Celestial Healers

Those who use celestial or popular magic to heal.

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Bolliturare

Type: Doctor

Bolliturari are doctors who study microbes and know which ones are helpful to a mortal body. They learn how to adjust, connect to, grow, and apply various celestial microbes (those who have beneficial effects in any way for mortals). They often grow them and create concoctions and solutions to provide healing for people, fight infections, and create antibiotics. None of these things go by those names - they view them in a very mystic way. But this is effectively what they do.

To become a bolliturare, they study for years, decades even, and learn from other bolliturari. Their arts are forbidden by imperial powers, so they mask it as other magic or other doctoring. They study medicine in imperial schools while also studying popular medicine from their mentors, meshing what works from both and ignoring the cruelties of imperial "science". Eventually, they graduate the imperial school, pretend to work for a master physician, and perform poorly there. They get thrown out and open or work for an unofficial clinic instead. At these clinics, they practice their celestial magic and have secret labs for growing their microbial concoctions.

Everything they work on, they test on themselves. They are often covered in sores, rashes, and other visible marks of disease, though they know how to keep them benign (though still uncomfortable). They gain certain abilities from their magic:

• Generative dish: they can make a small glass dish generate microbes of their choosing.
• Sense disease: they can sense disease in others.
• Temporary immunity: they can grant themselves or others temporary immunity from certain diseases.

And they know how to make many kinds of microbial concoctions:

• Phial of resistance: they can fill a phial with microbes that make a person more resistant to certain kinds of diseases.
• Curative concoction: they can create a concoction of microbes that kills certain kinds of diseases.
• Fevermore tincture: they can create tinctures mixed of herbs and microbes that intensify fever to break disease.
• Cooling salve: they can create a salve of oils and microbes that alleviates a fever.
• Soothing balm: they can soothe rashes, aches, pains, and other surface-level issues with a balm of cream and microbes.

They make all of these seem like other more common concoctions used by imperials.

PRO / ATH / STR +2 AWA +3 WIL +1 PRS -1 STH -1

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Cucitrice

Type: Surgeon

Cucitrici are surgeons who embody the virtue of resilience to wield magic. They refuse to let the world get them down permanently. They hold onto hope and practice methods to keep themselves going when others would collapse. They embody etting back up, defiance of oppression, strength inner and outer, healing and protecting. They draw from this, building upon it, to infuse into others.

To embody resilience, one must not let setbacks defeat them. They must fight through suffering and continue to do what needs to be done. People who wish to live the virtue of resilience need to build a community around themselves to make it possible. Many who practice this are raised in such a community, but some must do so with intention as strong community is discouraged by imperial culture. They must learn how to recover more quickly from mental and emotional difficulties, be open and welcoming to support, and have a strong network around them. It takes an entire community to make a cucitrice.

Cucitrici, like many other healers, often go and learn medicine in imperial schools as well as from mentors who teach them to tap into the magic generated by their virtuous living. Those who embody resilience gain major STR bonuses quickly and minor WIL bonuses slowly. They also gain ATH bonuses sometimes. Their main powers are healing of themselves and others, empowerment via courage, and the ability to help others up after a major setback. They gain PRS bonuses and oratory skills as well. After they train for years, they gain abilities, though training as a surgeon takes longer. They usually use their magic to help their training as a surgeon.

• Resilient infusion: they can drip some of their own blood into someone to make them recover from surgery or other wounds faster.
• Durant will: they can convert WIL to STR or vice versa to last longer on a long surgery or other task.
• Voice of recovery: they can speak to a patient and encourage them, uplift their spirits, and make their mental or emotional recovery quicker.
• Hard-to-kill: they do not instant die on any damage rolls.
• Indominitable will: they are immune to control spells and take bonuses to resist persuasion that goes against their character.

Cucitrici are often burnt as witches if caught by imperials. They use surgical techniques not available to other surgeons of their eras, but they are not equal to modern medicine.

PRO +1 ATH +1 STR +1 AWA +1 WIL +3 PRS -1 STH -1

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Healer

Type: Healer

The quintessential healers. The power of healing derives from blood, and healers draw their own to create medicines. This is augmented with other medical skills, mundane and supernatural, but in direst times, they use their own blood to heal.

To become a healer, to have blood that is imbued with celestial lifeforce, one must make a great sacrifice. One must devote themselves to the healing arts and use them for years before they are worthy, and then they must prepare a special concoction, a medicine, in a special kind of pot.

To become a healer, one must first live it. If one devotes onself to the study and practice of medicine, this is the first step. Once they have done this for at least six years (usually more), proving themself every step of the way as a devoted healer, they may be taken under the wing of a healer. Their mentor will teach them the six esoteric arts of the healer - blood of life, clay of life, true listening, empathy, guiding flow, and careful binding. This usually takes between three to six years.

The most important part of becoming a healer is the sacrifice one makes - their entire life. This is more than a vow or oath. This is more than an attitude or lifestyle. It is constant devotion. It is putting others above oneself entirely. It is pure selflessness. And to achieve this, they must complete their training. Once they understand the six esoteric arts, they must prove they are worthy. They will be tested by their mentor in knowledge and skill, and then they will be sent to create a special pot to create a concoction to prep themselves for the final act.

The pots are formed using any neutral or celestial form of clay. Each pot is designed with etchings that symbolize the body: blood and heart, bone, flesh and muscle, viscera, the mind, humors, and hair and nails. How these are symbolized varies by culture, but it is always a combination of image and writing.

Once the pot is designed and fired, it is left outdoors for a week and a day. Anything that has entered the pot in that time is then taken, along with the pot, to a nearby body of water. The pot is half-filled with water, stoppered, and sunk into the body of water, where it is left again for a week and a day. It is then taken to the healer-in-training's home and it is unstoppered. The healer then puts some of their own blood and other parts of their body into the pot (hair, nails, skin, other humors, etc.). It is re-stoppered and placed next to or under the bed or sleeping place of the healer for a week and a day. After this period, the pot is heated or frozen in some way for a week and a day (this varies by culture and location). Finally, it is taken to a place of healing, and then concoction is smeared on the bodies of 40 patients or as many as are present (whichever is fewer), and then the remainder of the medicine is drunk by the healer, who will then pass out.

If they are worthy, if they have done everything right, they will awaken in a week and a day with the blood of life in their veins. If they have failed in any way, they will get very sick for a week and a day.

After they have done this, they can do it again to create new medicine for use to recover from blood loss used to heal.

The final act of a healer's training is when they awaken with the blood of life. They will sense someone nearby in need of healing (this is inevitable unless they are absolutely alone). They will feel the compulsion to give their blood to this person. When they do, they will feel their blood begin to burn. If they let it touch air, they will erupt into flame. Knowing this, knowing they will die in this moment, they have the choice - die or let someone else die. Those who choose themselves lose their powers. Those who self-immolate by opening their veins to heal another feel ecstasy and power, and forever after they can heal with their own blood and use the other powers of a healer.

When performing their sacrifice, the healer rolls their WIL plus a bonus for their degree of devotion to healing and their desire to help others against the difficulty of surviving and recoverying from catastrophic self-combustion (16 plus 1 per every point of STR over 19). If they get to the point where self-immolation is even possible, their bonus is already +12, but it can go much higher (cap is 42 total WIL+bonus for standard mortal). Success rate determines the base power of their lifesblood:

• Critical failure: death.

• Exceptional failure: permanent power loss, bodily dysfunction, coma.

• Special failure: permanent power loss and bodily dysfunction.

• Failed roll: they chicken out and either have to try again or lose their powers.

• Tied roll: power of 7.

• Normal success: 10.

• Special success: 13.

• Exceptional success: 16.

• Critical success: 19.

The strength of a healer's lifesblood has a base determined by their sacrifice and medical knowledge. If they have a correct diagnosis of a problem, that is +6 to healing and allows them to address the source. If they know only symptoms, it is +3 to addressing the symptoms. If they know nothing, they can merely apply their base power to alleviate any kind of general discomfort reported or perceived.

The blood of life can grow in power as the healer makes more sacrifices using the blood. This is to say, every time they mortally wound themselves (that is, draw a mortal wound's worth of blood) to heal someone with a deep or mortal wound, the lifesblood temporarily gains a +3, and for every eight times they do this, they permanently gain +1. This can only be done if the mortal wound is done to engage a wound directly, not if done to draw blood for use later.

Recovering from blood loss takes time, but healers recover faster than others. They view using another's lifesblood to recover from blood given freely to be a waste of lifesblood, so they recover on their own by use of special diet, exercise, meditative and rest practices, and doses of their original medication. Flesh wounds heal almost instantly. Normal wounds heal after a day. Deep wounds become normal wounds after a week and heal in a day after that. Mortal wounds become deep wounds in a day, then take a week to become normal wounds, then heal in a day. Total exsanguination will kill them, but it will heal anything.

Note: the above refers only to blood drawn safely for use in healing, not for actual wounds caused by battle, accident, etc. Wound ratings used above refer to amounts of blood lost.

The six powers of a healer are

• Blood of Life: the sharing of healing blood for rapid healing.

• Clay of Life: the sealing of a person's body in blood-enriched clay that will heal more slowly but effectively. The clay of life is created by mixing healing blood with neutral or celestial clay. Encasing someone in clay of life has the same effect as healing blood, but it can handle greater injuries with less blood - it just takes longer and their whole body must be encased.

• True Listening: the art of hearing what is truly wrong with a person, no matter what their words say. True listening is a passive art used by all healers who have completed their training. They gain a +3 to +6 bonus to diagnosis if they listen to a patient for more than five minutes.

• Diagnosis: Diagnosis is necessary to a healer's craft. They cannot heal that which they cannot identify. They can merely treat symptoms if they do not know the cause or condition they are addressing.

• Empathy: sensing what a person is feeling and why so that they may be better diagnosed. Healers gain weak empathic powers that can be grown with use. The stronger their empathy, the better their diagnosis and listening skills are. They can also use it to address emotional issues by guiding a person through their trauma.

• Sensing Wounds or Illness: Via empathy, they can also sense where pain, injuries, and illness are in the body.

• Guiding Flow: guiding the flow of life within a person through touch, breath, and words. A healer can guide the flow of lifeforce, ashar, through a body with their touch, with breathing exercises, or with special calming words. In doing this, they can promote healing in different parts of the body without using their blood.

• Careful Binding: using clean, special bandages to trap illness, pain, trauma, or other maladies within a part of a person in order to defeat them. Healers can bind malady into certain parts of a body, drawing disease, pain, trauma, cancer, or esoteric energies into a specific spot so that it can be addressed more directly. They use special bandages to do this. The bandages used in careful binding are either neutral linen or some celestial fabric, touched with the blood of life. Using the control of the flow of life to isolate negative energies, pathogens, pain, etc., the healer can then bind them in place with these bandages and apply their arts directly to the trapped malady.

• Surgery: Sometimes after binding, they must cut someone open to address their malady. They do this with special scalpels made from neutral or celestial metals and whetted on opals. A transfusion of preserved lifesblood is usually set up for the surgery.

The use of blood to heal is never the first-resort unless it is obvious a person is in dire straits. The method by which the blood is given determines the potency of its healing, and the amount does as well:

• Washing: to wash someone in healing blood works best for smaller external injuries and minor maladies.

• Drinking: to have someone drink healing blood helps with internal injuries, gut conditions, and moderate maladies.

• Transfusion: to tranfuse healing blood into someone is to give them a complete healing.

The amount of blood translates into a direct bonus:

• One drop: no bonus / standard application.

• Three drops: +1.

• Five drops: +2

• Flesh wound's worth: +3

• Normal wound: +4

• Deep wound: +5

• Mortal wound: +6

• Instant death: +7

• Total exsanguination: +8

When a healer uses their own blood, it must be fresh or preserved. Preserving blood requires use of their pot, but preserved blood takes a -1 penalty for every eight days it is out of the body. Fresh blood is best, but of course, the healer experiences the negative effects of blood loss.

There are three main limitations: infernal beings, beings with different kinds of bodies, and toxic beings.

• Infernal beings with toxic bodies / forms. People infected by the contagion can be healed via celestial healing, but the contagion itself is killed by it. Lutipariants, aliens that befoul the world, are similarly affected.

• Some beings are too filled with or otherwise composed of infernal powers for celestial healing to work on them. The undead are simply destroyed by celestial healing (if they have bodies). Demons, the Eldritch, infernal inmortals, infernal dragons, and some infernal constructs are all harmed by celestial healing. Other infernal-oriented folk, including cythreuliaid, inimica, and tantum, are all healable via celestial healing, though they prefer other forms of healing culturally. Destroyers cannot be healed by any means, celestial or not.

• Beings without bodies cannot be healed by lifesblood, and thus, insubstantiates are unaffected by it. Other forms of celestial healing may be applied to them if they are not purely infernal. Beings such as some viridianites, mechanicals, gargoyles, golems, and crystal folk who do not have blood or have metallic or stone bodies cannot be healed by lifesblood but may be healed by other forms of celestial healing. Similarly, plant and fungal folk require a variation on lifesblood (tree folk healers have lifessap, for example).

PRO -1 ATH / STR +1 AWA +3 WIL +2 PRS / STH -1

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Mescolatore

Type: Apothecary

Mescolatori are apothecaries and alchemists who use celestial fungi to create medicines. They are experts at finding the right mushrooms to work with, and they only work with mundane or celestial fungi.

To become a mescolatore, they usually learn from elders, mentors, or teachers, as the magic they use is forbidden in imperial lands. In order to work the chemical magic, mescolatori must not be abusers, exploiters, or oppressors, nor their servants, and they must make their compounds with the intention of helping others. To find the right mushrooms or fungi, a mescolatore must find the places they grow - happy homes, community gardens, secret safe spaces - and pick them, leaving behind a little offering for them in the form of vegetation or meat.

There are several kinds of celestial fungi they might use. Some of the most common are as follows:

• Celeste cap: a light blue mushroom that soothes the soul.
• Golden yeast: yeast that generates all sorts of good things, ranging from insulin to other drugs that help people.
• Vigorous mushroom: mushrooms that are both antibiotic and antiviral.
• Megadomocaria: a giant house mushroom.
• Clarifier mushroom: mushrooms that clear the heart and mind.
• Penicillin: it's a good antibiotic.

Mixed with various other materials, they can produce many things, including the following:

• Celeste ointment: an ointment that soothes aches, pains, rashes, acne, and other symptoms.
• Bubbling concoction: the result of golden yeast being mixed with warm water, this generates various medicines.
• Fluslayer compound: antiviral compound.
• Woundcleaner compound: antiobiotic compound.
• Tea of clarity: a tea that clears the heart and mind.
• Salve of salvation: a salve that protects the soul from infernal energies.
• Spore cloud armor: a spore cloud that surrounds the bearer and protects them from infernal attacks.

They usually have to test their concoctions on themselves, which may have strange effects, espcially on their personalities.

PRO / ATH / STR +1 AWA +3 WIL +1 PRS +1 STH -1

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Ostetrica

Type: Midwife

Ostetrice are healers who focus on reproductive health, mostly providing healthcare to the poorest who are dealing with pregnancies. They are the only source of abortions for the poor, as abortion is criminalized for all but the ruling class. Mostly, though, they help pregnant people deliver babies.

An ostetrica learns their craft from a mentor in their community, learning actual medical lore and knowledge, including surgery, herbalism, and psychology, but not as indepth as one might in a full medical school. They also learn the arts of ancestral memory and the power of matriarchal magic, the energy derived from reaching back to ancestors before the Fall, an event thousands of years ago that occurred around the rise of empires. They do this by engaging in ancient practices handed down mentor to mentor, mother to mother, parent to parent, involving meditation, special substances, and deep visions. Almost anyone can access their ancestral memory, though it is not easy, but to access ancestors from before the Fall requires eradicating all patriarchal assumptions and indoctrinations first. One must be entirely free of patriarchal values to be able to go back that far.

Once someone breaks past that barrier, they may access it only briefly without being drawn into it. Most, therefore, either connect with a single ancestor or small number of them, or they only go back occasionally, or, as the ostetrice do, they focus on one kind of ancestor. In this case, they focus on healers and caretakers. They often have an ancestral guide, one from just before the Fall, and a handful of preferred ancestors to connect with, all of them some kind of healer. In order to access them, they associate some object with them, usually a medical device or tool or something they use in the course of taking care of others. They use that focus to instantly connect and gain wisdom or advice. They can also draw powers, skills, and abilities from their preferred ancestors, but in order to do this, they need to spend more time and effort than a quick connection via their focus. Usually, they need to enter a trance (using meditation and an hallucinogen) for a few hours and find the ability, skill, or power in a symbolic vision, led by their ancestral guide. Any skill, power, or ability drawn from their ancestors may only be temporary. If they hold onto it for more than a few hours, they risk having the ancestor's memories over take and replace their own.

Ostetrice focus on healing means they have a great number of healing skills to choose from, and the skills known before the Fall were advanced in terms of how they could treat reproductive health issues beyond what is available even legally in the area. They also provide gender-affirming care. Their primary work is in delivering babies and helping new parents. They are known in their communities and respected, but imperials often kill them as witches.

PRO / ATH / STR +1 AWA +3 WIL +2 PRS +1 STH /