Name of Creator: Sam (PM King Aedan I)
Name of Character: Thomas Finch (real last name: Melamed)
Relation to Other Site Characters: has two sons, Justinius and Isaac)
Brief Outline of Personality, History, and Appearance:

Current age: 44

Appearance: Thomas was handsome in his youth, but years of exposure to others' illnesses and the rigors of travel have taken their toll on him. His face is drawn and gaunt. His eyes, though a brilliant blue, are beginning to become cloudy (he fears going blind more than anything, as it would ruin his profession). His hair is still mostly brown, but graying on top and and at the temples. Fine lines fan out from his eyes and the corner of his mouth, and he walks with a slight stoop. His eyes are often red-rimmed, as he stays up late reading medical texts. While he was in Arabia, where it was safe to do so, he wore the fringes, caftan, and leather had of a Jew, as well as leaving his sidelocks free. In Thiasa, he dresses like any good Catholic.

History: Thomas's parents were conversos, Jews who pretended to be Christians, and raised him the same way. They had long since changed their family name from the Hebrew Melamed to the ubiquitous 'Finch,' and celebrated the Sabbath in secret. Thomas Finch always wanted to be a physician, and luckily his father scraped up enough money to pay for his eldest son's education. In addition, his Jewish heritage allowed him to travel to Arabia without too much persecution (the Arabians being none too fond of the Catholics who persecuted him). Therefore, the temperamental Thomas opted out of one of the academies in or even near Scalia, and insisted on traveling east, to where he had heard they taught the methods of legendary doctors beyond Galen, such as Avicenna and the renounced surgeon Sushruta. At the age of fifteen, taking the money his father had given him, he packed up and left. He would never see the man again, or return home.

On the caravan East, he met the younger daughter of a rich silk merchant and immediately fell in love, though the father wouldn't hear of their marriage. Luckily, they found themselves in the same city, the old man having decided to settle the remainder of his business and stay in the warmer clime.

While at school, he found himself frustrated by the religious edict against cutting into the human body, and he took to furtive grave robbery and dissection, though he knew it was against God's will. Still, after his best friend died from a ruptured internal organ, he found himself convinced that God wouldn't wish for him to hold back in treating the sick. On his deathbed, his friend, Hassan, had told him (with a weak smile) that this was his chance to learn the inner harmonies of the body.

And Thomas had done so, covering his fellow student's face with a cloth out of respect and saying a prayer over his body when he finished. This turned out to be only the first of many dissections, and in Thiasa he continues the dangerous practice, despite its possible implications (such as trial for witchcraft), due to a burning need to defeat death.

After six grueling years of medical study interspersed with quiet trysting, the father of the woman he loved gave in. He married the girl, a Jew named Avia Levy, and began to scrape out a living for himself in the foreign city. They planned on returning to Scalia as soon as they could gather the money, but Avia quickly became pregnant, and then it was too dangerous to travel with the young children they had together. Firstborn was Justinius, followed by a girl, Mary, and another boy, Isaac.

Then the Black Death came to the city of Parsa, where he had studied medicine at the University. Mary and Avia died. Justinius sickened, but managed to survive, and Isaac, miraculously, wasn't even touched by the fever. It devastated Thomas, who took to drinking heavily and even grew reckless with his patients at the madrassah, the Arabian hospital. Heartbroken, he realized he couldn't stay in Arabia, and he didn't want to return to Scalia. So he opted for the New World, Thiasa, and set off with his two young sons across the Straits of Camaria.

Once in Thiasa, he established himself as a skilled if somewhat eccentric doctor and surgeon, though he refused to join the Physician's Guild for a long time, scorning Thiasan doctors. At last, prompted by a dearth of clients, he gave in. Few commoners have the coin to pay for treatment, but he caters to those who can and some who can't. In the ten years since his wife died, he saw his daughter married off to a baker and his older son die in a freak accident at his job as a mason--crushed by one of the stones they were raising for a Church. Throughout all this, however, Thomas never lost his faith, though he had a fair few nights spent cursing God. Young Isaac has just left to pursue an apprenticeship as a tailor, Justinius has been conscripted to the infantry, and Thomas spend his nights alone reading. He's decided never again to marry, though most expect he would, given his relative success. And he laments that none of his children plan to become doctors.

Personality: Forbidding and severe to those who don't know him but tender with his family (while they were still living, or living with him), Thomas is an almost frightening man at times. Though pious, he has violent fits of sadness and has more than once feared he was going mad. Intense, obsessive and hardworking more than brilliant, he's made medicine his life, so don't be surprised if he's awkward at everyday conversation. All of his moods are intense: his now-long-ago love, his anger (mostly directed at himself, or at Death), and his sadness, which threatens to overwhelm him when he thinks of the lost members of his family. While not endearing, he's obviously good at his profession, and his brusque and matter-of-fact treatment has gained him patients more due to its no-nonsense qualities and less because he puts anyone at ease.