Cicero

"'May you be patient, but sure.'"Cicero is a drow cleric of the death god Myrkul (The Reaper). He is first encountered in the town of Cravenhurst, where he serves as the town doctor and coroner.

Appearance
Cicero is tall and thin, with blue-gray skin that is sallow even for a drow. He has silver hair and amber eyes. He is typically seen in simple doctor's attire, with a dark vest and dress pants over a white button-down shirt; he owns a travelling duster and wide-brimmed hat as well.

He wears his holy symbol around his neck, as a fastener for his necktie.

History
Cicero was born in the Underdark, and was raised by an apothecary to whom he was apprenticed once coming of age. His parentage is unknown. He spent many years practicing medicine in the Underdark, a place of black market trade and home to both crime lords and dangerous supernatural creatures. As such, Cicero and his mentor saw many of the byproducts of this environment; some who fell victim to them were able to be cured, others were not so lucky. Cicero often studied the cadavers of those who had died, inspecting scars, observing rates of decay, and testing toxic components in their blood.

As a young adult, he made his way out of the Underdark with a group of merchants, serving as a travelling doctor for several years. However, a botched procedure led to the death of a noble's daughter. It is unclear whether the consequences of this led to Cicero's death, but in the period following this operation -- during which he had stopped practicing -- Cicero's life was cut short.

Opening his eyes to the murky skies of the Black Valley, Cicero met Myrkul in the afterlife. According to Hathaway's recounting of the encounter, Myrkul offered him another chance in exchange for his service. Cicero accepted.

While serving as the guardian of a grave site in the Desert of White Winds sacred to The Reaper, Cicero met Hathaway Perchaladon, who was initially part of a band of grave robbers. However, after Hathaway returned the stolen goods to the graveyard, Cicero conceded the point and allowed Hathaway to stay with him at the graveyard. During this time, the two maintained a romantic relationship which ended after a couple years for reasons unclear.

In-Game
Cicero meets the party when they talk to him in Cravenhurst. He currently serves as the town doctor, though he is known to come and go for short periods of time. He explains that the citizens who went to investigate to the north of town were killed and seemingly hung postmortem. He is not entirely pleased when Trill and Rattler play with the corpse on his table.

He requests to know what the party finds past the north field, and when they report back to him they find him sitting by the window. He reveals himself to be a grave cleric during the following exchange, much to Errk's displeasure. It is implied that he was the one who initially killed the false deacon Arnaud Eveskine (the Beast of Ill Omen they party encountered), despite having claimed to have come to Cravenhurst after Eveskine's death.

Trill worries that because Cicero serves a death god, he will try to send her back to the Shadowfell, but they are more alike than she knows, and Cicero's deity has not put out any feelers for a kenku who unlawfully left the afterlife.