine

The Warden

Dr. Silas Matellan is one of six Master Arcanists and an oddity among the living. Rumours about him include whispers that he is a vengeful spirit that couldn't find peace even after death, or that he has some kind of sinister intent. The truth however, is that he is just a doctor who met an untimely end and decided he wasn't quite ready to just move on to the Afterlife.

## Biography

### Birth and Childhood

Silas was born in Aeris Gorge, a small (and now abandoned) town in the Amaranthia region. He was the only child to his mother Lilian Rei and his father Rhori Matellan, who raised him with incredibly high expectations that some might have even considered asinine. Young Silas was raised to be obedient and grew up with the demand to fulfill every expectation and goal that his parents set out for him; whether it be acing all of his classes in school, or completing a near-impossible number of errands and tasks. While most other children would have shut down or grown resentful of their parents for expectations of that scale, Silas made it work and somehow achieved most things that weren’t downright impossible.

When he did have some time for himself, Silas would play with his younger cousin, Jenny Matellan. The two of them grew up close and forged a sibling-like relationship despite only being cousins. It was when Silas was with Jenny that he actually had a chance to relax and simply be a child, so he often looked forward to summers when he got to stay over at Jenny’s house while his parents travelled to Agona for business.

### Education and Moving to Kivari

Silas was very academically inclined and because of his incredible academic track record, had many doors open to him when it was finally time for him to move onto his higher education and career. His parents gave him the choice of either being a doctor or a lawyer (and told him it was for the sake of securing his future without realising that it would actually be his downfall) and Silas, excelling under pressure, opted for the former. He moved to the Amaranthia capital city of Kivari to study medicine.

He excelled in his position and became an extremely proficient surgeon and general practitioner, though his name was still barely known at the time.

Throughout his education, he found most support from Jenny, who had also followed him to Kivari in order to study literature. Jenny also married a banker shortly after the move, and the two of them gifted Silas a personal estate as his present for completing his residency.

### Recognition and Growth

Silas only became well-known after multiple successes with patients who were deemed to have no chance at survival. Being unable to accept failure, Silas worked tirelessly with these patients and was able to bring back many that others had long since given up on. While this was incredibly well-received by the public for his miraculous work, he also received criticism for investing too much time and resources for a mere chance at success. However, that didn’t stop him and he became the go-to doctor for many cases that were considered too far gone.

#### Break-In Incident

One particularly well-known incident that made Silas stand out was during a break-in at his personal estate. One night, a young thief had broken into the estate with intention to steal from the house. However, he failed to realise that Silas was home and ran into the doctor who had gone to investigate the break-in. In a panic, the thief stabbed Silas with a four-inch blade before escaping the house and fleeing.

Given that he was alone at the time and that his home was far enough from the main town, Silas chose not to look for help and instead moved to his private surgery. He cleaned and stitched up the wound himself with the help of a mirror and local anaesthesia, taking about twice as long as it should have to do it on his own. He took enough painkillers to relax after the shock and blood loss and fell asleep on his own operating table. Jenny found him the next day after she had seen signs of a break-in and gone to investigate. Silas recovered completely, and the incident earned him considerable recognition.

### Declining Health

Because Silas chose to work with patients who needed intensive and frequent care, he often sacrificed his own wellbeing and sleep despite the advice of his colleagues and Jenny. To make up for it, he often self-medicated with no problem, keeping himself aware of how much he was taking to avoid the consequences.

While this did work out for him, it would eventually catch up to him over the years of this bad habit. The detrimental amount of work he put himself through eventually took its toll and he got sick more often, especially during the winter times in Kivari that were excessively cold due to the region’s proximity to the mountains of Kireski.

### Death

Two decades of overworking himself eventually caught up to him. He unfortunately took on excessive amounts of work during the winter period and combined with his weakening immune system, ended up taking more and more medicine and sleeping less in order to stay on top of his work. The lack of sleep impacted his ability to recall things accurately, which led to him unintentionally overdosing on medicine. As there was no immediate negative effect, he continued to work at his desk and eventually fell asleep there. In the middle of the night, his body finally gave up and he died from respiratory arrest.

His body was found the next morning by Jenny when she visited as per her usual schedule. Silas died at 44 years old.

#### Reactions and Funeral

Jenny first alerted her husband to Silas’ death, followed by his parents. While the Matellan family intended to keep the funeral modest as Silas had once expressed his disinterest in grand funerals (though he had mentioned it in the context of seeing the incredibly grand funeral of a Kivari nobleman), word got out after some of his regular patients realised he was no longer coming by and suspicions arose.

The funeral was attended to by Silas’ parents, Jenny, her husband, their children, and many of his patients and their families, making the funeral much grander than expected. It even reached the ears of the Kivari Palace who had heard of his dedicated service. The Palace created a commemorative plaque in his honour and placed it in the Hall of Heroes, where it remains to this day.

He was buried in the garden of his personal estate, with a simple headstone bearing his name, date of birth, and date of death.

### Defying Death

As someone who had worked closely with patients on the brink of death, Silas had become quite familiar with it. He had observed in those who did pass on, that some refused to until certain people in their lives were finally present around them. This led to the theory that death could be resisted and perhaps, even completely defied if one was persistent enough. He decided that he might try out his theory himself just for the sake of knowing if it could be done, so he refused to move on to the Afterlife.

Initially, he found little success and could feel his soul being pulled towards the Afterlife. However, he stood his ground and pushed back harder and harder, inching back towards life each and every day. Progress was incredibly slow, but he kept on pushing. He eventually reached the Gates of the Beyond and passed through it, successfully getting his soul to return to the living world.

To him, the whole process felt lengthy, but he didn’t realise that it had taken over 70 years to actually accomplish his feat. During the 70 years, his parents and cousin had all passed on, thus technically ending the Matellan family line. However, Jenny had children and her family line continued, so Silas did have living (but distant) relatives.

### Reanimation

Getting back to the living world wasn’t the end of things. In the 70 years it had taken for him to escape the pull of the Afterlife, he didn’t realise things had wildly changed for Kivari and he was still just a soul. A soul on its own was unable to interact with the world, so he needed to find something to possess. While he could have chosen any convenient body, he felt it was weird and unethical to take control of someone else’s body, so he returned to his now-decrepit estate to look for his grave.

While his grave was there, a simple soul couldn’t interact with the world to dig it up. In his desperation, he possessed someone else’s body in order to dig up the grave and break open the coffin. He was able to repossess his own corpse (which had been in a pretty terrible state after 70 years of decomposition) and restore it to a point where he deemed it fit for the rest of the world. Now with a functioning body again, he scratched off the year of his death from his headstone and left the grave open and empty before wandering off.

### Current Day

Silas’s reanimation is no big secret, though in the few years after his return, people who discovered the grave and coffin empty started many rumours and horror stories. He now wanders Elyse as the curious walking skeleton in a top hat who speaks in an old-fashioned way, and is quite the popular figure in his new home in Osprey Cove. His skills as a doctor have not diminished, even if his memory of his past life is spotty and he knows nothing about what happened in the 70 years it took for him to return. He also does not remember how he died, and just remembers that it happened in his home.

He is now immortal (unless a Smite Blade is used against him), been an undead for roughly 400 more years, and pursues all sorts of interesting things and situations. He investigates any situation he finds interesting, from the formation of fanatic cults to all sorts of weird and dangerous sightings of rare beasts. All the while, he maintains his comical, unintentionally-chaotic, good nature. Occasionally, he visits his old estate just to see how it’s doing. The answer is always the same - plagued by rumours and horror stories, and sometimes with curious children wanting to peer into his empty grave for fun.