Surgeon Row

Located within the Machine Magic Market in Wizard City Hexcrawl.

An alley containing a host of varying doctors, surgeons, pharmacists, and psychomaniacs. They provide a range of restorative and augmentary medical services, often accompanied by "luxury payment plans" and "optional anesthesia".

Dr. Speed

Source

Advertisement: "Surgery in 3 minutes or your money back!"

Office: A repurposed local community theater turned operating room. For  all surgeries there will be a closely-watching crowd. Backstage the assistants prepare the patients for rapid-fire surgery.

Services Provided: Surgery

Curious patrons and medical students come from all over town to watch Dr. Speed perform his "miracle" 3-minutes-or-less operations on patient after patient in quick succession with the flare of an early surgeon-magician. They get wheeled in on stretchers, one after the other at lightning speed. He has a handful of assistants to constantly manage the in and outflux of patients, as well as to quickly clean his tools. Think a Nascar pit stop.

Obviously, he's using the Haste spell on himself. Still, that's only giving him a relative 6 minutes to do each and every one of his surgeries. With the rare Slow used on the patient, that gives him a maximum of 12 minutes per surgery. Mistakes are not infrequent. Depending on the complexity of the surgery required, there is anywhere from a 1-50% chance of failure (and your money back!).

Unpublished Catastrophe Rate: 1 in 20 (on average)

Best Visited If: you have a relatively simple commonplace surgery, such as amputation or bone-setting, and you want it done quickly without having to pay for anesthetics. Using Dr. Speed for something complex like brain surgery is a surefire way to a speedy and painful death.

Dr. Spider

Source

Advertisement: "Voted Most-Trusted Spider for thirteen consecutive years!"

Office: A narrow crack in a concrete wall at the end of the alley, given away by an accompanying sign demarking the entrance.

Services Provided: Emergency Surgery, Spider Limb Grafts, Paralytic Medicines.

Dr. Spider is a very unorthodox surgeon. Hard to think of a giant spider not being as such. More than one patient has woken up from paralysis nestled in a tight cocoon, absolutely terrified, only to have the stewards rush in to attempt to calm the situation as if words mattered when: SPIDERS!

She's very good at mending physical wounds, but she's quite strange with just about everything else. She is, after all, a giant spider, with a giant spider's brain and intelligence... And priorities. She'll often 'solve' problems you didn't know you had, like "insufficient detection hairs", or "inadequately proportional thoughts concerning web-making", or "not incubating my young".

Those who undergo her treatments tend to end up a bit more... spiderish. Perhaps they'll find themselves with an extra set of limbs after a "misunderstanding", or maybe they'll come out with twenty black pupil-less eyes to "cure their sight".

Heck, though, if this is what you wanted in the first place, you'll be pleasantly surprised with the results.

Unpublished Catastrophe Rate: 4 in 10 for "Unwanted Augmentations", 1 in 2000 for traditional errors. 1 in 1 if it seems like you won't be able to pay the medical bill.

Best Visited If: you don't mind being paralyzed and traumatized by many little spiders and one big one, or you don't mind spider-related mutations. Oh, and you're not arachnophobic.

Dr. Carter

Advertisement: "Everything comes a la carte!"

Office: Totally and completely bare waiting rooms and offices, devoid of even chairs, operating tables, sinks, or doors (those come a la carte). Sizable storage room in the back for the assistants to bring out those things which are a la carte (which is everything).

Services Provided: Surgery, General Practice, Every Specialty Practice.

Everything comes a la carte. Diagnosis a la carte. Welcoming small talk a la carte. Prognosis a la carte. Recommendation a la carte. Signed prescription a la carte. Doctor washes his hands before surgery a la carte. Each separate bullet removed a la carte. Anesthesia a la carte. Chairs and old boring magazines in the waiting room a la carte.

You pay for nothing you don't want. You get exactly what you pay for. Exactly. That and nothing more. Everything comes with a price tag, and that's how he gets ya. The diagnosis is cheap. The treatment is not. Dr. Carter's office is standing to lose money if you stick to just the essentials.

The only reason he's still is business is probably that, despite his outrageous business model, he's actually a decent doctor. The rich can afford to splurge to their heart's content and get good service. Those unprepared get roped into exorbitant bills ten feet in length, with each and every single service provided itemized and charged.

Unpublished Catastrophe Rate: 2 in 100 (mostly caused by customers insufficiently demanding features that were unknown to have been 'a la carte', like anesthetics.)

Best Visited If: you know exactly what you want and what you need. Play your cards right, and you can get away with a complete steal of a doctor's bill. Fail to account for things, though, and you'll get stuck with hefty debt.

Dr. Exorcist

Source

Advertisement: "We'll help you battle your disease!"

Office: A fighting arena with a big stone slab in the middle. They even sell tickets and serve beverages to onlookers. There's an office proper right next to the gladitorium where they settle details for the fights.

Services Provided: "Exorcism", Diagnosis.

You go to the Exorcist when you want to battle your toughest illnesses... literally. The mad wizard himself actually conjures the disease right out of the patient's body, and then has said patient fight the disease to the death.

Some diseases are far tougher than others. For instance: pancreatic cancer is a lumbering behemoth that will kill 9 in 10 wizards in gladiatorial combat. A common cold is like a single lonely snot goblin. Lupus is like a damned pack of wolves, hounding and biting.

The Exorcist works for a fairly modest fee: 1/3 of all of your possessions in the event of your death. The rest of his money he makes off of moderating bets and selling drinks.

He also gets to pick and choose his clients. After all, he won't get crowds if it's just round after round of wizards pummeling snot goblin common colds to death. People want to see some real action! Bring in the Cancer! Bring in the Brain Parasites! Bring in the Heart Disease! Bring in the Strokes!

For any particular disease, there will be only a certain number of compatriots allowed to help the patient, in order to keep the fight "balanced". The Stomach Virus going around you must fight alone or with one friend. For something like Stirge Malaria, your whole party can partake in the combat.

For the duration of the fight the patient is practically entirely healed from their disease. They act at full strength. Problems may arise, though, if certain diseases remain hidden or undiagnosed before the Exorcism happens. In this event multiple unaccounted diseases can spring up out of the patient, causing an impromptu mass battle.

Unpublished Catastrophe Rate: N/A. His exorcisms work without fail. The only catch is whether you have any undetected diseases.

Best Visited If: you're fairly confident that you and your friends can slay the manifestation of your disease. It's good for middle of the road diseases, especially if you need your recovery to be speedy. Too tough a disease can result in a TPK, and too light a disease is unlikely to catch the Doctor's interest. Additionally, if you can catch a disease early, you can nip it in the bud before it gets too tough to eviscerate.

Dr. Share

Advertisement: "Providing clients with opportunities to exchange their medicinal skill-sets with highly-trusted individuals."

Office: Not so much an office as a news stand or exchange board containing various offers for completely unlicensed medical practice. It's managed by "Dr. Share", who isn't actually a doctor, and never went to medical school, and merely facilitates the exchange of contact information for back-alley sawbones.

Services Provided: All

Oh boy... We're really desperate, aren't we? You want to use the Dr. Share service? Whoo man... Good luck!

Back alley doctors post their services on the Dr. Share board for a small fee, and clients may then seek them out in the city for their suspiciously cheap services. There is no rating system. Operates on word of mouth alone. Total shot in the dark. (Though, maybe Dr. Share can give you some recommendations... for a 'fee'.)

Service providers range from part-timers to necromancers to veterinarians to scrappy graduate students to mad scientists to organ harvesters.

Unpublished Catastrophe Rate: 1d10 in 10

Best Visited If: you happen to know a back alley sawbones in the list who is somewhat friendly and reliable, and definitely not just a wizard inducing medical mishaps in order to harvest parts. Use as a last resort.

Dr. Q

Source

Advertisement: "The doctor for Everyone."

Office: Right next to Dr. Oxson's office. Full of middle and lower class wizards. Mostly elves. The waiting and patient rooms seem to reflect this elvish tendency: potted plants, landscape paintings, and high ceilings.

Services Provided: All

She even does her services for free! So everyone can benefit from her wisdom! Just sign up for the waiting list... Which is approximately 7 Years long.

Consequently, the only people who end up seeing her are those with long drawn-out terminal illnesses or elves. Being an elf herself, it begins to make sense as to why she picked this particular model of medical charity.

She is frustratingly patient and insistent. You come barging in with a problem, she'll repeatedly and politely remind you that there are thousands of people in line ahead of them, all of which have their own problems. "You want a problem solved quickly? Go visit Dr. Speed." Despite these frustrations, she's quite a good and caring doctor, especially when it comes to chronic or magical diseases.

Patients can look up the queue daily to see how close to an appointment they're at. This also gives the enterprising sort the opportunity to see who to impersonate to get an appointment. Names are called out one by one until someone answers. The secretary has a very good memory (but not perfect), being an elf.

Unpublished Catastrophe Rate: 1 in 1000 for Elves, 1 in 100 for Everyone Else.

Best Visited If: your party is good at manipulating records, impersonating people, or if they have access to time magic. After all, half the city may be on that list, and it's impossible for the office to keep track of the identities of every single wizard on it.

Dr. Oxson

Advertisement: "The best doctor money can afford."

Office: Exorbitant. Luxurious. Upscale. Bourgeois. There's a fountain in the waiting room that provides minor healing to those drinking. ("Patients Only!") Expensive off-duty anti-magic police guarding the clinic.

Services Provided: All

Dr. Oxson isn't falsely advertising, she really is the best wizard-M.D. in the City. Probably the best doctor in the world. It's just that her Waiting List goes on an auction system - those willing to pay the most get to see her first.

Being the best doctor around, this means she's in quite the high demand, and only those who put forward vast sums of money will ever see her. Hence, she is available only the rich.

Still, she's really REALLY good. Like, the best. There is virtually no problem she can't solve. If you manage to get an appointment, consider your problems gone. It'll just cost you an arm and a leg (or a hundred).

Unpublished Catastrophe Rate: 1 in 10,000

Best Visited If: you have a ton of money to burn and you have a really, really difficult medical problem.

Dr. Death

Source

Advertisement: "Death cures all ills."

Office: A freakin' morgue. It's cold. It's dry. It's miserable and somber. The secretaries dress like funeral home directors and the doctor like the Grim Reaper. The waiting room has stacks of magazines for Casket Quarterly and Women's Death.

Services Provided: Death.

Welp... Here we are at the end of Surgeon Row. Dr. Death's office... Did you have a good life?

No? Well, it may perhaps give some comfort to know that Death reaches all types: rich and poor, healthy and sick, moral and wicked. Consequently, all types show up at the doors of Dr. Death. He's a rather busy doctor.

Now hold on, he's not entirely discredited as a medical professional! He does, in fact, have some indispensable uses. Take Death Diseases, for instance. There are a number of known diseases that may afflict a wizard in which death is a solution: eternal life and pain, undying rot, ghostification, multi-internal-combustion syndrome (MICS), being chopped up into many little pieces, thrown into a garbage bag, and being kept alive by a sorcerous curse so you're stuck as a sack of goo forever... Y'know, common, everyday problems!

Sometimes, Death is who you really need, and he provides a number of murderous and euthanasia services, often free of charge. He's just generous that way.

Unpublished Catastrophe Rate: 1 in 100 ("Damn partial-deaths! Will take a moment to solve, hold just one second...")

Best Visited If: you really have no others options. You have 'til-death-do-you-part diseases. Or if you have Resurrection.