Worldbuilding questions! What does health care or healing look like in your world? What professions are held in high esteem in society? (Sorry if you've already answered these or they don't apply!)
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Healthcare
Healthcare is largely quite traditional (a.k.a. based on plants, bedrest and a prayer), which means that dying from disease or infection is still common if you don’t have access to a trained healer or alchemist or ‘leech’. Majority is based on herbalism, but with the kinds of creatures alive in the world, certain venom and toxins have also been used to counteract illnesses and symptoms (although great care should be taken because these can easily go from ‘cure’ to ‘poison’ in the wrong dosage).
There are ‘healers’ in the world - trained thaumists who can use their skills to restructure or mend their patient. However, it is extremely difficult to master, and even when mastered, it comes with a huge cost. Basically, they use the principle of ‘transference’ (one of the Six Principles of thaumaturgy) to perform the healing, which means that the injury is essentially transferred from the patient to the healer. So, if someone broke an arm, the healer could fix them, but they would then have to deal with a broken arm themselves (as well as exhaustion due to the energy expended to perform the transference). So, as you can imagine, healing is NOT a popular profession, and extremely expensive to acquire. Some of the negatives can be mitigated if you have multiple healers working together on one patient (so they can, effectively, spread the burden between them). Basically, the only people who would ever have healers at their disposal are royalty, and even then, there are limits. Even multiple healers working together to heal a mortal wound would likely die in the attempt, so it typically will not be done.
Esteemed Professions
Well, healers are definitely one, because it takes a certain degree of self-sacrifice and a massive amount of study of the human body to even consider going down that path. Other valued professions include:
- Royalty (although calling it a profession might be a bit of a stretch)
- Military leaders (generals and tacticians) and high ranked soldiers (like knights and cavalry). Among common folk, knight errants are revered more than enlisted soldiers.
- Artisans (a narrow tier of craftspeople who are considered among the best in their art)
- Impresarios (official organisers of public events and entertainment)
- Apothecaries (the most ‘official’ providers of medicine and salves)
- Religious figures (priests, monks, clergy, oracles, soothsayers - but the amount they are revered varies from place to place)
- Thaumists (although it depends on who you talk to - many view them with extreme suspicion)
- Chirurgeons
- Justiciars and magistrates