Lazarus Grimm

Lazarus Grimm (he/him, it/its) is one of the five Player Characters in The Timeless Tower under the sign of The Morning Sun. He is played by VIOLET.

Character Background
There are no records of a man like Lazarus Grimm living anywhere in England--not within the past 100 years--but if you were to look at his passport, the yellowed ID card he keeps in his breast pocket, and the hand-me-down watch from his dearly departed father (God bless his soul), one would be hard pressed to deny his existence. However, as far as the people of Malton and beyond are concerned, he appeared one Christmas like a phantom amidst the white winter winds; his too-long, spiderlike figure stretching like the waifish fingers of death above the silhouette of a refined young traveler. There were whisperings of the reaper who follows that distinguished figure across the land: that it's a curse, a ghost, an omen, ever at her back. They say his hair is black as death; others say it is white as bone; others would scoff at the exaggeration in play, for the phantom behind the solemn traveler is merely a polite, somewhat sickly man with chestnut brown hair. Their father, perhaps, or a friend of the father, or some kind of keeper.

Whichever it is, the important part is that his existence remains ever ghostlike. To leave no tracks, and leave no trace of oneself... only their slinking shadow... this is the life all men of the Walker clan commit themselves to--body and soul. The Walkers are a highly esteemed and equally as secretive clan devoted to producing world class hitmen. ""Lazarus"" comes from the 49th generation of such a prestigious family, and while not particularly ""famous"" (hard to become famous when everything one does is made to look like an accident or a ghost story), or even all that physically or intellectually remarkable, he never leaves his work undone. At present, he has been tasked with protecting a young traveler for unknown reasons. If you asked him what he was doing, he would most certainly put on a convincing show of being a staid older servant; and provided the young master made a jape or jab at him, he would regard it softly, as if he had a weakness for that sort of thing.

However, the Walkers do not produce weak men... and if the man called Lazarus is nothing else, he is ever unflinching.

Appearance
Lazarus is about 58 years old. Tall and thin, like the floating rods of a wind chime, he casts an eerie silhouette. His clothes make no effort to reduce the lankiness of his frame--tailored suits and long coats for travel emphasizing his daintiness. He has pale, pale skin, contemplative dark eyes, and graying chestnut brown hair flecked with pure silver. In spite of being so thin, he has a handsome, even somewhat feminine face. Ethnically, he is Jewish, and he speaks with a Yiddish accent.

Evident Boon
Cloak of Shadow (Ability)

Lazarus has a long history of avoiding detection and getting out alive. He has a passive +1 difficulty to being attacked by physical means. In addition, as an "Interact" action, he may select himself and one other character within the same room as him. Both Lazarus and the target chosen gain the "Shrouded" condition until Lazarus performs a "Movement" or attack action, blending into the shadows to stay out of sight. While shrouded, characters who are not actively looking for Lazarus will not be able to detect him. A character that is actively looking for Lazarus will need to pass a moderate difficulty Interact check in order to find him within the room. In addition, any character who gains the "Shrouded" condition will have one negative status effect removed from them, if any (Wounds and particularly devastating status effects cannot be removed in this way).

Hidden Strength
Lazarus's Hidden Strength has yet to be publicly revealed.

Secret Objective
Lazarus's Secret Objective has yet to be publicly revealed.

Trivia

 * Throughout Act 1, Lazarus alludes to a mental illness he possesses that affects his ability to grasp reality and renders him easily frightened. In the Final Turn post-turn narrative section, Lazarus calls his mental illness dementia praecox, (premature dementia), the term formerly used to refer to a mental disorder now known as schizophrenia. Dementia praecox was first used by German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin in 1883; later in 1908, Swiss psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler would introduce the word schizophrenia to the German Psychiatric Association, arguing that dementia praecox was not associated with dementia at all, and instead was best described as a disconnect between mental functions. Schizophrenia comes from the German word schizein (splitting) and the Greek phren (the mind and spirit).