Wounds, injuries, impediments

Boy, does Galen have a lot to answer for.....

I'd suggest instead that there be four poles of benefit/harm, which would correlate with the poles of magic types; protectives would come from the same extreme, counteractions from the opposite. So a bone-breaking injury would be an 'air' magic effect against the 'earth' stability aspect; a deflecting resistance would also come from the 'air' aspect, yet a stiffening buff would be from the 'earth'.

https://www.shroudoftheavatar.com/f...equest-magic-in-shroud-of-of-the-avatar.3100/

However, the corrective would come best from a different polarity -- with the correctives off-set uniformly. E.g. moon offsets water, water offsets life, life offsets earth (moving counter-clockwise around the diagram). One could move clockwise, this just happened to occur to me first. There may be some polarities that are on average better at one thing or another -- but the strongest corrective is always an offset (so no one school is "best").

So a 'life' spell best speeds healing of an 'earth'-induced damage, for example.

 

Yea, interestingly, the four humors were also linked to the four elements, just like the four parts of the body were linked to the humors.

 

It makes a certain amount of sense that healing and alchemy would follow the same basics found in 'modern' magical theory. However, we might also consider the influx of knowledge brought by the avatars.. while we would have very little influence on magical theory we would be bringing with us extensive medical knowledge. You might consider there may be an old vs new dynamic among the healing professions. How much might spill over into alchemy I suppose would depend on whether or not 'new' thinking improves alchemy's effectiveness.

 

The Godslayer Chronicles by James Clemens provide a great system for tieing the humors to magic, and to healing, as well as some other uses that magically infused alchemy might produce. It's a good idea.

Of course, that would mean that we would have to confess to what Black and Yellow Bile actually are in present day language, and that would lead to "rude behavior". Personally I can live with that, but some might be offended.

I think a lot of diseases, ailments, and injuries could be simulated cleanly in game with a persistent, non dispellable debuff that bore their name, and listed it's symptoms in a descriptive text block. These debuffs could then be removed only by pre-prepared "lock and key" type cures, which the players could research, procure, produce, sell, etc. Only combat wounds threaten to become too numerous or complext to manage, and I think that a few categories of status effects and basic, reliable HP could handle what we really need there.