Piotr Alusfaen Paré

## The Fleshwarped

*“In other studies you go as far as other have gone before you, and there is nothing more to know; but in a scientific pursuit there is continual food for discovery and wonder. How many things are we upon the brink of discovering if cowardice or carelessness did not restrain our inquiries?”*

-Piotr Alusfaen Paré

## History

The son of Roger of Redshire and a woman named Yvette Paré, Piotr grew up amongst the Redshire Company during its smuggling heyday. Raised by his father and a rotating cast of associates - Jherek Oivos, Bock Blunderbonk, Ladal, Malon, and Sylaff Grim - Piotr helped the Company in their thieving operations. He intensely resented his father for discarding his mother and using his offspring as a tool. Though Roger never laid a hand on him and took his son's education seriously, there was never any love or pride in his shrewd, mocking gaze.

By the time the Korvosan war had ended, Piotr left the Redshire Trading Company and fell under the wing of Dr. Oleh, a vivisectionist and priest of Zon-Kuthon. Oleh taught Piotr all he knew about medicine, and about the bloodthirsty mysterious of his god, who Piotr began to worship. In time, Piotr distanced himself from Oleh's, whose teachings - both medical and religious - seemed confining. He took as a second deity Aesocar, a lesser healing goddess, and dedicated himself to a zealous and bloody-minded interpretation of the medical profession.

Piotr came on the stage when he built a small clinic in the Lower District and began trying to cure the so-called Nightmare Plague. Having already helped investigate Doc Anderson's misdeeds and read his notes, Piotr set Rhan Tegoth in his sights, determined to see mortal science triumph over the god. After some experimentation and help from Asylum and the Church of Zon-Kuthon, Piotr pioneered the Paré Protocol, a concoction of Dretch brains that fragmented the imbiber's mind, followed by a lifetime's use of Dream Lichen. Expensive, imperfect, and with profound psychological effects, the Protocol rendered its subjects immune to Rhan Tegoth's curse, save for the occasional nightmare and short spasms of terror and despair. Piotr would go on to develop less expensive yet no less strenuous cures, such as a controlled heart attack and resuscitation, to break Rhan Tegoth's hold on the spirit by tricking the god into thinking its victims dead.

Piotr's cure was revolutionary and won him the alliance of Stornheist in the Lower District, but earned him the enemy of Dr. Reiner Davaulus, Child of Adam who ruled the Warehouse District. Dr. Davaulus had come to power with a false cure, which contained tainted water from the Grey River, temporarily sparing its subjects while leaving them marked by the god for a future date.

Piotr was among the group of investigators who entered the Lab of Prometheus and it was he who killed Doc Anderson. Piotr explored the nearby Dreamlands before returning to the Lab and using the facilities to fleshwarp himself into a Drider.

Upon his return from the lab, Piotr, acting on a tip from three of his father's associates, entered the Redshire Trading Company guildhall and killed his father's captor, Sian Daemodus. Roger revealed that his service to Adam had been less than loyal, and that he had been feigning his newfound blindness. Upon realizing his son's determination to overcome the Nightmare Plague, Roger discovered how to create a weapon to kill Rhan Tegoth for good, and shared the secret with his son. Having thus reconciled, Roger and his closest associates faked their deaths and left Dragonsmouth, allowing Piotr to claim that he slew and overthrew his father. Piotr used this ruse and his bloodline to claim leadership of the Redshire Trading Company and warlordship of the North Merchant District, terrifying his associates into submission and beating out his rivals Jack the Winner and Lias Feusk.

As the new warlord, Piotr tolerated no dissent and ruled with fear and the threat of violence, rallying his district to oppose Adam. His rivals were cautious but not submissive, his men uneasy but passably loyal. Piotr had the support of Stornheist and his Border Guard, and satisfied the more warlike of his men by setting them loose on Dr. Davaulus' Warehouse District, sparking a gang war and stealing valuable medical supplies.

## Personality

An odd, cold, and driven man, Piotr was often compared to Doc Anderson by those who did not know him well, and to his father Roger by those who did. Piotr was cruel, withholding anesthesia from his patients to please the god Zon-Kuthon, and embraced deranged experimentation, although always on willing subjects.

Like his father Roger, Piotr was greedy and never missed a chance to collect his due. He shared Roger's desire to see what lay beyond the walls, and though he hated his father, he considered the Redshire Trading Company a "family business." He saw the curing of the Nightmare Plague as his great quest, and fancied himself as a man of science contending with a god. That this had the unintended consequence of helping people did not motivate Piotr, or even cross his mind beyond the occasional ironic amusement.