Plague Doctor

Official artwork of Plague Doctor

Plague Doctor is an important character from the Cheatso Saga that debuts in the trilogy's second game, Plagued Fear. He is a mutated human bent on inflicting other humans with a strange disease. He is the main antagonist of the game he appears in.

## Appearance

Plague Doctor is a tall human with gray skin. His head is covered by a hood that heavily obscures his face, leaving only his nose barely visible. The only visible skin is from his arms, which are his only uncovered bodyparts (aside from his face). The hood is connected to a cape with short black sleeves, which are tied around his neck. He wears a plain, white shirt with several bloodstains on it (it is unknown if it is his own blood or if it belongs to someone else). His hands are in the shape of claws, with his fingers colored red (it is also unknown if that is just their color or if it is blood). He wears long, black pants, and finally, dark gray boots. When he gets angry, one of his eyes, which is completely white, can be seen.

## Personality

Plague Doctor is a very mysterious person. He speaks in a soft whisper, and never elevates his voice tone. Despite showing a hatred against humanity, he treats and talks to others with respect, independent if they are an enemy or not, while also showing a polite way of speaking. Often times, Plague Doctor will pretend to surrender in order to bait potential victims into his range so that he can take advantage of them.

Rarely shown, yet very noticeable, is that Plague Doctor suffers from severe depression. He shows remorse in causing other people to be Plagued and often creating trouble because of it. He's also shown to have high suicidal tendencies, which he cannot carry out due to his immortality.

## Powers and Abilities

Plague Doctor has two simple yet very powerful abilities. The first is that the mixture of Black Death and radioactivity inside of his body has given him immortality. He cannot die due to natural causes and cannot be killed by outside sources. He can, however, be knocked unconscious.

His second and yet more memorable power is the ability to transfer the Plague to someone by simply touching their forehead. Plagued people gain an increase to strength and durability and are brainwashed, forgetting about everything and everyone other than Plague Doctor and obeying him without questions nor hesitations. Those with the Plague can be cured by either drinking Roopin's antidote or having it be naturally removed from their body once Plague Doctor is knocked out.

## Faults and Weaknesses

Plague Doctor himself is extremely fragile, despite his seemingly bulky physical shape and tall height. He has to rely on his Plagued army to fight other foes, and mostly depends on his bodyguard, Paranoia, to defend him. Unless there is an alive Plagued individual nearby, Plague Doctor is very weak, unable to cause much damage to his foes and going down with a few mere punches.

## In-Game

### Plagued Fear

Plague Doctor makes his debut in the second game of the Cheatso Saga, Plagued Fear. In that game, he is the main antagonist.

During the intro, Plague Doctor contemplates how humanity hasn't suffered for a while, and says that he will change that. During this monologue, it is shown that he dislikes humans, for reasons unexplained. Paranoia arrives shortly after and calls him to start their plan.

Later, he meets Cheatso and claims that the ghost will join his side, to which Cheatso denies, teleporting away shortly after when being called by Roopin into his laboratory.

Throughout the story, Plague Doctor further develops his plan, mainly by spreading the Plague throughout Dalshire City, and then later moving into a large laboratory in Pinewood Forest. He doesn't appear again until the end of the game.

When confronted by the protagonists, he expresses anger when seeing that Cheatso has cured them of the Plague and engages them in a fight, after Plaguing Paranoia in order to obtain a power boost from his presence. After defeat, he attempts to run away, but is cornered. With no option left, he tricks Cheatso into approaching him so that he can Plague him too, and orders the jester to kill his friends.

After observing the group fight and how much they care about each other, Plague Doctor begins feeling a wave of regret and orders Cheatso to stop fighting. However, this can't be done, since before the fight began, he had asked Cheatso to continue fighting no matter what he said. This leads to Cheatso's friends having to kill him to prevent Plague Doctor's misuse of him. As they're mourning their friend's death, Plague Doctor walks off, hating himself even more after what he just caused. The three friends then confront Plague Doctor for Cheatso's death and threaten to beat him up, to which he doesn't struggle against in the slightest, instead accepting his fate. As they continue attacking him, he does not fight back, and only asks for forgiveness, only to find out they already forgave him when he said he was sorry. Eventually, he passes out from being attacked too much, but not before contemplating his life as a stubborn being who keeps doing misdeed after misdeed, claiming there is something really wrong with him, and hopes that the trio will be there to stop him again.

His fainting erases all of the Plague's essence he spread throughout Dalshire City during the game's events, except the original pathogen inside himself. Paranoia arrives shortly after to take him away safely.

### Theft of Power

Plague Doctor appears once more in a game that is not part of Cheatso Saga, Theft of Power. Completely unlike his first appearance, this time he stars as the main protagonist of the game.

In the prologue, he explains his whole story, including why he dislikes humanity, and why he looks the way he does. He's been subjected to an experiment as the test subject of a surviving pathogen of the black death, but a radiation leak killed everyone on-site, except for him, where the black death and radiation fused together to create an entirely new pathogen, nicknamed the Plague, which gave him immortality and brainwashing abilities, but completely disfigured him. Due to this, everyone sees him as a monster, and some others begin hunting him down, wanting to experiment on him. He develops severe depression because of this, and reveals his suicidal tendencies, claiming to have a desire to end it all, but being unable to because of his immortality.

Onto the story itself, Plague Doctor starts the day late after oversleeping. Outside, he is approached by a strange being who steals all of his power, including his immortality. He decides to go find Paranoia to plan on what to do next. Alongside him, he finds Seraphel, who was attacking Paranoia for being a demon. After a quick confrontation against the angel, the two make ammends quickly after Plague Doctor explains to him that the fault wasn't his, and they decide to team up, even though Seraphel can't fight alongside them because of angel laws forbidding him from working alongside a demon.

They then find Nathaly, who had her power stolen too, and is having some money issues, so Plague Doctor decides to buy things from her, helping both parties out.

They continue on to the Sinister Slums, where they encounter Shadow Thief, who they have met before. After a fight, Shadow Thief makes a deal with them that, if they help him fend off the police assault threatening his home, he'll help them in their quest. After Plague Doctor fulfills his side of the deal, Shadow Thief joins them.

After travelling to a mansion, they meet Isaac inside, who attacks them for invading his residence, but once he finds out they have similar problems and a common enemy, they join forces. Later still, they finally find the perpetrator. A robot who goes by Codename: Bow Alpha. They try to fight her, but she ultimately ends up defeating them with a nuclear explosion, or so she thought, as they are saved by Seraphel, although Isaac's mansion wasn't so lucky.

They travel through the outskirts and climb a tall observation tower so they can find out Codename: Bow Alpha's whereabouts. Plague Doctor easily finds her in Sombershine Refinery after a search with the telescope, and the group descends to ground level to discuss a plan.

Once there, they realize that the only way the four of them will make it to the refinery is by travelling across Osoroshi Seabed, which three of them are terrified by due to it being infested with scary water-dwelling creatures, including the Kraken. However, after much effort, they make it to the island's shore, only to be greeted by Codename: Bow Alpha once more, who sends a killer zamboni to massacre the group, although they somehow survive.

The group travels through the refinery in search of the deadly robot, and find out that she's got an accomplice who goes by Lightning Fuse. After they defeat him and Codename: Bow Alpha, the two robots use the power they stole to power themselves up and fight them one last time. Once Plague Doctor thinks this is all over, Shadow Thief proves them wrong, as he steals Isaac's orb and uses it to take everyone's power for himself, becoming a powerful goliath in the process and challenging them to one final battle, which he wins. However, Plague Doctor and the group are revived by Seraphel and receive a power-up from him, which allows them to go head-to-head with Shadow Thief, even though they sometimes need help from the robots they had to face previously.

After Shadow Thief's defeat, Plague Doctor finally reclaims his stolen power with Isaac's help and, after seeing the robots leave, returns to Dalshire City with his friends, where he relocates his tent to the desert's outskirts, a place he claimed was very relaxing when he first visited.

## Trivia

* Despite being known as Plague Doctor, he lacks the bird beak mask that most Plague Doctors use, instead leaving his face uncovered (although it is still obscured by his hood).
* Alice has confirmed that Plague Doctor was inspired on SCP-049.
* When Alice first created Plague Doctor, she originally planned for him to be a horror character and never speak at all. This was later changed. He is now a depressive character, and can speak, although only in a soft whisper.