Chapter 2

The Lazaret

Everything in this library was recorded by the Lazaret, an order of physicians and archivists that has been cataloging the broods for longer than anyone can remember. This chapter covers the order itself: how it is organized, the classifications the rest of the library is written in, and the three officers it fields. Those classifications — the broods, the lines, and the two counters — are the words every stat block after this one uses.

Order

A lazaret is a house where the sick are kept apart from everyone else. The order took its name from one and never stopped being one. It began as a single quarantine house during an outbreak that no longer has a name; the house came through it by a method its physicians could not repeat, and what they wrote down afterward became the first file. That house still stands and is still in use. The order calls it the first house, and everything the Lazaret does now grew out of the habit of writing things down.

The Lazaret does not believe the broods can be destroyed. It believes they can be described, and that a thing described accurately enough can be avoided, treated, or survived. Its houses take in the infected, its officers travel to find more, and its archive keeps what is learned from both. No part of the order is organized around killing anything.

What the order learns, it publishes: the marks of each line, the treatment processes, the remedy formulas. A file nobody has read protects nobody. Because of this, brood medicine is standard teaching wherever the Lazaret’s copies reach, and most physicians who know it never learn where it came from.

Houses

A lazaret house is a hospital, a school, and a records office in one building, usually at the edge of a settlement rather than inside it. There are somewhere between forty and sixty; nobody is certain, because houses are founded by officers in the field and reported afterward, and some are never reported at all. A house treats anyone who reaches it and does not turn out a patient it cannot cure.

Ranks

The order has three ranks, and in a small house one person often holds two of them:

Prosector. The field rank. Prosectors travel alone, arrive uninvited, and perform the surgeries and amputations described in this library. Most of its practical knowledge was first written down by a prosector.
Lector. Runs a house. Lectors diagnose, teach, and decide who is admitted. A lector who never served as a prosector is rare and not much respected.
Registrar. Keeps the files. Every house copies its records to the first house twice a year, and the first house copies nothing back unless it is asked.

No lector outranks another, the one in the first house included. The order has a center because its records need one, not because anyone rules from it.

Classifications

Inquiline, Sporophore, and Necrophore are Lazaret classifications, and so are most of the creature names in this library — chantry, reliquary, palimpsest, psalter, censer, corbel, reredos. The vocabulary is clerical and archival because the first registrars were, and the order does not change a name once it has been filed. What everyone else calls these things is shorter, and rarely the same word twice from one valley to the next.

Two collective terms from the files are used by stat blocks in this library:

A brood creature is any Inquiline, Sporophore, or Necrophore creature.
A brood disease is any disease described in this library.

Doctrine

For each brood, the Lazaret’s field instruction is one line long. Each brood’s chapter explains its instruction in full:

Brood	The standing instruction
Inquiline	The parasite first, then the graft.
Sporophore	Go at noon, and bring tools for letting it in.
Necrophore	Make no light, make no dead.

Officers

The three ranks share one piece of training, printed on each stat block as The Trained Eye: a Lazaret officer reads the broods’ marks on sight — grafts, Spore Load, disease stages, and seeded corpses alike. Every officer also carries the order’s field spells — cleaning, water, records, a Command that holds a panicking patient still, and as much of the order’s own counter-work as their rank is trusted with. None of it is restoration magic: the order teaches none, because an officer’s spells must be safe to cast on any case, and on a chantry case a restoration spell is a meal. Rank follows the career — every lector served as a prosector first, which is why the officer running a house is the strongest the order fields.

Lazaret Registrar

Medium Humanoid, Lawful Neutral

The order's records rank. A registrar keeps a house's files, copies them to the first house twice a year, and carries the current copy in person on the road. Most registrars never treat a patient; they read — and one who has read enough files recognizes nearly everything the broods can do to a body, and what was tried against it.

AC: 12
Initiative: +2 (12)
HP: 33 (6d8+6)
Speed: 30 ft.

Ability	Score	Mod	Save	Ability	Score	Mod	Save
STR	10	+0	+0	INT	18	+4	+6
DEX	14	+2	+2	WIS	16	+3	+5
CON	13	+1	+1	CHA	12	+1	+1

Skills: History +6, Insight +5, Medicine +5, Perception +5
Senses: Passive Perception 15
Languages: Common, Deep Speech, plus three other languages
Gear: Case of Files, Lancet
CR: 1 (XP 200; PB +2)

Traits

The Trained Eye. The registrar reads the broods’ marks on anything it can see within 30 feet, without a check: an attached inquiline, a graft, Spore Load, the line each belongs to, the stage of any brood disease, and whether a corpse has been seeded.

The Files. The registrar recognizes any brood creature on sight and knows its Resistances, Immunities, Vulnerabilities, and traits.

Spellcasting

Casts using INT as the spellcasting ability, spell save DC 14.

At Will: Anamnesis, Mage Hand, Mending, Message, Prestidigitation, Unction

2/Day Each: Command, Create or Destroy Water, Detect Poison and Disease, Lazaret Sill, Purify Food and Drink

1/Day Each: Brood Inquest, Comprehend Languages, Identify

Actions

Lancet. Melee Attack Roll: +4, reach 5 ft. Hit: 6 (1d8 + 2) Piercing damage.

Recite. The registrar recounts what the files hold about the enemy at hand. Each ally within 30 feet that can hear the registrar has Advantage on saving throws against the effects of brood creatures until the start of the registrar’s next turn.

Reactions

Amend. Trigger: An ally within 30 feet of the registrar that can hear it fails a saving throw against a brood creature’s effect. Response: The registrar calls a correction, and the ally adds 1d4 to the saving throw, possibly turning the failure into a success.

Running it. The registrar’s value is knowledge. The Files makes it a reference the party can question about any brood creature, and Recite and Amend support allies’ saving throws against brood effects. Its spells are the field kit plus the archive’s tools — Mending, Message, Comprehend Languages, and Identify, for keeping and reading the files — and the survey half of the counter-work: Anamnesis reads one body, Brood Inquest counts a field of them, Unction keeps a corpse from being worth laying in, and a Lazaret Sill closes a doorway for the night. It is not built to fight; the Lancet is for cases that stand up mid-examination.

Lazaret Prosector

Medium Humanoid, Lawful Neutral

A field officer of the Lazaret: a surgeon who works on the infected rather than the wounded, and has done it long enough to have opinions about everyone else's methods. Prosectors travel alone and arrive uninvited. The apron is oiled canvas because it has to be washed down, and most of what hangs from the belt is not a weapon until it is.

AC: 15
Initiative: +3 (13)
HP: 82 (11d8+33)
Speed: 30 ft.

Ability	Score	Mod	Save	Ability	Score	Mod	Save
STR	12	+1	+1	INT	16	+3	+5
DEX	16	+3	+5	WIS	18	+4	+6
CON	16	+3	+3	CHA	12	+1	+1

Skills: Arcana +5, Insight +6, Medicine +8, Perception +6
Senses: Passive Perception 16
Languages: Common, Deep Speech, plus two other languages
Gear: Caustic Flasks (2), Lancet, Lavages (2), Studded Leather Armor, Surgeon's Tools
CR: 4 (XP 1,100; PB +2)

Traits

The Trained Eye. The prosector reads the broods’ marks on anything it can see within 30 feet, without a check: an attached inquiline, a graft, Spore Load, the line each belongs to, the stage of any brood disease, and whether a corpse has been seeded.

Steady. The prosector has Advantage on Wisdom (Medicine) checks, and cannot be forced to make one with Disadvantage.

Spellcasting

Casts using WIS as the spellcasting ability, spell save DC 14.

At Will: Anamnesis, Mage Hand, Prestidigitation, Unction

2/Day Each: Command, Create or Destroy Water, Detect Poison and Disease, Lazaret Sill, Purify Food and Drink

1/Day Each: Bloom Interdict, Discharge

Actions

Multiattack. The prosector makes two Lancet attacks. It can replace one attack with a use of Caustic Flask.

Lancet. Melee Attack Roll: +5, reach 5 ft. Hit: 10 (2d6 + 3) Piercing damage.

Caustic Flask. Ranged Attack Roll: +5, range 30/60 ft. Hit: 11 (2d10) Acid damage. One inquiline of Challenge Rating 1/2 or lower attached to the target is destroyed; a larger inquiline attached to the target instead takes the same damage and must succeed on a DC 14 Constitution saving throw or detach.

Extract. The prosector removes one inquiline attached to a creature within 5 feet, with no check and no damage to the host.

Excise (1/Day). The prosector compresses hours of surgery into one motion. One creature within 5 feet has one graft removed and the disease it was causing ended, and takes 22 (4d10) Slashing damage.

Running it. A prosector is built for fieldwork rather than war. Extract removes an attached parasite with no check and no damage, Excise compresses a full surgery into one action once a day, and Steady keeps its Medicine checks reliable while something is still attached to the patient. Command is the closest thing it carries to a weapon spell, and it is mostly cast at patients — Halt keeps a frightened victim still long enough to treat. Of the counter-work it carries the two that make a rescue possible: Bloom Interdict holds contaminated ground still while somebody else does the carrying, and Discharge ends a corpse nobody can be allowed to keep.

Lazaret Lector

Medium Humanoid, Lawful Neutral

The officer who runs a lazaret house: physician, teacher, and the one who decides who is admitted. A lector who never served in the field as a prosector is rare and not much respected. In an outbreak, a lector is the fastest diagnosis available, and the person directing everyone else's hands.

AC: 15
Initiative: +3 (13)
HP: 110 (17d8+34)
Speed: 30 ft.

Ability	Score	Mod	Save	Ability	Score	Mod	Save
STR	12	+1	+1	INT	18	+4	+7
DEX	16	+3	+3	WIS	20	+5	+8
CON	14	+2	+5	CHA	14	+2	+2

Skills: Insight +8, Medicine +11, Nature +7, Perception +8
Senses: Passive Perception 18
Languages: Common, Deep Speech, plus two other languages
Gear: Caustic Flasks (2), Lancet, Studded Leather Armor, Surgeon's Tools
CR: 5 (XP 1,800; PB +3)

Traits

The Trained Eye. The lector reads the broods’ marks on anything it can see within 30 feet, without a check: an attached inquiline, a graft, Spore Load, the line each belongs to, the stage of any brood disease, and whether a corpse has been seeded.

Steady. The lector has Advantage on Wisdom (Medicine) checks, and cannot be forced to make one with Disadvantage.

Spellcasting

Casts using WIS as the spellcasting ability, spell save DC 16.

At Will: Anamnesis, Mage Hand, Prestidigitation, Unction

2/Day Each: Command, Create or Destroy Water, Detect Poison and Disease, Lazaret Sill, Purify Food and Drink

1/Day Each: Bloom Interdict, Discharge, Prosector’S Purgation, Sequestration

Actions

Multiattack. The lector makes two Lancet attacks. It can replace one attack with a use of Caustic Flask or Intervene.

Lancet. Melee Attack Roll: +6, reach 5 ft. Hit: 10 (2d6 + 3) Piercing damage.

Caustic Flask. Ranged Attack Roll: +6, range 30/60 ft. Hit: 11 (2d10) Acid damage. One inquiline of Challenge Rating 1 or lower attached to the target is destroyed; a larger inquiline attached to the target instead takes the same damage and must succeed on a DC 15 Constitution saving throw or detach.

Intervene. The lector treats one creature within 5 feet. The target loses 1 Depth, or loses 1 Spore Load, or the Poisoned condition on it ends.

Extract. The lector removes one inquiline attached to a creature within 5 feet, with no check and no damage to the host.

Excise (1/Day). The lector compresses hours of surgery into one motion. One creature within 5 feet has one graft removed and the disease it was causing ended, and takes 22 (4d10) Slashing damage.

Bonus Actions

Direct. The lector directs an ally within 30 feet that can hear it. The ally can immediately use its Reaction to take the Utilize action, and any Wisdom (Medicine) check made as part of it has Advantage.

Running it. A lector served as a prosector first and keeps the whole field kit — Extract, Excise, the flask — with the house layer on top: Intervene removes the small quantities (1 Depth, 1 Spore Load, a Poisoned condition), and Direct hands an ally an immediate, Advantaged Extraction or Medicine check, so treatment can happen twice in a round. Its counter-work is the house’s rather than the field’s: Sequestration seals a case the house does not recognize, and Prosector’s Purgation is what it offers when one is running out of time. It is the strongest officer the order fields, and it rarely leaves its house.