Steal this Steampunk Villain: Doctor Michael Heathcote

To his patients, he is known as a generous soul. Offering medical care to the rookeries of the east end, and only charging what the patients can afford. This has earned him a stellar reputation, and even the criminals of that vice ridden den leave him alone, never knowing when they might need his help themselves. In the worst parts of London, stabbings are common, and blunt trauma even more so. All this good will comes at a price though, and when a patient dies on the slab, the body rarely goes to its final rest in piece., instead becoming a subject for Heathcote’s current project.

Heathcote has other plans for the flesh you see, and in his spare time he melds it with the latest in Neo-Victoriana technology. His goal: to create the perfect the worker. His years of working with the dregs of humanity has blighted his outlook on his fellow humans, and he now believes that the best course of action is to take those less fortunate and make them a part of the machinery of industry in a way that has never been attempted before. He replaces bone joints with hinges, internal organs with pneumatics, and anything else he can think of that will create a human being that will never need to shut down, as long as they keep taking on fuel. No more sleeping. Maybe even no more death at all.

It has been quite some time since he reached the limits of his experimentations with dead flesh. These days he is more than happy to pronounce dead the victim of a violent crime whose life is better ended before it perpetuates the cycle of violence that brought him before the Doctor’s knife.  In his own way, maybe Heathcote thinks he is doing good works. One look into his cellar would probably convince even the most generous of souls that that is far from the case though. The body will still be alive, and used in the most depraved ways that science can muster.

His failures are thrown into plague pits or the dark waters of the midnight Thames. Those he considers a success work with him still, perfecting his craft to create more workers. Although he considers them a success, he has yet to create a being that survives for longer than a month. And even the most long lived of his creations begin to rot before they finally succumb to entropy. Even though he disposes of those that fail him in the end, the smell of corpse flesh still fills the well lit cellar. His man-machines decompose while still breathing, a side effect of the strange chemicals that they must have running through their systems to allow muscle and brass to work together in a mockery of harmony.

How then does this generous man of the people afford to work so industriously at his passion? The medicines that Heathcote hands out are far from cheap, so he needs other ways to supplement his income. When not being a beacon of charity for the down at luck residents of a few city blocks, he works the whore houses. Great at dealing with cases of the clap, and many other things besides, this pays very well indeed. And for the madam who can’t pay, well the good Doctor is happy to take his pay in trade. His work in the less reputable of brothels has brought him into contact with some of London’s finest. Although to maintain that status, they would prefer if their presence at such establishments remained out of the public eye.

By cultivating relationships with such individuals, Heathcote has acquired a small but formidable number of patrons, including some of London’s Fathers of Industry. Most of these gentlemen eagerly await a final product that they will be able to put to work in their many factories, and are already pushing their members of Parliament – in both houses – towards changing labour laws to allow for such vile treatment of their workforce.

Bringing Dr. Heathcote into a game.

Depending on the social level of the game, there are a few options to bring in the despicable Doctor.

• He could be attempting to blackmail a friend of the players. A friend who seeks their help in blackening the name of Heathcote so that his word will be worthless should he choose to speak out.
• If the PCs are of the criminal classes they could come into contact with the Doctor as he sews closed a wound or two. this could either lead to being hunted by Heathcote after they discover too much about his other activities, or being hired by him to bring in more specimens or even steal large quantities of mechanical supplies.
• Local charities trying to achieve a betterment in the lifestyle of the working classes could across his patrons who are fighting to relax the already far from stringent labour laws, and thus discover his connection with industry, and quite what it means to the people whom he operates on.