Volume 2 Introduction: Magic and Healing

Magic is the stuff of miracles.  Spells are the engine.  Mana is the fuel.  So why are people still dying all over the place?

On my world, a carpenter's son gave sight to the blind.  Cured diseases with a touch.  And even came back from the dead.  On this world?  They’re not quite there yet.  Magic is good at handling the “visible” stuff.  Convincing and helping the body to fix itself.

Really.  It's fucking jaw dropping to watch.  A wound healing before your very eyes in seconds or minutes.  Injuries that would take hours, days, even weeks otherwise.

Now everything isn't magically like new.  The scars, exhaustion, nausea, etc, etc...  The “trauma” still happened.  And there are limits.  Lose a finger?  You’re not growing a new one.  Lose an arm?  Welcome to the one arm bandit club.

Some of the really gifted healers can reattach limbs.  If you have it with you and it's done soon enough.  But there are only a handful of doctors in the world who are that skilled.

Magic also has “issues” with what you can't see.  As in the bacterial and viral.  Again, magic helps the body fix itself.  But it won't keep you from getting sick.  Yep, the Common Cold is alive and well on Ipra.

So is the Black Death.

If the body can't handle it?  Healing won't do you any good.  If the body has been compromised too much?  Magic won't do you any good.  And even if it can?  The spell has to be strong enough.  With enough mana behind it.  Or it won't help the body enough.

Healing spells are good at treating the symptoms.  Not so good at treating the disease.

What does this mean for the people of Ipra?  It means that it's possible to survive being stabbed in the heart.  Then die a week later from the flu.  And with how rare, for the bulk of the population, magic is?  Unless you are wealthy or lucky, preferably both, you are probably screwed.

Now while this planet is full of assholes and douchebags?  They aren't all stupid.  So some with the time and money have researched why folks get sick and die when they drink from this well.  But not from that well.

The result being a few four or five ring spells complex, powerful, and detailed, enough to go after a particular virus or bacteria.  But holy crap they, and their caster's time, are expensive.

Thank the gods, or maybe past heroes, that hygiene is common knowledge.  So soaps and even shampoos are in widespread use.  An effort is made to keep baths clean and waste, human or otherwise, off the streets.

So while I can't get rich from making soap?  Could get rich from making antibiotics.  If I had any clue how to of course.

Oh, there is an interesting exception.  [Purify], part of the light school, also targets bad mojo.  Magical afflictions, like curses, have their own mana signatures.  [Purify] and its variants, detect that 'tainted' signature and target it.  Though it's not very accurate.

Like trying to kill flies with a shotgun.  If there are too many of them?  You are not going to catch them all.

Of course this also means [Purify] won't do much against a regular poison or disease.

Like Leprosy.