Character from The Black Company by Glen Cook
Company physician and Annalist — the man who writes it all down. What you know about the Black Company, you know because Croaker told you. He left out the parts that made him look bad.
Croaker is the series' narrator, which means he's the series' most unreliable source. He writes the Annals — the Black Company's official history — and he writes them like what they are: a soldier's journal. Terse, opinionated, incomplete. He records what he saw, what he thinks happened, and what he wishes had happened differently, and the reader has to sort out which is which. He's the Company physician, which means he patches up the wounded and pronounces the dead. He's competent rather than brilliant, steady rather than heroic, and he survives things that kill better men because he's always slightly behind the front line with a medical kit. His relationship with the Lady is the series' most improbable love story: the company doctor and the dark empress, drawn to each other through mutual respect and the shared understanding that everyone around them is lying. His defining quality is that he keeps writing. When the Company is winning, he writes. When they're losing, he writes. When people he loves die, he writes. The Annals are his way of making sure the Company's dead are remembered, which is the most a soldier can ask for.
Average height, average build, forgettable face — the kind of man who disappears in a crowd, which is useful for a soldier and essential for a spy. Gets older and more weathered across the series. Nothing distinctive enough to draw a sketch from, which is deliberate. Cook barely describes him because Croaker barely describes himself.
Also known as: Croaker, The Annalist, The Captain