After reading Alan’s Writing Practice dealing with magic and healing, and the forum posts connected with it, I thought I might be able to expand on the idea of magic and healing by giving an example of how I have melded the two in my dark fantasy world of Avalon.



Avalon is equal parts Thief (the computer game), Thieves World, Lankhmar, Sin City, renaissance style engineering and higher learning institutes, and HP Lovecraft. The world is named for the city of Avalon, the largest city in the known world. The city is where most of the adventures take place, and most characters are born and raised there as well.



When it came time for me to determine the medical knowledge of the world, I thought I would start with a renaissance level of understanding, but modify it with alchemy and magic as they are the two big otherworldly powers in Avalon. As this was fantasy, I would also be a bit liberal with what I classified as “renaissance level,” allowing me to draw the connections that I wanted to.



I felt that if alchemy and magic were to have the abilities of healing via spells, potions and so on, it would be more real if it were connected to the medical understanding of Avalon. I believe that a mage attempting to heal a broken bone would have a much better chance if he knew something of medicine.



Additionally, I wanted game world based reasons for the limitations I wanted to use. I have found through the years of GMing that if you have a game world based reason for a limitation, the players are more willing to go along with you than if you simply envoke the ‘ole “Because I’m the GM and I said so” rule.





HEALING & ALCHEMY

My first step was to connect medical procedures and medical knowledge with alchemy. I determined that both have knowledge of the anatomy of the body yet their views of anatomy would be different, and the medical community would be fearful of the alchemists thinking them sorcerers, and the alchemist looking down on the healers as too mundane. This would allow me to take the bits I wanted and still maintain the difference of the two arts.



While there would still be the use of older methods of healing (leaches, blood draining, etc.) in Avalon, I created a growing number of healers and physicians who were integrating various portions of the alchemist’s art into their practices. While it is true that the alchemist sometimes deals with matters that are outside the realm of the flesh, there have been advances in medical science as a result of certain alchemical experimentation.



One of the greater advances that alchemy has provided to medicine is cleanliness. Alchemist have known for a long time that the best way to insure that their potions and elixirs work correctly is to be sure that there is no contamination from other elements that may change or neutralize their work. Thus, alchemist’s have always attempted to maintain as much purity in their concoctions as possible. For medicine this means that cleanliness and lack of contamination in the practice of medicine is healthy.



The idea of a clean body and clean tools, at least as far as surgery is concerned, is beginning to catch on with the various street physicians who are noticing the results of this new concept with fewer infections and post surgical deaths. Some are even beginning to wash their patients before and after surgery, using soaps and other ointments to help reduce infections.



The tried and true theory that a slight accumulation of the “local elements” is good for your health, and that it is foolish to throw out a perfectly good surgical knife due to a little rust (which would normally just scraped off with a file), would still hold with many of the older members of the medical community. This would help create the “old medicine vs. new medicine” angle I thought would be fun to bring out during game sessions.



Alchemist would, in turn, have taken the more advanced Healing College’s knowledge of anatomy and used it to further their art as well. The functions of the internal organs, and the College’s very recent discoveries dealing with the growth and mending of bone would greatly increase the alchemist’s ability to create potions and elixirs that affect living organisms.





MAGICAL & HEALING

Now for magic. I didn’t want mages running around Avalon healing people. I had already determined that mages were feared and not trusted by most folk in Avalon so it wouldn’t make sense for a mage to open up a surgery for the locals. I also didn’t want the players dependent on magical healing for their characters.



I decided that magic would not generally be used for healing, and this field of study would be very young. It would be a recent, within the past 100 years, discovery by a small house within the Order of the Eye (The main college of mages in Avalon) that magic is capable of healing.



While the concept of flesh manipulation had long been understood by the mages, the intricacies of the natural healing process of the body have not (i.e. It is easier to hurt than to heal). It’s not that the mages lacked the desire to heal, it is simply that as the mage’s method of dealing with the ether and mana (The forces that I are used for magic and alchemy. Basically ether is energy all things have it, mana is ether given physical form such as bodies, rocks, etc.) is different from the alchemist.



It was difficult for the mages to re-tune their skills to manipulate the ether and mana in such a way that would cause near instant healing. The magic that would work as quickly as the mages desired would often have disastrous results as reforming the mana would be done violently and the trauma caused would kill the patient.



The House of Bone in the Order of the Eye, after many years of study and experimentation, were finally able to use their magical powers in such a way that the flesh could be healed without causing the patient to die of shock or go into a coma. The mage would manipulate the flesh at various levels (organs, muscle, skin, etc), working from the lower levels out (from the organs to the skin, or inside out as it were). Thus they were able to quickly heal the body and avoid much of the shock and trauma that had often killed the target of the spells.



Mages would be required to have a certain level of medical knowledge before they were able to cast healing spells. The more potent the spell, the more medical understanding would be necessary. Without the proper understanding, healing spells have a greater chance for failure and/or backlash.



However, even though magical healing is becoming more common among mages, it would still not trusted by the general population of Avalon who have a fear of what such magical healings will cost them. Most locals would continue to trust the normal physicians and medical students.





MUNDANE MEDICAL ADVANCEMENT

After working through the first two connections, I found that I also needed a more mundane form of medical advancement. If we had higher learning institutions, and a College of Healing, they would obviously seek to increase their knowledge through study and experimentation! To that end I connected the Healing College with the Bargemen (A race of people who live their lives on the sea and travel to distance lands trading goods).



Due to their extensive travels, the Bargemen have access to many herbs and other healing agents that are not common to Avalon. The connection between the two would be that the College has finally, after many years of negotiations, obtained the right to send certain members along with the Bargemen to distant lands in order to discover new techniques and purchase new healing tools (herbs, surgical implements, etc).



The other end of the bargain is that the Bargemen have been given a series of warehouses that the College owns by the docks. As space is very expensive in Avalon, the Bargemen were unable to obtain permanent docking and storage space until now. I also decided that so far, the bargain is working out very well, with the Bargemen able to increase their business, and the college is able to increase their knowledge, but that can always be changed (i.e. used as a plot hook) as needed.





Well, that’s what I did to try and meld alchemy, magic and healing in my world. I felt these connections helped to give Avalon a more realistic feeling, and to give in game world based reasons for the limitations I wanted to use.



I’m interested to see what others think of my ideas so feel free to comment.



-Brett J.B.

(Time)