On The Construction and Constitution of the Late John Dee's Bodily Stand-In
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At a glance the first descriptors that come to mind for the Doctor are 'Tall' and 'Slender', standing a remarkable six feet and four inches in height when shod. His sense of style is markedly old fashioned, favoring garments in silk and brocade one would expect of the gentry in Victorian England, complete with top hat and cane (neither of which he cannot suffer to be seen without). In contrast he openly wears various forms of gadgetry upon his personage, accenting his overly formal code of dress with a medley of glowing tubes, leather pouches, glass lenses, and steel plates that turn his gentlemanly veneer more towards the eccentric.
Digging a little deeper, beneath the brocade overcoat and top hat, is a distinctly inhuman entity. More than the most fleeting of glances at the Doctor's personage is a trip into uncanny valley for most people who cross paths with him. His face, usually painted with a gentle and inviting smile, is fair and handsome with smooth features that are just ever so slightly off, enough so that the more scrutiny befalls them the less they seem to be natural. His movements and gestures are just slightly more stiff than one would expect of an actual person and the consistency of his varied but limited facial expressions give off the impression they are pre-configured.
Upon closer inspection they might find what little skin his outfit leaves uncovered to be cold, firm, and just slightly shiny, like well worn marble. His hair, worn in a singular and rather loose braid that goes down the majority of his back, is abnormally stiff and wiry with a decidedly shiny synthetic texturing. To cut to the chase it would suffice to say he far more closely resembles a giant old-timey porcelain doll than an actual human being, sans fragility wherein he is far more rsemblant of the aforementioned marble. True to form, when stripped the majority of his body is jointed and articulated in a distinctly inorganic fashion. Only his shoulders, head, and arms from just below the elbow down appear normal, though the arms can be removed and replaced.
As one might expect of his almost doll-like construction his chest rises and falls only in imitation of the base act, his eyes never close unless he so desires, and he is never seen to eat, though he partakes regularly in the drinking of wines and strong spirits. Despite all this he retains a very faint pulse of a rhythm not unlike any other man's.
Beneath his 'flesh' lies a a complex vascular system reminiscent in shape to what one might find in the average person but wholly un-alike in form, with an aetherium matrix in the shape of a human heart laying in his chest exactly where one would normally expect the real thing. While this heart of sorts exists within his chest it administers no bloodflow- in place of the familiar red plasma is a pressurized stream of vaporous Aether, the Primordial form of mana and the building blocks of both the physical world and magic.
The properties of this vaporized Aether, from trivial things like color and emission or retention of light to its core physical attributes like density and acidity, seem to shift and change sporadically without any consistency or correlation of associated attributes. The most consistency that can be pinned to the Doctor's 'blood' as it were is that its passivity or violence of nature tends to correlate roughly to his own. Whatever its minute to minute properties may be it seems to have a good deal more efficiency than the stuff in human veins, as do whatever substitute for the muscles it powers, and he seems far less concerned with losing a bit of it.
Anatomic irregularities of even greater note exist in the form of a series of plates covering the spine and back, each of which have socketed holes and pressurized closure valves that lead into the aetherial blood-flow beneath. These openings can be used to connect the Doctor's body to various devices for direct control and autonomous power by the raw energy contained within the Aether.
The only thing his body seems to actually require for continued operation and upkeep is liquid to drive the aetherium matrix inside his heart, in quantities less like nourishment and more like an oil change. What sort of liquid it requires is completely indiscriminate, though as said above the Doctor has a preference towards alcohol, especially of the stronger sorts- claiming it to be more efficient due to its joining of contradictory elements.