Age: 200 Years
Hidden or Lost?: Lost
History: Most doctors hold to the Healer’s Oath for their entire lives, but the spirit held within the cursed edge known as the Grave Scalpel has followed it beyond death.
Samuel Couper was once heralded as the greatest doctor on the frontier. As a new civilization fought against the wilderness to make lonely footholds in uncharted lands, Dr. Couper was there at the front, riding with exploratory missions and penniless homesteaders alike. His love of discovery was matched only by his skills as a healer. Whether it was a tenacious pox like the Green Famine, rare poison afflictions like that of the elderberry, or the deadly fractures dubbed the ‘Wind Shatters,’ Couper would work tirelessly to find a solution. He was even nicknamed, ‘The Jeweler’ thanks to his impossibly precise treatments and surgical techniques.
During the course of his journeys Couper managed to build a family that accompanied him on his travels, his wife Greta acting as his nurse, and his young son, Mendes, assisting with preparations. It was the life of his dreams.
Then came the day that young Mendes came down with the mysterious, incurable flu folks had named ‘The Sputters,’ for the sound its victims made as boils grew on their lungs. The sickness had murdered entire towns as it swept across the land, and now it had come for his family.
Couper immediately rode out in search of a cure. He called in every favor and consulted every expert he had ever met on his travels, but the best Couper could seem to find were ways to ease the boy’s pain. Running out of time, The Jeweler sought more unconventional answers.
Desperate and tired, he turned to a defrocked priest he had known, a man who had been said to work miracles, however blasphemous. The heretic could not heal Mendes, but he said he could give Couper more time to find a cure. The ex-priest’s plan was twofold: first Mendes was encased in blessed saint-wax, which arrested the Sputters, effectively freezing the boy in time, then came Samuel's diabolical role. The heretic produced the Grave Scalpel, an impossibly sharp stone knife that once belonged to the church’s first medical cutter. He plunged the scalpel deep into Couper's eye. But the doctor did not die. Rather, he became a specter tied to the Grave Scalpel. While he was now enthralled to whoever wielded the ancient blade, Couper had eternity to cure his son.
After Couper’s half-death, the Grave Scalpel changed hands many times. It was sought out by desperate healers and deranged killers alike. Each time, Couper emerged to assist or thwart the desires of the scalpel’s latest wielder, enhancing the blade’s edge or rendering it too dull to cut.
The price was unimaginably high, but even centuries later, as the Grave Scalpel continues to change hands, Couper's ghost emerges to try and heal the ailing, and continue his quest to one day find a cure for his son.