Milek Vishnyovsky

## Dr. Milek Vishnyovsky

Dr. Milek Vishnyovsky is an Istiri surgeon from Totov, Istiria. He was active during the Drowden-Kironian War as a neutral combat medic.

## Appearance

Milek has long black hair that he partially ties back and a short beard. He is broad, but a bit more soft than he is completely muscular. He normally wears a heavy blue coat with fur additions; it is also embellished with Istiri embroidery patterns. Milek braids a strand of his hair in honor of his mother, who used to braid his hair when he was a child.

His wolf form has dark, rich brown fur, which is thick and soft. He appears taller in this form. To the surprise of many Istiri, Milek much prefers his human form. For his work as a doctor, it allows him to have nimbler fingers and be a little less jarring to already shocked patients.

#### Prosthetic Leg

Milek's left leg is a prosthetic leg, the result of a dragon attack from when he was a teenager. This leg is a mixture of practical technology and enchantment via druid magic. Evelyn Moreau was involved in the creation of the prosthetic. To give his balance extra support, he walks with a cane.

The prosthetic remains in Milek's wolf form. It utilizes mechanical concepts to stretch and fit his change in height. However, his wild shape forms have all legs.

## Personality

The most important aspect of Milek is his need to heal people. He hates to see others in pain, which is why he became a doctor, let alone a combat medic on the front lines of a brutal war. In his interactions with others, he tries to be nonjudgmental and maintain an air of neutrality. Despite his wish to jump in whenever anyone needs help, he does still have a moral code he follows.

In both his work and his life, Milek is a very devoted and loyal man. Feelings stick with him even if events do not. He is very inexperienced when it comes to love, but that's because he's felt such a deep connection with his feelings for Feliks. Even with his feelings for him, Milek's fidelity to his sister made him keep quiet about his feelings so that Feliks and Olwen could be together. Discussion of sex makes Milek a bit uncomfortable because he's so inexperienced, but he does desire these things.

### Work

Milek takes his job extremely seriously and prior to the campaign did not do much outside of it. He enjoys reading medical guides and pretty much only did that in his spare time until the point of the campaign. However, he is a very good doctor; he has very dexterous hands and a cool demeanor in most stressful situations, making him a very good surgeon. He has performed many amputations over the years.

Milek’s opinions on the uses of magic and medicine have historically been very strong. Originally, he found that while magic can be useful in keeping a patient from dying, it should be used only as an aid to actual medical practices. Having a) watched his mother die from only relying on druidry and b) had to go through his own issues when he had his accident, he became very disillusioned with how magic was practiced in his culture as a whole. Since the campaign, he has seen the merits of magic as a medical practice and strives to combine the two into a happy medium in his work.

### Medication Dependency

Milek developed a heavy dependency to painkillers while dealing with chronic pain following the loss of his leg. While he is not necessarily seeking a high, he seeks the lack of pain.

He kept his painkillers in a special compartment built into his prosthetic leg.

## Backstory

### Early Childhood

Milek was born in Totov, a remote Istiri village. He grew up with his twin sister Olwen. Milek remembers his childhood fondly. Him and his twin sister have always been very close. His father is a druidic healer among their people and Milek looked up to him, so him wanting to be a healer started from watching his father work. Him and his sister used to sneak off all the time and get into trouble, moreso Milek following Olwen and asking her not to do it but she did it anyway.

   When Olwen and Milek were 8, their mother Natalya became very sick. Her condition deteriorated over the next year and the druids were not able to do much to help at all other than easing her pain. It was hard, watching his mother slowly slip away while it seemed there was nothing being done. When she died, it really affected Milek a lot. As a sensitive child, he withdrew.

Milek’s father suggested that Milek become apprenticed with the druids to get him back out in the world, which Milek agreed to. Milek loved working with the druids. He really threw himself into it and became very talented as time went on. Life went on. Milek and Olwen remained close despite her going on more of a fighter’s path.

He developed feelings for Feliks, a close friend of the twins, but never really was able to verbalize it. He just kept himself deep in his work. Feliks and Olwen began a relationship and Milek stepped aside to let it happen.

### Dragon Attack

When Milek was 23, he got into an argument with his sister. Disagreements between the two of them were generally very rare, so this was out of the ordinary. It was mostly caused by Milek’s frustration about his feelings for Feliks boiling over, which turned into him snapping at his sister for something that was probably inconsequential. Milek is sort of known for keeping his true emotions close to his heart, so seeing an outburst like this was very strange. He was emotionally compromised so he ran off into the woods by himself to go sulk.

The trouble started when he fell down from a tall tree he was climbing. This was the initial issue, he definitely had the wind knocked out of him and broke some bones. He was in a lot of pain and couldn’t really move, which brought on the next problem -- a baby dragon looking for a snack. Milek was attacked by the dragon, which further brutalized his leg. He was not in great shape by the time that he was found and was probably very close to death. But it was Feliks who found him after everyone noticed that Milek hadn’t been back in a while and that there was a baby dragon sighting in the area. In his near-death haze, he kissed Feliks before falling unconscious.

There was a lot of commotion once Milek was brought back to the village; it wasn't a good situation and Milek’s family was freaking out to say the least. There wasn’t much the druids could do, unfortunately. Milek was in immense pain for several days before the wound became infected and it was clear the bone was set wrong. Milek’s father made the decision to take Milek to a doctor in the city, Evelyn Moreau, who decided the leg needed to be amputated. She also fitted him for a basic prosthetic, which took him a long time to learn how to use. He got very used to using his cane.

### Leaving Totov

In the aftermath of the accident, Milek was in a lot of pain. He thought back on his mother and became increasingly frustrated. He didn’t die, but his pain wasn’t being eased. He wondered how his mother suffered and the agitation didn’t cease. He became very disillusioned with the work of the druids and turned his hope to modern medicine. So… he left rather abruptly. Milek went back to Evelyn and was taken in as an apprentice. He was a bit of a surgical prodigy, as he had very steady hands. He got used to living in the city as time went on and lost touch with his more druid-based side. Because he was working with a doctor, he suddenly had access to medicine he’d never had before. In secret, at age 26, he began to take painkillers and developed a dependence on them.

The work continued and Milek enjoyed it. He and Evelyn worked well together, they grew close as partners in the practice. He was able to progress really far really fast because he basically devoted himself to the practice of medicine and took what he had learned from the druids and applied it in a more mechanical way. Things were well for a while, he was relatively happy and loved his work, but unfortunately his chronic pain persisted. Several years into the practice, he began stealing the painkillers. Eventually, he built up even more of a tolerance to them and he grew to like the feeling of not constantly being in pain. These behaviors led to a falling out between Milek and Evelyn and he ended up suddenly returning home to his village in a fit. Milek was 28.

### Return to Totov

While in Totov, Milek had an idea to begin a medical practice there to make sure what happened to him didn’t happen to anyone else. Obviously being back in Totov was a bit hard for him, save for seeing his father and sister and Feliks, because he was right back where this trauma was for him years ago. He wanted this practice to extend to multiple villages, so that other Istiri in the area could come get treated beyond druidic practices.

Milek experienced his first bad withdrawal while in Totov and did have to return to Doversk with Olwen to get painkillers. He did not tell her why he was sick or why he had to return to Doversk with help but she had her suspicions. This damaged their relationship.

### Combat Medic

When the practice didn’t take off, Milek was crushed. He returned to Doversk looking for purpose and found it in the war. Originally, he went as a combat medic for the Kironian side, but soon found himself treating patients from the Drowden army, including one who stayed by his side as an assistant after they were treated. Milek found great importance in his work for the war. The value of treating all despite their background is one he holds close to his heart and will not budge on.

## Events of Campaign Arc: Istiria-Drowden

Milek first met the party in Doversk. He had been traveling home to visit when he heard news of the attacks on Istiri villages. In Totov, he found his home village razed to the ground, his father, sister, and Feliks missing. He joined the party upon hearing they were going to Drowden so that he could find his family and find out what had happened to the Istiri.

## NPC Relationships

### Olwen Vishnyovsky

Olwen and Milek are identical twins. Olwen is younger by several minutes. Where Milek is sensitive and drawn to medicine, Olwen is outspoken and a powerful warrior. The two of them are really close and have been all their lives despite their paths branching away from each other. He would do literally anything for her and vice versa. She has missed him very much since he’s been off, but they communicate in letters as much as possible. Of course, she selfishly would like Milek to be home all the time, but understands the importance of his work and how much it means to him, so she’s very proud of him overall.

### Feliks

Feliks was the object of Milek's affection for many years, but he did not verbalize it out of respect for his sister. Despite this, the two continued a relatively close friendship. Up until they re-met during the campaign, Milek had never gotten over him. He was definitely very, very in love with him. Because of this, Milek was always a little bit shy around him. The one person that took precedence over Milek’s feelings for Feliks was Olwen.

### Evelyn Moreau

Evelyn was the one who treated Milek in the aftermath of the dragon attack. She eventually became his mentor.

### Goran Vishnyovsky

Milek's father, who is another druid in the village of Totov. The two of them have a complicated relationship. In a way, he resents Milek for leaving at all and sees it as a betrayal of his culture, but he’s also his father and does feel a sense of pride seeing his son go off into the world. They do talk, but something in their relationship has been sour ever since Milek left without an explanation that Goran liked. Milek does write him letters once in a blue moon, but does not receive a reply. The two of them have never sat down and had the talk they were meant to have. Even so, there is an unspoken familial care between them and Milek will always regard him with love. He was a good father to the children growing up.

### Natalya Vishnyovsky

Milek’s late mother. She was a hunter. It was really awful for Milek when Natalya got sick. She was kept alive by druidic magic but in horrible pain when she was dying of whatever disease she contracted, so she was basically suffering without any hope for her getting better. It was immensely hard for Milek to see his beloved mother wither away, which is why he has had such a response to magic vs medicine now.

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