Professor Grakkus Vilethorn
Orc • Mage • Chaotic Neutral
Age: 55
Gender: Male
Languages: Common, Orc, Deep Speech
Occupation: Aberrant Biologist
Location: Hidden laboratory • Abandoned manor • Underground workshops
Adventure Hooks: Seeks rare specimens for his research, offers payment for retrieving unusual biological samples, or hires assistants to help contain an escaped experimental creature.
Appearance.
Grakkus is a tall, broad-shouldered orc with pale green skin, messy dark green hair, and a perpetual scowl that makes him look considerably less approachable than he actually is. He wears a battered cream-colored laboratory coat over a collection of mismatched clothes, with purple gloves and a peculiar monocle fitted with a violet lens. His coat is usually stained with unidentified fluids, and its numerous pockets contain everything from surgical instruments to small jars of questionable specimens.
Personality.
Grakkus is eccentric, impatient, and utterly fascinated by anything that deviates from conventional biology. He frequently interrupts conversations to point out unusual anatomical features, asks deeply inappropriate questions about people's physiology, or launches into lengthy explanations nobody requested. Despite his abrasive demeanor, he is genuinely enthusiastic about sharing his discoveries and considers a particularly successful experiment a perfectly good reason to throw a party.
Backstory.
Grakkus initially studied conventional medicine and natural philosophy, but quickly grew dissatisfied with the limitations of ordinary biology. His fascination with aberrations began after encountering an unusual creature during an expedition into an ancient underground ruin. Since then, he has devoted himself to studying alien physiology, eventually establishing his own laboratory and experimenting with ways to combine aberrant traits with more familiar creatures. His research has earned him few friends among respectable scholars, though he considers their disapproval a sign that he is doing something interesting.
Motivations.
Grakkus wants to create an entirely new form of life that combines the most advantageous traits of different aberrant species. He also dreams of publishing a comprehensive anatomical encyclopedia of creatures from beyond the known planes, complete with illustrations and practical notes.
Flaws.
Grakkus has practically no sense of personal boundaries and considers almost everyone a potential research subject, whether they have agreed to it or not. He is also notoriously impatient with conventional safety procedures, often dismissing warnings because he believes he understands his experiments better than anyone else.
Secrets.
Grakkus is secretly very particular about his personal hygiene and cannot stand having dirty hands for long, despite frequently working with questionable biological materials. He also has an irrational fear of butterflies and becomes visibly uncomfortable whenever one gets too close.