Alder

Region

Harthmoor

Domain

The Heather Roads

Title

The Grey Physician

Path

The Unbound Path

Known throughout Ethora as the Grey Physician, Alder is a healer whose reputation borders on legend. Stories of his work can be found in every region, though no two accounts ever seem to agree on where he came from or where he went afterward.

Some describe him as a wandering doctor, others as a smuggler, herbalist, surgeon, alchemist, poison specialist, or miracle worker.

Alder has never cared much for titles. What matters to him are the people who have nowhere else to turn to.

His patients include villagers isolated by disease, those injured beyond conventional treatment, those who seek secret treatments like horn removal surgeries, corruption victims, and nobles willing to travel extraordinary distances in search of his expertise. He treats them all with the same quiet professionalism.

This willingness to help anyone has earned him both admiration and suspicion.

Many authorities distrust him because he frequently operates outside official systems. Alder is known to ignore political boundaries, local customs, and bureaucratic restrictions whenever they stand in the way of helping someone in need. He has crossed battlefields to treat the wounded and entered regions considered dangerous simply because someone requested aid.

Despite this, he rarely seeks recognition. In fact, many people who have benefited from his work only learn his identity after he has already disappeared. Across Harthmoor and beyond, travelers tell stories of a grey-cloaked physician who appears during moments of crisis and vanishes again before dawn.

Whether every tale is true hardly matters anymore.

The stories themselves have become part of the legend.

And like all good legends, Alder never seems to be where people expect him to be.