Cooil MacCray, PhD, DDiv's page

20 point build
63 skill ranks + 14 background skill ranks for total of 83 (some of the 63 skill ranks were placed in background skills)
Favored Class TBD
Likely class: Shaman (but keeping an open mind on other possibilities depending on how the campaign evolves and party composition)

Feats
Technologist: You are familiar with the basic mechanics of technology.
Benefit: You are considered to be trained in any skill used against a technology-based subject. If the skill in question requires training to use even against non-technological subjects, you must still have ranks in that skill in order to gain the benefit of Technologist.
Normal: You treat all skill checks made against technology as if they were untrained skill checks. This may mean that you cannot attempt certain skill checks, even if you possess ranks in the skill in question.

Traits
Dangerously Curious: Always curious about the idea of magic. As an adult, you have studied a broad range of traditional ideas about magic and how it is done, and you have attempted some kinds of magic, although not generally with any success that was evident. Still, this has left you with an advantage with working with magical devices and such.
Benefits: You gain a +1 bonus on Use Magic Device checks, and Use Magic Device is always a class skill for you.

Drawback
Meticulous
You plan and prepare everything in detail, and aren’t good at improvising when things don’t go as planned.
Effect: You take a –2 penalty on skill checks for skills with which you’re untrained.

Cooil is six feet tall, neither fat nor slender, with a full head of white hair. He is in his fifties but his hair went white before he turned fifty. He has a moustache that connects with his sideburns. He keeps his chin and neck shaved and his facial hair neatly trimmed. His eyebrows are still dark, showing the natural color of his hair, dark brown. His face is long and narrow, with a long thin nose. His eyes are dark brown and piercing. His face shows a few lines, mostly laugh lines, with slight frown lines between the eyebrows. His appearance might be described as avuncular. If looking for an analog from movie stars, think of a non-balding Sean Connery after his hair started turning white.

Cooil grew up on the Isle of Man and had a typical Manx accent, similar to the Scouse accent of Liverpool. Going to Cambridge taught him that his accent caused people to assume he was a commoner and not well educated, so he learned to take the edges off his accent, and when he wants to, he can imitate what most consider to be proper English. Having then spent time in other English speaking countries, such as America and Australia, his accent has further moderated into a mix of the accents in these places, although most would still characterize his accent as British. When he's in a casual environment with friends, he is apt to slip back to some of the accent and slang of his youth; this can also happen in times of stress.

Dr. Cooil MacCray hails from the Isle of Man but he has lived and worked all over the world. After completing his adolescent schooling, he attended Cambridge University where he studied a variety of subjects but eventually got a degree in physics.

He attended graduate school at Berkeley, continuing his study of high energy physics. While his studies were not unusual, he cultivated a strong interest in a variety of religious groups. In his youth, he had been a member of the Anglican Church of England, he also developed an interest in spiritualism after his older sister died and he experimented with mediums trying to contact her. In Berkley he experimented with Zen meditation, Neo-pagan nature groups, and Hindu mysticism.

He rose to fame first for his discoveries in physics, identifying the Omega - Zeta Boson. He collaborated with a variety of other fields trying to find evidence of the particle outside of high energy laboratories like Cern.

He then mystified many by going back to school and getting a doctor of divinity degree at Union Theological Seminary in Massachusetts while simultaneously holding a post teaching physics at MIT. While he continued his career in cutting edge particle physics, he began to write books on the connections between physics and science on the one hand and religion and mysticism on the other. While he was not the first to cover this ground, his writing style was engaging and he developed an enthusiastic following of people not entirely satisfied with conventional religion nor conventional secular perspectives.

For the next decade, he divided his time between maintaining one foot in the world of high energy physics and the other in the world of alternative religion. He went on year-long expeditions to remote places such as the Australian outback, Siberia, Peru, and the Himalayas to study with traditional shamans, learning not only about them but purportedly being trained in actual shamanistic rituals, such as going out of body into the astral realm.

He began to appear frequently on talk shows and political discussion shows whenever they wanted someone to comment on the latest issues between evolution and fundamentalism or other questions relating science and religion. His views on ecology and respecting nature endeared him to the liberal environmentalists and his views on evolution and climate change earned him some opponents, but most everyone knew his name and recognized his face. He even argued that magic might be real, pointing out many cultures that practiced rituals which produced surprising outcomes, many of them unexplained by science.

So when an ancient lost city was discovered in the area of the former Sahara desert, his name floated to the top of the list of scientists to invite to study the findings. His work in physics earned him the respect of those who insisted the scholars have solid scientific credentials. But his work in comparative religion made him a good choice for those who wanted scholars who could relate the findings to human culture and interpret the writings and art discovered there for its deeper cultural significance.

It is said that Dr. Diamond recommended Dr. MacCray. Diamond was familiar with Cooil's works on science and religion and considered him to have the kind of open mind and breadth of knowledge that would make him an asset in studying the site. His physics background meant he was a professional scientist with the discipline to insist on grounding conclusions in facts, not speculation.

While MacCray had his detractors among the selection committee, some claiming him a dilettante who had gone soft while experimenting with magic mushrooms, when the discovery of the strange particle emanations from the wall were announced, his work in particle physics pretty much sealed his selection. It did not hurt that he was a media darling who could interpret the findings to the public in a way many more conventional academics could not.

MacCray respects the scholarship of Dr. Diamond and so he is interested in his theory, but is quick to point out that without hard evidence, there is not much point in believing in it. He is leery of people who know a little science and then use it as a jumping off point for wild ideas with no basis in reality and no factual grounding.

I will develop the character sheet with the expert levels if the character is selected. He'll have about equal parts skills in physics (Knowledge (Nature) I suppose unless you are going to be expanding on the skill lists to cover modern science. But he'll also have solid knowledge (religion), knowledge (history) and similar knowledge skills, plus decent diplomacy and sense motive skills. He'll have some skill in the craft skill of writing and the perform skill of oratory. He'll probably have two profession skills, science and minister, although with more points in the science than the minister. As far as possible classes to pursue as level ups occur he could become a druid, cleric, or even a sorcerer or wizard or perhaps one of the occultist classes.

For real world inspirations, I'm partly drawing on popularizers of science like Carl Sagan and Neil de Grasse-Tyson and popularizers of eastern and esoteric religious perspectives like Alan Watts, Isaac Bonewits, Ken Wilber, or Carlos Castaneda. Also, as I have graduate degrees in both physics and religion, there's a fair amount of myself mixed in with the others.