Chirurgeons
Those who use magic to heal.
Chirurgeon
Alignment: Celestial
One who provides medical care through mundane means has many names (doctor, physician, etc.), but those who use celestial energies are called chirurgeons in the Starfall area. The power of healing derives from blood, and chirurgeons 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 chirurgeon, to have blood that is imbued with tabait, 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 chirurgeon, 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 chirurgeon, they may be taken under the wing of a chirurgeon. Their mentor will teach them the six esoteric arts of the chirurgeon - 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 chirurgeon 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 chirurgeon-in-training's home and it is unstoppered. The chirurgeon 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 chirurgeon 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 chirurgeon, 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 chirurgeon'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 chirurgeon.
When performing their sacrifice, the chirurgeon 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 chirurgeon'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 chirurgeon 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 chirurgeons 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 chirurgeon 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 chirurgeons 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 chirurgeon'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. Chirurgeons 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 chirurgeon 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. Chirurgeons 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 chirurgeon 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:
When a chirurgeon 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 chirurgeon 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 Aeonians, 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 chirurgeons have lifessap, for example).
PRO -1 ATH / STR +1 AWA +3 WIL +2 PRS / STH -1
Chymosian
Alignment: Unaligned
A doctor of humors. Chymosians heal people using the theory of the humors of the body. This unscientific and mystical process is, of course, bullshit, but there is body magic that makes it work in this magical setting.
Chymosians recognize many humors and their importance:
- Amniotic: the waters of life and protection of the unborn. Keeping it healthy is crucial. In imbalance, it causes miscarriages. A healthy uterus keeps it balanced.
- Black bile: black bile is any organ fluid that is not other fluids listed. It is correlated to melancholic disposition. It is said to cause depression, cancer, and senescence if it exists in excess. A healthy spleen keeps it from increasing to excess.
- Blood: blood is correlated to a sanguine disposition. It is the most powerful of all the humors and can be studied to know the full balance of all humors in a body. It is the source of life within a person. A healthy heart keeps it balanced.
- Lymph: lymph is correlated to a compassionate disposition. It is said to be responsible for healing within the body and for bodily growth. Too much, however, causes heart and lung issues. Healthy lymph nodes keep it balanced.
- Milk: milk is correlated to a maternal disposition. It is nourishment and strength. Healthy mammary glands keep it balanced. Too much milk in the system causes anxiety, back pains, and osteoporosis.
- Oestrus: menstrual blood is correlated to a minerval disposition. It is said that an excess of it causes every problem "women" usually have, but it is also considered a self-balancing fluid. Healthy ovaries keep it balanced.
- Phlegm: phlegm includes any kind of mucus or pus in the body. It is correlated to a phlegmatic disposition. It is said to cause tumours, chlorosis, rheumatism, and cacochymia. A healthy brain keeps it from increasing to excess.
- Semen: semen is correlated to an agrandized disposition. If in excess, it causes strokes, heart attacks, and blindness. It must be purged regularly. Healthy genitalia keep it balanced.
- Tears (lachryma): tears are correlated to a hysterical disposition. If in excess, they cause headaches, confusion, and paranoia. Healthy lungs keep it balanced.
- Urine: urine is correlated to a sour disposition. If in excess, it causes digestional problems. It must be purged regularly. Healthy kidneys keep it balanced.
- Yellow bile: yellow bile is actual bile, the yellowish fluid found or associated with the liver and gallbladder. It is correlated to a choleric disposition. It is said to cause increased anger, irrational behavior, cirrhosis, and jaundice. A healthy liver or gallbladder keeps it under control.
Different foods, exercises, and other practices help to keep fluids balanced, and chymosians know what to recommend to their patients. They also know how to encourage blood and lymph to heal sicknesses or wounds, keeping medicines for this purposes always on their person. Their magic is generally long-term, slow, and an absurdly pseudoscientific version of medicine, they have access to quicker magicks such as special herbs, roots, and potions that speed recovery from injuries.
PRO -2 ATH / STR -1 AWA +3 WIL +1 PRS / STH /
Fairy Godmother
Alignment: Fey
A fey midwife. Fairy godmothers are either fey beings or people who have made a deal with fey beings to gain magical powers to protect a child, a pregnant person, or a new parent. Fairy godmothers form a magical bond with the child as it grows and can grant it boons and powers and assistance. A fairy godmother who is fey must gather special boons from other mortals to give to the child or parent. They may also give boons that are counterweighted with a geas or curse if they have not collected a power. A fairy godmother who makes a deal with the fey must pay something dear (usually an abstract characteristic) to gain powers to grant.
Charms, boons, geases, and curses can take many forms and vary by fairy godmother and by target, so a full list is impossible. Some examples include the following:
- Protection from misfortune
- A future true love
- Glamour, beauty, grace, wisdom
- Fated to die on a certain day or time
- Weakness to a certain kind of magic or damage
- Immunity to a certain kind of magic or damage
And so on. Consult the GM for ideas. If a player chooses to be a fairy godmother, they will be the fairy godmother to one of the other PCs.
PRO +1 ATH +1 STR / AWA +3 WIL +2 PRS +1 STH /
Gracewife
Alignment: Celestial
A midwife who taps into powerful matrilineal ancestral memory. A gracewife learns their craft from a mentor, learning the ways to help women and womb-bearers in the community or to help those who do not conform to patriarchy. They also learn the arts of ancestral memory and the power of
aemoa, the energy derived from reaching back to ancestors before
the Fall. 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. Gracewives usually have a specific ancestor they connect with. In order to access them, they associate some object with them, usually a piece of clothing 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 ancestor, 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.
Gracewives have all the skills of a midwife, with skills in medicine, herbalism, and caretaking. They also have special magic from their ancestors, which they can draw from using their special focus:
- Touchsight: if they touch the belly of a pregnant person, they can see the developing being within and understand it.
- Protective charm: they can create a protective charm to give to a pregnant person to protect them and their future child from infernal magics and misfortune.
- Ancestral infusion: they can cast a spell that gives the unborn a connection to the bearer that allow the parent to communicate with the forming being and connect both to their ancestors for wisdom.
- Easing whisper: while the parent is giving birth, the gracewife's voice will soothe their pains and fears, making birthing easier and safer.
- Cleansing spell: they can cast a spell that cleans the newborn instantly.
Many, many other powers are possible. Consult the GM.
PRO -2 ATH / STR +1 AWA +2 WIL +2 PRS +1 STH -1
Herbalist
Alignment: Elemental
A user of elemental herbs to heal.
To be an herbalist, one must commune with the greenery around them. There must be a sufficient amount of herbs and healing plants nearby, a certain density of plantlife, for there to be enough to be communed with. Greenhouses, gardens, orchards, and farms will work, and any place with naturally growing herbs or healing plants. A few houseplants or the nearby potted sapling don't generate enough energy to work.
Communion requires mindfulness of all plantlife around the herbalist and a deep meditation. The aromas of herbs, the feel of the plants beneath them, the sound of plants rustling in the breeze, the taste of certain plants, these must all be taken in as the mind slips into the collective consciousness of the green. Once meditating, the herbalist must be accepted by the plants. This requires they not be involved in, for instance, industrial pollution, logging, or serial littering. In other words, you must be a friend to the plants. Once this is done (a series of AWA and WIL rolls), the herbalist will be able to sense the energies around them when they are near enough greenery. To draw these energies to oneself to use, one must have am herb or healing plant near enough to touch and, using the power to sense these elemental energies gained from green communion, focus on the breathe of the plants and synch with it, focus on it, and will it inward.
Once they do this, they know the healing properties of all plants and can wield them. This is augmented by herbalists' skill and lore. They are skilled healers who know how to prepare different herbs and plants in teas, poultices, powders, or any form needed to create healing magic. Consult the GM to build a list.
PRO -2 ATH -1 STR / AWA +3 WIL +1 PRS +2 STH /
Potticar
An apothecary who uses fey fungi to make medicines.
They collect the mushrooms from fairy rings to make medicines with. This causes them to permanently hallucinate, which in turn gives them bizarre insights and powers. Just picking a mushroom from a fairy ring is generally safe, but doing so over and over again with apparent intention draws the ire of the fey. Doing so as a friend of the fey still draws their ire. Doing so and making concoctions from it results in being struck with permanent hallucinatory state. This makes them see the following:
-
Ancestral sight: they view some people as that person’s ancient ancestors. (1)
-
Dream sight: they view some people as the last dream that person had. (2)
-
Fear sight: they view some people as that person’s worst fear. (3)
-
Legend sight: they view some people as their cultural heroes or legendary figures. (4)
For each new person they meet, they roll a d4 to determine which one they see. While nothing they see is real, it is all true.
The powers the mushrooms and fey ire grant them as they work include the following:
-
Fungal lore: they know much about fey fungi without really studying it.
-
Intensify mushroom: the effect of a mushroom can be intensified by the breath of a poitigeir.
-
Molding touch: if they enter an emotionally distressed state, their touch causes anything living to mold, power of 11+.
-
Random geas: because they have drawn the ire of the fey, poitigeirs end up having to do strange tasks to assuage that ire. Completing a task alleviates the intensity of their hallucinations. Not completing a task in a certain amount of time causes their hallucinations to intensify.
-
Sporing: hallucinatory spores spread from the poitigeir when they shiver, shake their head, or tremble in any way. Though these exist only as an hallucination, they still can spread to others causing them to hallucination. 20’ diameter range, power of 11+. Everyone is affected, even if they are an ally. They prevent this by washing their hair much more than usual.
The intensity of their hallucinations runs on a scale of 1 to 12. They roll a d6 at the start of the campaign to see where they start. A 1 is mild auditory hallucinations with some rippling effects visually. A 5 or 6 is strong auditory and visual hallucinations but the ability to distinguish those from reality. A 12 is a complete divorce from reality.
The drugs they create are as follows:
- Faosheeve: painkillers
- Croimall: emotional calming
- Oscailt: clarity of mind
- Daingean: lessening wounds
- Coireal: alleviating illnesses
- Dochreidte: miracle cures
- Meadhran: mind altering
All of them cause hallucinations as a side effect. These last six minutes to six days (roll a d6 - 1 six minutes, 2 one hour, 3 six hours, 4 one day, 5 three days, 6 six days).
PRO / ATH / STR -1 AWA +2 WIL -1 PRS -1 STH /
Vitalist
Alignment: Elemental
A vitalist is someone who can transfer elemental lifeforce from one being to another using a special corded rope.
Elemental lifeforce in different kinds of lifeforms subtly differs. A human's elemental lifeforce will be similar to both an empath's and a chimpanzee's, but very different from an angel's, a mushroom's, or a paramecium's. Plants, animals, and fungi have elemental lifeforce so different they count as separate kinds of aether. Viruses, destroyers, the undead, and some constructs do not have elemental lifeforce.
The size or complexity of a creature does not determine how much elemental lifeforce it has, but rather, its vitality. How alive it is. A healthy newborn human baby will have a tremendous amount of elemental lifeforce. A person who is dying will have very little lifeforce. Healthy people tend to have more lifeforce, but people with illnesses are not necessarily low in lifeforce. Only those very close to death will have little energy. Pregnant people and children tend to have the most elemental lifeforce, but these are all just tendencies, not hard and fast rules.
Species can affect the amount of elemental lifeforce if thay species replaces elemental lifeforce with another energy. Viridianites that are not elemental lifeforce-based will have relatively little elemental lifeforce, replacing it with their relevant kind of aether. Similarly, though angels and demons have elemental lifeforce, it is minimal compared to the amount of celestial or infernal energies they have.
Vitalists wield ropes in order to move elemental lifeforce from one being to another. Any kind of rope will work, but ropes made of special elemental materials work best. In order to use a rope to transfer elemental lifeforce, it must be corded and knotted with three strands and three knots per foot. One must wrap the rope around the target. In medical spaces, this is done gently, using a loose knot. However, some vitalists who are combat medics may use a lasso or lariat to grab targets who are in a place that is difficult to get to otherwise. Others use them to grab wounded and scared animals. Some kind of tying or knotting is required, regardless of how the rope is applied. The rope must also be wrapped around the hands (or equivalent) of the vitalist as well.
The rope can be around the target's smallest feature, and the vitalist can still transfer elemental lifeforce into them. It works best when the rope is near the injury, infection, etc. or around the chest so it touches the heart.
The rope connects the vitalist to the target and makes itself a channel for elemental lifeforce. The vitalist will transfer their own elemental lifeforce into the target in order to create one of several healing effects.
To transfer elemental lifeforce from oneself to another requires special training. One must be attuned to their inner lifeforce, their qi, their spark, their lifeforce. This requires an inner awareness of their own body and its flowing energies. Most vitalists meditate for years before they are attuned enough to use their ropes without special concentration, along with studying the ways of life.
One must be careful when transferring elemental lifeforce. Every person has a specific amount of lifeforce at any given time that, if lost, will mean they die, sicken, or weaken. If they are healthy, they will usually recover their lifeforce unless it is drained completely or corrupted somehow, but temporarily, they will be weak. A little bit of lifeforce goes a long way.
It is possible for a vitalist to transfer from one target to another target. A consensual giver is preferred for ethical and practical reasons (it's hard to force someone's elemental lifeforce out if they don't want you to). It's hard even when they do want you to. Every living thing has self-preservation instincts. Elemental lifeforce will resist transferrence, and therefore, can be difficult even to transfer from the vitalist to another. When transferring from a giver to a target, the vitalist must concentrate deeply, and it helps if the giver is aware of their own elemental lifeforce as well. The rope must be wrapped around both giver and target and in the hands of the vitalist. The giver must be willing even if they are not sapient; a powerful vitalist can sense and communicate via elemental lifeforce to determine this.
Physical wounds, illnesses, pains, and so on can be healed through transferrence. Physical damage to a body is relatively easy to address. Trauma and mental illness can be treated somewhat, but only the physical aspects can be addressed. This will often reduce symptoms, especially in trauma victims, but not entirely cure it. Senescence is the most difficult thing to heal; this process is called rejuvenation. Only the greatest vitalists can do this.
Preserving life is easier than healing in some ways and more difficult in others. If the intention is to simply stop a wound or illness from killing someone without healing them, this is relatively easy. This is used when the vitalist does not have enough power to heal someone, but knows they can keep them alive longer until another way is found. Giving a person longer life through elemental lifeforce, called longevity,, however, is a much more difficult form of preservation. This requires nearly completely depleting the vitalist's elemental lifeforce reserves.
Revitalization is the act of bringing someone back from the brink of death. From being mostly dead. A mortal wound, a disease in its final stages, etc. It is very difficult to do, and complete recovery is even more difficult. But it is possible.
A person who is actually dead may be resurrected by a vitalist in the rarest of circumstances. This requires sacrificing themselves to bring the dead back, and then only if the person were recently dead (usually within a day). To resurrect someone long dead is impossible, even if a body is present.
It is possible for a vitalist to reverse the flow of elemental lifeforce through the rope and take elemental lifeforce from another. If the target is willing (thus making them a giver, really), this can be done to heal the vitalist. If the target is unwilling, this action is considered a form of vampirism. It is illegal, forbidden, and a violation of the element of life. Doing it will result in the vitalist losing their powers.
If a vitalist uses their rope on the corporeal undead, they can use their elemental lifeforce to make the target burn with argent flame. The stronger the undead, the more difficult this is.
Sometimes, a vitalist will need to draw elemental lifeforce from an animal, plant, or fungus. In these cases, they might need more pure elemental lifeforce than what is present, and thus, they might draw other elemental energies and distill into into pure elemental lifeforce. This requires that they pull that elemental lifeforce into their own bodies and meditate upon it to separate it out. This process takes hours, thus making it an impractical use in the field.
PRO -2 ATH +1 STR +2 AWA +2 WIL +3 PRS +1 STH /