Character Profile: Dr. Hibbs Dearly

Genre: Science-Fiction Species: Cyborg (Human) Alignment: Lawful Good

Physical Description: A tall, older man, likely in his 50’s — though his gray head of thinning hair might easily cause overestimations. His face is thin and his frame is skinny, though his long white coat stretches unnaturally around his midsection. This visual disparity is caused by the blocky mechanical organs that replace the front of his chest and stomach, as well as everything once contained within. Dearly’s left leg is also mechanical, a crude patchwork of parts painted bronze, and both of his eye sockets are occupied by simple cybernetics that resemble camera shutters. 

Attire: Aside from his lab coat, the doctor wears a heeled black boot on his right leg (to compensate for the added length of the left), one of a wide collection of polo shirts, and long khaki pants. He has a very complicated and highly technical bracelet on his left arm — a multi-purpose medical apparatus.

Backstory: 

Doctor Hibbs Dearly isn’t an actual doctor, at least not in the literal sense. He never went to medical school, and he never had a formal education. Instead of spending his childhood studying, Dr. Dearly spent his time pulling bullets out of gangsters and stitching up anarchists on the streets of the Duat slums.

Duat was similar to most other planets that bordered the civilized universe — smaller than Earth and mostly uninhabitable. There was only one continent that could support a colony, with a landmass just cresting over three million square miles. If you were one of the privileged few on Duat, you lived a life of power and luxury among the Cult of Osiris, the theocratic government of the planet. If you were anything lower than that, you lived on the streets.

Pockets of civilization formed in the anarchism, bubbles created by great people who were always replaced by warlords and khans. Hibbs was born into one of these pockets and sold to a warlord — there he was apprenticed to the other untrained medical staff that were trying their hardest to combat the rampant disease, madness, and carnage that washed through their doors, all with no idea how.

Dr. Dearly was a prodigy among them, learning quickly and rising through the ranks even faster. After turning thirty, he had treated hundreds of Khan Torley’s subjects and lost only eighteen of them. He was at the height of his career then, eking out a better living than he could have ever hoped for. It was when his khan’s son had a motor accident that his life would take a sharp turn.

The khan’s son was an impossible case, but Dr. Dearly worked diligently anyways, trying everything he could. After all, he had worked miracles before, anything was possible…

When the khan’s son inevitably died, Dearly was dismissed from service — but not before Khan Torley took reparations from the good doctor. Nineteen parts for nineteen patients, his eyes, his leg, and most things inside. Wandering the streets of Duat with a mutilated body and crude cybernetics, Dearly began to hope to die.

Before that wish could be fulfilled, he was picked up by a refugee ship, the NJS (No Jurisdiction Ship) Notre Dame, where he currently serves as the head medical officer — a valuable, if unlikely addition to the crew.