Healing

Something to ponder when writing a fantasy story is how healing is going to work. In our world, being stabbed is a serious injury. In modern times it is survivable, in earlier eras a puncture wound to the torso could easily be deadly either immediately, with loss of blood, or with eventual infection. In a fantasy world, we introduce the concept of magical healing, which allows the writer or gamer to circumvent the ugly realities of middle ages medicine - but we must be careful or we remove the sting of serious injury.

In most places on Nova Eian (the most well documented continent of Galhadria), most wounds would be dealt with the equivalent of a country doctor or healer.  They know a little about binding wounds, setting bones, and probably some herbalism.  They have no magic, but they can make you a tea to help with that cough.  Even a poor farming community out in the sticks would have somebody like this to help with injuries and sickness. Battle wounds and serious injuries would be a rare event for them and some might never have encountered one. Some in ranching or herding areas might be more familiar with treating livestock instead of people. Their services will usually come at a low cost.

In more populous places, the local doctor or surgeon might be capable of better techniques of healing and simple alchemy - a few healing potions or antidotes here and there, but nothing that could magic away a serious injury.  They can keep you from bleeding out, maybe get you back on your feet, plus the above work a rural healer can do but they’re not going to take you from death’s door to fighting fit in a day.  These services would come at more of a cost, as the practitioners would have more education or experience.

An alchemist or apothecary can make really good potions, antidotes to deadly poisons, and maybe even combat enhancements or invisibility potions.  These skills aren’t common and you’re not likely to have one in a small town, though it might be possible.  If they are in a small town, everybody knows them and they’re probably a public figure of importance.  In a small city, they would still be an important provider of services.  This is the top for non-spellcasting healing services.

Priests or other religious figures of the Powers can performing divine healing magic.  It is important to note that the majority of people who serve at a temple have no magic or very small magic which can’t do much more than potions.  A simple shrine might have somebody who keeps it clean and takes offerings and preaches and does some blessings, but that’s not even a building with an interior and is highly unlikely to be attended by a priest blessed with divine powers.  A temple - on Nova Eian at least, a building with an interior and an altar - might have one or two people who have actual divine magic, and naturally spells and blessings and so forth would be in high demand in the community.  Most priests will ask for an offering before healing you and would almost certainly not heal those who are hostile to their Power.  Major temples in larger cities would have for more priests, and possibly more powerful priests who can remove curses, cure diseases, and perform other miracles.  These organizations would be larger, more official, and with more of a hierarchy, and arranging for wounds to be healed might not be as simple as walking in off the street and asking for a quick fixing up.

In this fantasy world it is possible to bring back the dead.  At least on Nova Eian, not very many priests have achieved sufficient rapport with their Power to actually perform such a miracle and the materials to even attempt such a thing would cost a hefty sum of coin. Worse, these rituals don’t always work. (if they are reliable, were is the sting of death? What would prevent the wealthy from simply buying their way out of death?)  For those long dead, there are only a handful of priests with access to the kind of power required to bring back someone long dead, and the costs of the attempt would be very high. Devotees of the Powers who can do this will be great heroes of legend or very high ranking priests at temples in major cities.  Such a great undertaking would not be attempted for just anyone and would stand a very high chance of failure.

As a final note, there are many fine words used in various languages over the centuries to describe different kinds of local healers - feel free to break out the thesaurus and adopt some of these terms as your own.