Igoroskandrallanotly - “Igor”'s page

Igoroskandrallanotly - “Igor”
Doppelganger alchemist (chirurgeon, vivisectionst) 2
LE monstrous humanoid
Init +3; Senses Perception +5; darkvision 60 ft
DEFENSE
AC 18, touch 13, flat-footed 15 (+3 Dex, +5 armor)
HP 18 (2d8+2)
Fort +5, Ref +7, Will +1
OFFENSE
Speed 30 ft
Melee claw +5 (1d4+3), claw +4 (1d4+2)
Melee dagger +4 (1d4+2/19-20)
Ranged light crossbow +4 (1d8/19-20)
Special attacks mutagen (+4 Dex, +2 natural AC, -2 Wis), sneak attack +1d6, throw anything
Spell-Like Abilities
1/day - detect thoughts (DC 14)
Alchemist Extracts Prepared (CL 2nd, Concentration +5)
1st level - none
STATISTICS
Str 14, Dex 17, Con 13, Int 16, Wis 10, Cha 14
Base Atk +1; CMB +3; CMD 16
Traits Precise Treatment, Suspicious
Feats Ability Focus (detect thoughts), Brew Potion, Human Guise, Throw Anything
Skills Bluff +8, Craft (alchemy)* +8, Disable Device +8, Disguise +8 (+18 when using change shape), Heal +7, Knowledge (arcana) +8, Knowledge (nature) +7, Linguistics* +7, Perception +5, Profession (scribe)* +4, Sense Motive +6, Use Magic Device +7
Languages Common, Aklo, Draconic, Dwarven, Goblin
Automatic Bonus Progression armor attunement (masterwork chain shirt) +1, Resistance +1, weapon attunement (right claw) +1
SQ alchemy, change shape (human male), infused curative, throw anything, torturer's eye
Carried Gear masterwork chain shirt, dagger, light crossbow with 20 bolts, signal horn, alchemical crafting kit, disguise kit, masterwork thieves' tools
In-room Gear heavy steel shield, longsword, leather-wrapped club, longbow, 20 arrows

The origins of Igoroskandrallanotly are unknown - even to them. Igoroskandrallanotly - or “Igor” as his former master, Versarius, called him - is a doppelganger. No one knows where doppelgangers come from, except perhaps other doppelgangers, and they have no interest in revealing such things. Igor is not even sure what their origin is. They remember a city - Ghastenhall, it was called - where they had great success in tricking wealthy members of the city into giving them sums of money and disappearing with it. With the ability to look like anyone and act like anyone and then disappear, it was easy to do so. However, they then have a large gap in their memory before awakening, chained to a table in the town of Farholde. It was here they were made the slave of Versarius.

Versarius was a semi-competent wizard who was frustrated by his failures to advance. His research had hit a dead end, and he was forced to sell alchemical concoctions and minor potions to villagers in Farholde. When Igor awoke chained to the table in his basement, he took great delight in telling Igor about how he alone had been smart enough to connect the doppelganger’s various confidence schemes and captured them. How he had kept the doppelganger unconscious for his return to Farholde, held in the hold of a merchant vessel. Versarius told Igor his days as a schemer were done. Now, they would assist Versarius in his work.

Igor agreed, thinking they could easily kill the wizard, then replace him. However, they were shocked to find their claws had been clipped. They tried to shift their form into that of Versarius, but they could not! What was happening? The wizard watched with glee on his face, then showed Igor a vial - a special poison he’d created that weakened and neutralized doppelganger abilities. Versarius told them they could no longer shapeshift, nor read minds, nor use any of their other gifts. Their only course of action, should they wish to live, was to serve the wizard and be his research assistant. The wizard laughed in triumph, then left Igor chained to the table for the night. During their solitude, Igor tried to assume every form they could remember, whether one of theirs or one they’d seen. None worked - except for the most recent form they’d assumed. Scarcely breathing, Igor realized that Versarius’s concoction did not work as well as he’d thought. Perhaps that meant they would be able to escape. They would have to be patient though - more patient than they'd ever been. This would be a difficult scheme, and a very long term one. They would have to pretend subservience to this lesser creature who believed himself superior. Lull the wizard into a false sense of security, and then...a plan in place, Igor slept, awaiting morning, and their first day as Versarius’s assistant.

Versarius believed that through the dissection and distillation of animals and other creatures he could enhance the power of spells that shifted the body. He had captured the doppelganger both so he could study the doppelganger’s abilities, and so the doppelganger could take notes for him. Versarius would purchase various animals from merchants, kill them, and dissect and experiment with their blood, flesh, and other body parts, using them as ingredients in crafting potions that would allow him to change his shape. Igor’s job was to take notes during dissections and to clean up the mess once Versarius was done. Versarius would also bleed them slightly, using their blood in the potions to enhance their form shifting abilities. Each night, before the wizard went to bed, he injected Igor with more of the poison to keep his abilities suppresssed. Igor complied with all of Versarius’s directives, bowing and scraping, making the wizard think them defeated. It galled them to have to do so - after all, they were a greater form of life than this buffoon! They knew they needed to keep up the act, though, if they were to win their freedom. Over the course of six months, Igor made Versarius think them less and less of a threat. They convinced Versarius to allow them to aid in the dissections, not just take notes, and to allow them to help brew the potions and make alchemical items for sale in the shop. Versarius, thinking them cowed, did so. After six more long months, Igor made their move. While working during the day, they mixed up a sedative with the intent to slip it into one of Versarius’s potions when he worked one night. All was in readiness.

That evening, Versarius summoned them into the laboratory for the evening’s dissection and experimentation. This time, strapped to the table was not an animal, but a woman who looked a cross between human and angel. The wizard said his research required them to move beyond beasts, and that the blood of one touched by the Outer Planes would enhance the potency of their brews ten-fold. Igor was shocked. They weren’t concerned about the woman’s life, since she was irrelevant, but kidnapping such a woman would surely attract the authorities and the Church of Mitra. Versarius did not seem to care, however, as he cut her throat and told Igor to begin assisting. Shrugging, Igor began going through the motions of the dissection - they knew the routine by heart, now, and did not need to concentrate on it. In their mind, Igor knew they would have to drug Versarius and kill him tonight. The authorities would be looking for the woman. By morning, they would have to be gone. They knew where the key to the safe was, and could take Versarius’s coin and vanish before the sun came up and the authorities found him.

All went well. The woman was dissected, and Versarius and Igor began brewing potions. Igor found the opportunity he needed to slip the sedative into the combination, and Versarius drank it. It took only moments for him to fall to the ground, unconscious. Grinning, Igor shoved the woman’s remains from the table and strapped Versarius to it, then went to destroy every ounce of the poison that had stripped them of their powers, and the formula to make it as well. No one would strip them of their might ever again. That done, Igor returned to the laboratory and fed the wizard an antidote to the sedative. When Versarius awoke, he was bound and gagged, unable to use his magic, and Igor stood above him, dissection tools in hand. Fear appeared in Versarius’s eyes, and he struggled mightily to escape - but to no avail. Every dissection technique Igor had learned from Versarius, they used, save one - they did not kill the wizard first. They ensured the wizard felt extreme pain for what remained of his life. In the end, Versarius lie still, his body cut open, the blood drained. Igor stood, savoring the sight, committing it to memory so he could remember it always. That proved to be his downfall.

The authorities proved quicker than they thought, aided by a Knight of the Alerion, Sir Balin of Kierkegaard. The Mitrans burst into the room and quickly beat Igor into unconsciousness, hauling them away. When they awoke, they found themselves chained in a cell, accused of the kidnapping and murder of both the woman and Versarius, as well as of conducting foul experiments and the black arts. Igor did not worry. They could not know what they were. They would pretend to be a guard who had been attacked and chained up by the escaping prisoner, then sneak away and flee the town. Shifting into the only form they still could, when the guards next came to check on them, they tried convincing the guards of what had happened. Their ruse succeeded, but not in the way they had hoped. One of the guards was newly arrived from Ghastenhall, where wanted posters of them had been circulated for swindling a banker. The guards were thrilled, for they had an infamous con artist in the prisons. Instead of being freed, they were guarded all day against escape. They desperately tried using their shifting abilities to scare the guards, changing back to their true form, but it did not work. The monster was clearly a murderer, a kidnapper, a con artist, and a possible devil worshipper.

They were unceremoniously taken in chains to a wagon with barred doors and windows, chained into it with a hood over their head, and sent to some unescapable prison, where they were to be held until the anniversary of King Markadian V’s reign, where they would be killed in mock combat with some knight. Igoroskandrallanotly could scarcely believe they had fallen so far. This was it. The end...of everything.