Masks

"There are the events taking place in the town, which are real. And there is their stage adaptation, which is also real. There are the actors who play the protagonists and reenact the events of their lives (since upon loading, you’re reliving that short—or not so short—stretch of their deathbound journey. The actor walks out into the town, looking for inspiration, “walking the hero’s paths”. And there’s a fluid ambiguity in not having a clear way of telling who you are right now: the real Haruspex or Bachelor, living his life, about to die—or an actor playing his part and thus getting a chance to go back to the past?"

- Pathologic 2 art book

The Masks are characters that play many roles. They are the Executors and the Tragedians. Sometimes their presence is caused by in-game matters, in other cases they breach the Fourth Wall in order to speak directly to the player — they often appear to explain discrete game mechanics.

They are your ever-present companions who guide you through the game — or perhaps deceive you; whatever the case, they are definitely following your progress very closely. They also appear at the end of each day at the Theatre to perform a pantomime based on the events of the day.

It's hard to say how many Tragedians and Executors there are in the Town, and if the Tragedian and the Executor appearing here and there are the same two people or not.

Executors
"Orderlies—the volunteer medical assistants—use these costumes borrowed from the local theatre as protective cloaks. This is the traditional costume of the Reaper, an allegory of Death. The mask of Muu Shubuun, «the wicked bird.» Part of the Reaper costume from the local theatre. It doesn’t have eyeholes: the mask is mounted above an actor’s head, who peeks through a hole in the cloak."

- From the Pathologic 2 art book

The Executor is an orderly wearing a stage costume — a heavy cloak and a bird mask. If the player fails to complete certain crucial tasks, or if the Plague otherwise advances, an Executor will appear outside the door of a Bound who has fallen ill as a result. The Executors will appear as both plague orderlies in protective costume, as well as figures of the Sand Plague. These figures are often referred to as Talon and Beak, two Executors with a meta knowledge of the game's events.

Gallery
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Tragedians
Tragedians are the actors from the local Theatre. Tragedians dress in form-fitting black stage costumes and white masks approximating a human face. The Tragedian is a placemarker hero, a shade of what could have been were it not for you; like all mimes, they're gently compassionate and moderately useless.

Gallery
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