Long Tim

The doctor of the physical body at The Foredweller Research Facility: at least 7'7", spindly, with an ape index so extreme that his arms hang to his ankles where most people's reach mid-thigh. He keeps his own floor-to-ceiling library within the lab, of which only he can reach the top five shelves. His stated specialism when the party first met him was the hallucinatory effects of the goop residue; his own account of his field is broader and blunter — the body, "including the mind, which is a physical item that is contained within the head. No matter what you may read in controversial opinion pieces that claim the mind is a separate entity, it is not. It's all in there in the grooves."

He is genuinely learned and completely without warmth. Asked to help a person understand what they are, he builds an enclosure and files a report.

(In Session 55 he gives his name as "Timothy Leisten" — which is also the name of the Varian spy Pimothy, a wholly separate person on the other side of the country. Almost certainly GM name-reuse; the vault keeps him filed under the name the party actually uses. See Canon Questions.)

Session 52 (named)

• Introduced on Dr. Xiao Li's tour as one of the facility's named specialists — "reaches the books on the top shelf" — studying the hallucinatory effects of the goop residue.

Session 53

• The unlucky recipient of Silithane's blind Message on the way out of the airlock, cut off mid-sentence when the caster remembered the party wasn't telling anyone they were leaving.

Session 55 (the sentience tests)

• Lore, in passing. There are well over 100 species of sentient humanoid in the world, though "the term humanoid has become considerably controversial since the Human Empire performed such horrific things to non-humans."
• Diagnosed Jex as gelatinous. By elimination rather than recognition: not acidic, stores things without consuming them, comfortable in water, and splatters rather than sticks when dropped. Goo is sticky and "feasts upon its prey by constriction and engulfment"; slimes are the ones dangerous to the touch. Jex is neither, and so a gelatinous creature. Colonies of them live under rocks and comprehend neither speech nor a sense of self.
• Refused to let Jex be the first. "Sentience had to evolve somewhere for everyone at some point, so perhaps you are just the first observed case of a jelly waking up and thinking." And when Jex takes that as confirmation: "This is a bold conclusion to draw with a sample size of one." He has never researched non-sentient species — "my focus is on fixing the organs inside of people. Of which you have none, unfortunately."
• The enclosure. Had Tink build a four-chamber plyboard testing pen (soundproof, with a tin-can-and-string speaker) after deciding aloud that some sentience tests "may be considered dehumanizing to experience, which would not be ideal if you were sentient." Ran self-recognition, a mirror, a baited box-trap, an object-permanence pair of podiums, and a puppet behind a tapestry — then instructed Jex to return to a room whose podiums had been removed.
• The report. Torn from his board, folded three times, stamped and handed to whoever was nearest. (1) Dromomania — the urge to wander; "I would suggest a leash and harness." (2) A 4 on the 1-to-7 spectrum of sentience, "semi-sentient or presenting"; "it's better than a dog, so there is nothing to prescribe for that unless you wish them to be less sentient, which is not good." (3) An invasive oral species predator, on the grounds that Jex's escaping eye entered his mouth through the speaker tube; "I would suggest regular and intense feedings to ensure that they are not tempted."
• Unmovable on the record. Fenric: "I can guarantee that's not what happened." Tim: "Yeah, I understand that you may prefer to live in denial, but this is my lived experience as the scientist that conducted this experiment." Jex's complaint that the tests lacked direction was added to the file — "well, you've said it, so it's a note on you" — along with a follow-up question about whether an inability to hear someone provokes a strong or moderate desire to enter their mouth.