>that he could no longer consume alcohol if he wished to live out the remainder of his days.
Better start preparing the funeral.

I always hated this idea Dwarves go about drunk all the time. Increased tolerance to alcohol? Cool. Going wild with it when drinking/at festivals? Cool. It being a complete and constant necessity? Not so cool.

KILL HIS SPAWN, STRENGTHEN THE LIVERS OF OUR DESCENDANTS

>cure disease

>>15236326
But dwarves have multi-lobed livers.
They were all poisoned all at once were they?

>>15236326
Ugh... There are some things that medical school just can't teach you how to deal with. I'm a town doctor myself, but I've never had to deal with that; our community is mostly elves and humans.

It's always nice when some elves escape from their forest homes and try to adapt to city life. But as a town doctor (Not a cleric, mind you) sometimes I can't help but pity them. Their digestive tracts just aren't used to city food! They've spent centuries living on nothing but simple and relatively clean food; I don't think most of them even know what cheese is.

Speaking of cheese and elven digestive tracts... I had to treat this elven girl a couple of days ago. She had feasted one too many times on fat cheese (because hey, she's an adventurer and those get treated to feasts a lot), and she had trouble doing...you know. Number two. Normally I'd prescribe them with the typical collection of laxative herbs, but she said she tried that already. So, out came the sterilized leather glove and in it went. And no matter how many times you tell a girl not to clench, the moment your hand is in they clamp down harder than a bullette's teeth.

It took me several hours to remove all the clogged up excretion because of this. Of course, right afterwards she was feeling frisky but you know what? It's just not appealing after you spent hours digging through her cavities for tree fertilizer.

Elves? Graceful? Not when they go to me for their health problems, they're not.

>>15236326

>But today, today I had to tell a dwarf that he had liver poisoning, and that he could no longer consume alcohol if he wished to live out the remainder of his days.

>But today, today I had to tell a dwarf that he had liver poisoning

> I had to tell a dwarf that he had liver poisoning

>dwarf that he had liver poisoning

>dwarf

Either you're diagnosing a short human.

Or we're going to have to have a word with you and your pratice.

>colons
> n - shaped
> removed obstruction by hand

Hahaha, NO.

>>15236394
Ruined the thread.

>>15236426
I'd post you some links to videos showing otherwise, but I don't feel like getting banned.

>>15236326
Yeah. You know when they refer to people becoming one with the Stone? They engineer a cave-in, and this happens quite literally. Most greybeards can deal with getting old or giving up drink; its both at the same time that gets them.

I'm not practicing anymore, but I was a battlefield medic in the War, and I saw a lot of warforged. Now you'd think that injury would mean nothing to a construct, but when you see one clutching the remains of a limb and pushing it into your arms like a mother trying to save her baby, it sticks with you. Warforged can't cry, but after a while in the hospital they learn to imitate their fellows. The noise is unearthly.

One thing sticks with me to this day: the basket cases. There was a whole shelf full of heads at the back of the ward, just... watching you. Most will never have a body again, and so are doomed to just rest there, staring, for the rest of their days. The blessed ones got mistaken for scrap and melted alive to provide the material for the next generation. The warforged hate it when they're called salvage; they insist they have been "reforged."

Their fellows look on them with pity, for the "reforged" are seldom alone within their shiny new bodies.

>>15236392
>multi-lobed livers

Dude, HUMANS have multi-lobed livers. We have three, as a matter of fact. And we can still obviously get liver failure from chronic alcoholism.

>>15236417
....aaaaaaaand here come the fanboys crying foul over a little fun at the expense of their waifus

>>15236454
So this is your fetish. Great.

>>15236443

Your colon, as in, the large intestine, may be curved, but constipation rarely extends all the way up past the rectum. If it does, holy shit you have a mess of other problems to deal with.

Cleaning it out by hand or with an enema is unfortunately, the way to do this if laxatives don't work.

>>15236443
Look up the medical term 'reaming'.
Porn did not make that word up.
In the case of very bad blockages, you have to remove them manually.

>>15236456
Believe me, its worse than that when they can't find a medic or a mechanic of some sort. When they're stuck out there, lying in some godforsaken ditch, trying in vain to reattach their severed limbs. The sad part is that their attempts at doing so sometimes ruin the socket permanently; it's always tough explaining to a warforged that his attempts at fixing himself have ruined his connections.

But you know what's even worse than that? When they succeed. When that little spark of ingenuity leads them to a torch, a raging fire, a hammer and anvil. When they start, all on their own, to reshape and reforge themselves, trying to regain what they've lost.

I've monsters like that, clanking masses of limbs and weaponry, stalking the wasteland for parts and ore. They've lost so much, and they can't get it back. I pity them.

I really do.

>>15236394

>>15236456

I don't have many depressing or grotesque stories since I run a quiet little pratice outside the city in the countryside.

But I've got my fair share of interesting stories never the less.

It was a few years ago during autumn and we got a most unusual patient: a minotaur.

Now unfortunetly I wasn't very well verse in Animal people biology but I knew enough about treating larger humanoids thanks to a few giants that lived in the area.

So as I was saying, this minotaur comes in and starts telling me his symptoms: Acute pain in the side of his body, pain during urination, and he was having trouble urinating.

Well you can guess already but he had a kidney stone.

He was relieved that I knew what he had but he was less then thrilled to find out we would have to put him under and cut it out of him or he'd have to pass it out.

Well he was having no such thing (a stubborn sort of gentlemen), so I offered a risky alternative and he graciously accepted.

The next day we braught in a human who knew geomancy.
He was not only able to smash the kidney stone into a fine powder without harming the minotaur, but the minotaur was able to walk out of my office later that night with a clean bill of health.

>>15236636

You're lucky you actually have someone who's competent with magic a day's travel away. I have to make due with whatever herbs and supplies I can forage myself, and the odd spot of divine intervention from the local priest when things go beyond my expertise.

>Non-clerical healer confessional thread

I don't have much in the way of stories, to be honest, but I did have a few scrapes with a thieves' guild that didn't exactly give me much of a choice. The priests refused to help them and they had little choice but to break into my home to get me to help their dying friends.

The worst, though, was the one that wasn't dying.

Somehow, this insane group of people managed to get their hands on a pair of sending stones. I don't know how, but they quickly decided it would be a great idea to send their best and brightest thief out to do a poor man's heist... one wherein he'd be completely unassisted by magic, save for these rocks. They also decided it would be best to have someone who can walk him through the steps to patch himself up, should he be injured.

All was well and fine until the forty-eighth hour of straight consciousness and the young half-elf made a mistake and fell down a pit trap.

A dislocated shoulder and a broken leg. Sentries wandering the area, creating a time crunch. A strict need for silence on his part while he struggled to remain conscious and follow my directions. The pained whimpers still haunt me to this day and probably will for the rest of my life... but not more than what I saw when he came back.

His eyes were naught but scarred sockets. Destroyed. I don't know how he managed to make it out of there without being able to see, but it seemed the acid trap that caused him to fall into the pit trap in the first place was perfectly placed.

"There's nothing you could have done," he said.

Gods help me.

>>15236326
>>15236394
>>15236456
I'm a doc out here in the sticks, and let me tell ya, it pays to treat everybody equally. I've got a neutrality pact with every group around my area, and they either come to me to mediate disputes or to treat 'em. I'll tell ya, it's strange seein' two enemies laughin' together while they're put up then goin' back to trying t'kill each other soon as they clear the markers of my property.

One thing I've had a chance to treat out here that I'll bet y'all ain't even seen outside of a trophy room is trolls. There's a small tribe of 'em up the mountain; got them in on my neutrality pact when the chief's kid got burned real bad, though I make sure to keep a sheep or two nearby in case they're feelin' a bit peckish.

Last year, one of their warriors came in with a growth in his arm that I couldn't for the life of me identify. At least, not until I thought about it some more and asked a few more pointed questions.

The poor bastard cancer, and let me tell you, it ain't easy for the buggers. Y'see, their natural regeneration doesn't remove the tumors; it makes the sons a bitches grow FASTER. The tribe disowned him once they found out, so he came to stay with me for the rest of the time he had left; he went from being a relatively healthy speciment to a ball of organic agony within the month.

Near the end, he was damn near mad from the pain; fortunately, he had enough presence of mind t'ask me if I had any acid on hand. As luck would have it, I did. I'm betting th'poor bastard woulda thanked me if he could've, but by the time I'd found it he'd gone over the deep end.

>>15236660

Are you in a large city? If so I would have imagined it would have been easier to get any assistance you would have needed.

I live out here in a small agrian area thats miles away from any real civilization, the winters are hell, the summers can be even worse, and I could have a multitude of different species being patients. Not just Dwarfs, halflings and humans but: Giants, Elves, Minotaurs, PigMen, Orcs, Ogres.

Dragonborn. Great Gods, I almost had to close up shop when one of those scaly bastards came in complaining of stomach pains.

Said he'd eaten "something nasty" and wouldn't elaborate on it. When I pressed the issue he knocked over my table and told me to fix him.

I mixed up a basic concoction for stomach pain: soda powder and some ginger tea. The carbonation relieves gas and my mum's used ginger for stomach pain since I was a lad.

Well, turns out Dragonborn don't handle ginger well. He starts projectile vomiting acid. Melted my stand and did a number on the poor old lady selling sweets behind it.

>>15236732

Oh no, I'm in a small trading outpost way up in the mountains. Most people only stay for a short period of time as they move through, hunters, adventurers, the odd merchant caravan. The roads are completely impassable in winter from the snow and ice and wind though, so in those months it's just me and about a dozen other people holed up together, no one else really around to help if shit goes south.

There was the one time when little Conrad got caught in a blizzard. By the time we found him a day later, his feet were almost completely black from frostbite. I had to amputate one of them, the other, thank goodness, I was able to save, except for two toes. Poor kid still has to use a crutch to get around, but Mikail the carpenter is trying to get a wooden foot for him to use. His parents are saving up to bring it to a wizard two days' travel down the mountain, have it enchanted so it can move like the real thing.

Oh. Oh, hello. What an interesting cavalcade of mediocracy this is. 'Oh, I splinted a bone. Oh, I diagnosed a rash.' You know what I did yesterday? I brought a man back from the dead. Had an arrow straight through his eye. Just pulled it out, said a prayer or two, bam. Stood right up. And that was while I was on my lunch break, too.

So, medicine ever do that? No? Didn't think so. If you'll excuse me, I'll be over here with the other clerics performing *actual* miracles, not just metaphorical ones.

I feel that as a doctor it is my duty to save as many lives as I can. Unfortunately I find I have to take as many lives in the process to help overall.

My time in the war has taught me a good deal about the nature of the world and coming to terms with the awful realities that people try to ignore with idealism and blind faith; There are those who simply cannot be saved, or rather, they have no desire to be saved.

It is the ones who wished to be saved that I strive for and the former mentioned who try to do them harm I find must be dealt with.

Case in point. I was asked by the village leaders to remove the bodies of the bandits I had placed in the tree next to my practice.

You see, out in the frontier, law is only as present as you are able to afford from the local guilds or thugs who extort you for protection money against their own violence. I was approached by a group, 5 strong in total and new to the region, and came with threat of violence if I did not comply with their demands.

I politely refused but as their insistance called for weapons I took a proactive measure of subdueing them with a paralytic poison and, once they were restrained proceeded to kill each one, turned over their possessions to the community and continued.

Attendance was low that day unsurprisingly

>>15236814
>oh_boy_here_we_go

Not everyone has access to magical healing, especially considering the usurious prices the Church charges the commonfolk.

Outside of a temple, we're the best the commonfolk have. Get off your high horse; we're all doing this to save lives and help people.

>>15236814
actually I injected some lithium and adamantine into the heart and then shocked them full of electricity and unobtanium. They woke up right away, screaming, and were ready to begin their life again. after they regenerate their various gaping wounds over a few weeks, of course.

MEDICAL SCIENCE!

>>15236728

This reminds me of one of my more humbling stories.

So like I was saying; I receive a number of patients who are different species, but one night just last spring I get one I had never even seen before.
A troll.
He comes in at the dead of night and demands that I treat him, so I of course ask him whats wrong and he stands in the light.

He was completely bald- ALL- of his fur was gone.
I learned everything I knew about troll biology that night. It turns out that trolls are covered in a layer of fur that can either be thin or thick and changes to match their surroundings, albiet very flammable.

Lucky for him I had an entire vase of this topical balm that I used for burn victims.
After rubbing ointment on an eleven foot troll every night for a week his fur finally starts to grow back.

He was so thrilled he returned the next month with an ornate drinking horn as long as my arm span made out of troll ivory.

>>15236814
I...Well, I don't mean to insult the Church, but...

I've noticed things about people you've resurrected. Surely I can't be the only one who has, can I?

They don't seem to be, well, there. They move and talk, sure, but it's almost like they're pretending to do it. Like, I don't know, acting.

I work in a city with a good-sized Church presence and I can't help but feel that the ratio of people who haven't been resurrected is getting smaller.

Maybe I'm just imagining things.

>>15236845

Prices, is it? Of course, of course. It's always the same. 'Can I pay with a chicken?' 'I'll trade you two goats to purge the plague from our village!'

No. No. A thousand times, no. Do you know how much reagents cost? I mean, the materials alone are worth a fortune. But it's always the same 'Oh, I can't afford that!' Well, fine. Personally I didn't think you could put a monetary price on someone's life, but apparently I was wrong.

I'm not a doctor, but I respect the work you people do. I'm a soldier. I just want to make a point of thanking the now-passed lay healer that taught me to bandage a wound.
When I followed the Goddess of healers, I had just enough of her favour to seal a wound properly, but things happened as they do, and I found myself having to patch my wife back to a survivable condition without magical aid, and I have never been more glad to have spent a few weeks helping out in a hospice. She still complains about the scars, but I can see the fire in her eyes, and that's all the thanks I'll ever need.

I'll never have the patience or the skills to really be one f you, but you all have my blessing, such as it is. You are much more a hero than I.

>>15236777

I'm going to give you one of the biggest points for making it in the boonies as a doctor:

Make friends with every single humanoid in your local area: offer them friendly service and they WILL return and they WILL reward you.

You need to be seen as a valuable asset to everything within 100 miles that can talk and injure itself.

It doesn't matter if they're Animal people, Orcs, Ogres, Giants, Dwarfs, or any other being.
They all get cut up and they all need someone to fix them.

>>15236889
You've noticed it too? By Cuthbert, I thought I was the only one.

I get a lot of adventuring parties where I practice; young people with swords in their hands and stories in their heads. It's a real shame they throw their lives away like that, but as long as the money is good, I'm not complaining.

Anyway, most of them wind up on my doorstep for some reason and many times their injuries are far beyond anything I could possibly treat. Some of them die, most of them wind up crippled for life. The stiffs we send up to the Church so they can do...whatever it is they do. It's unsettling to see a man that had an arrow through his brain not a week prior walking and laughing with his companions again.

You're right. They're different when they come back. I don't know how, but it's noticeable.

>>15236912
Exactly. Which is why the commonfolk come to us instead of bothering with the church when they can't afford your prices.

I realize reagents cost alot; hell, I barely make ends meet and all of my medical services are purely mundane or only slightly magical in nature. However, you also have an entire support network backing you in the church; the cost to an individual cleric is negligible when the church operates as a healing service.

I also notice you've left out the elephant in the room: Adventurers. We all know most, if not all of your business comes from either wealthy patrons or ragged adventurers with more money than sense. They don't come to us for healing; why take a few weeks off to recover when you can get fixed up right away, for the right price?

Like I said before, we're all performing a service for the community. You service those who can pay, and we treat the rest.

>>15236636
>The next day we braught in a human who knew geomancy.

Holy shit, that's crazy. I thought that thing was banned when one geomancer screwed up on the resonance of the stone and accidentally shattered every bone in a patient's body.

The strangest person I've ever worked on?
A medusa. In particular, a medusa's 'hair,' as she had fallen headfirst into a heavy thorn bush while hiking down a trail. The poor thing was bleeding from her forehead to her chin, but she was far more worried about those little balls of venom.
After I got her to sit down (and place a cloth over her eyes so that she didn't turn anyone to stone), it was a relatively simple matter to stick each of them with a needle and knock them out, though it took a while and the last ones were a bitch to catch without getting bit. I'll never make fun of the local ranger when he asks for as much antivenom he can carry.
Once I had placed a little salve on them and bandaged up the worst, I sent her on her way, and told her to try and avoid getting wet for as long as she could, which will be difficult in the swamp, but ya gotta hope for the best, right?

>>15236912
I once happened upon a kingdom that subsides the expenses of regents and materials for their practices and offered medical service for free surprisingly enough.

Thing was you had to sign a contract stating that upon your death your body would be raised and put to work until time made it to decayed to be usable and injuries that destroyed limbs carried heavy fines and penalties

>>15236948
>>15236889

Depends on the church. And the package, of course. Have you never read our scroll? True resurrection is expensive. *Regular* resurrection is expensive. But for a ludicrously affordable rate we can animate the body of your loved one and bind it to your control!

I mean, it's not an ideal solution, but the whole operation is outsourced anyway; if you read the fine print it's not actually sanctioned as a healing service, but a 'grief coping aid.' Besides, there are a lot of advantages to an undead wife. For one, they can't talk unless you make them.

Ha! But no, seriously, keep them away from small animals and children.

>>15236948

The boonies doctor here.

I had a squadren of Dwarven legionaires come into my pratice; one of their men had been killed and they weren't able to save him in time so their squad's cleric/medicinedwarf/shaman/healer was issued the order to resurrect him.

Now they had braught him in for me to treat him for ressurection sickness, alright?

You know how when you spend all day in your shoes they feel like just an extention of your feet?
But when you take them off and put them back on you notice all the fine details: how sweaty your feet are, what the soul of your shoe feels like, that sort of thing?

It was like the dwarf was feeling that with his own body and his foot was his soul.

>>15237066
I know you're trying, but you're killing the mood, bro.

>>15236443
Elf colons are straight.

>>15236948

Hey. I..I don't know if anyone else is the same, but I might be able to help you with that.
I've...well, I've *been* resurrected. I was gone for about a year before some friends managed to scrape the resources together to bring me back. I never expected it of them. Anyway.
The thing is, I have an idea of what my afterlife should have been, obviously. I'm a man of a church. But....I remember nothing. *nothing*.
I remember blacking out, rising again briefly for one last strike, then...awakening in a new body, in a house, my associates standing around looking nervous. Red with a grin on her face.
But I have no memory at all of the beyond. It's...unnerving. It shouldn't matter, I know, but somehow my mind keeps going back to it.
As I say, I don't know if anyone else has a similar situation, but that's why I.....don't always seem to be all here.

>>15236691

I'm a midwife- yeah yeah go back to the hearth. I'm still the closest thing the area has to a healer.
Anyways. This party of adventurers comes through in seriously rough shape, their cleric is still patching them up as they go. I'm confused as fuck because what can I do that their healer can't?
But I let them stay so they can recover. No big deal, those types usually have gold to burn.
One of them, this little elf ranger type pulls me aside. Says her insides hurt. I ask her why she doesn't get the cleric to look at her, but she tells me he's already cured her wounds and it still hurts. The way she's asking makes me think it's got something to do with her bits. I take her to the back room and ask her more about it.

There is no easy way to tell a woman that she was pregnant. Nor is it any easier to tell her that it was probably her lifestyle that cost her it.

Church doesn't have too much influence around here, so healers are your best bet. I'm pretty well known around these parts, "if you need something fixed, go find samuel" and all that. However, I had a very interesting case recently.

I go by neutrality rules, it helps me get a lot of patients and make a living, and nobody dares hurt me. This led to an interesting encounter recently. A woman, rather beautiful, walked into my office and told her to follow me, she had something urgent I needed to take care of. She led me far, through a forest and to the nearby mountains, where she led me into a large cave. Inside was a blue dragon, with a large hole torn in his wing. Turns out the woman was his mate. I don't know much about dragons, but their insides aren't totally different from other races, and operating on dragonborn helps you get a basic idea, so I managed to dress the wound and get him comfortable. He seemed slightly bothered when I told him he'd never be able to fly as quickly again, but otherwise took it well. He offered me as much gold as I could carry, which I politely declined, though he insisted I take a few gems along with me.

Weeks later, around now, a red dragon attacks the city I operate in. I didn't see much, but people told me a blue dragon flew in and drove off the red one before mysteriously leaving.

>>15237108

Well, duh. Omnipotency ring a bell? Do you think the Gods, who know exactly what is going to happen *before* it happens, can't tell you're coming back to life? They're not going to let you get a glimpse of the sweet stuff and then run around telling everybody what's up there; you'd ruin the surprise!

If you are still experiencing post-mortem depression, however, I'm happy to announce we're now offering grief counseling services at a discounted rate. It's at the Cathedral every evening at 6, just follow the signs for 'Coping With The Loss of Yourself'. Bring your purse!

>>15236833

Swamp Doc here, are Giants common in others practices?
I've never had to work on anything larger than a man, though the lizardfolk and the halflings occasionally get into some scuffles that they have to bring to me.

>>15237092

You may or may not hate me for this but. Out of all the different species of patience I've worked with out here Elves are always the most difficult.

They're just as short as Dwarves but I can't treat them like Dwarves.
They aren't as small as halflings or human children so I can't treat them like that either.

So what ends up happening is an Elf comes in pregenant and expecting to give birth with the frame of a sixteen year old Human female.

We almost always have to go for a Cesarean section or risk the mother dieing due to complications.

And thats only if I'm lucky enough for them to come in on time: Elves always come to me at the last minute, they're always so reluctant and it always causes more god damn complications.

And I'm not even mentioning the part where an Elf will come in and almost 100% of the time I have to ask if they're male or female.

>>15237141

Frontier Doctor here.

Try convincing a Half-Orc Barbarian and the rest of her companions they should settle down to avoid undo harm to her unborn child. Having to treat the human bard for a minor head-wound told me immediately who the father must have been.

>>15237189

I'm...not welcome in the Cathedral any more.
It's a lot harder to get that kind of help when the last time someone saw your face, it was on a spear outside the gates, for crimes against the state and church.
Why did you think my friends dragged together their resources to make themselves a back-alley resurrection, out in the wilds?

>>15237250
You need to change your face without anyone knowing? I've got spells for that.
95% success rate! Cheap too... well comparatively.
Ask the thieves guild were to find me.

>>15237215
Gazzrukk here. Gazrukk healer of Blackfang clan. Gazzrukk healed many giants in life. Surprise, they are very fragile inside. Even Elf insides are sturdy. Giant guts rip and bones break easy. Only thing make giants tough is muscle and tendon.

Only monster giants sturdy, like Trolls and Cyclops. Fire and Frost giants have strange insides : fire-muscle and ice-bones. Stone giants have good bones, good for clubs, but not as good as iron. Too heavy.

>>15237275

I'll be in touch.

>>15237215

"Boonies" Doctor here.

I treat Giants on a yearly basis- they come in droves during the end of winter.

You can safely treat them exactly as humans only much, much, larger.

Ironically, I've never worked on anything Reptilian.

I didn't even know Gorgons/medusi existed until this doctor braught it up. >>15236988

>>15237246
ha, you're telling me!
At least the majority of the time my job is just catching and making sure the wee ones are nursing properly.
Well, that and gathering contraceptive herbs. Seems like if I don't have enough stocked up anytime adventurers come through the area I end up working twice as hard nine months later.

Oh, and don't get me started on dwarven deliveries. I wish I could say 36+ hour labours were rare. I swear they come into the world stubborn.

>>15237295
Ogres too fat. Have to dig and dig in cutting-open-to-stop-hurting, or "surjry." Makes good lamp oil. Ogres not have gold, pay in fat for lamp oil. Not best deal, but ogres not reasonable.

Best patients are humans. Easy to learn and extra organs for those who mess up. Not Gazzrukk. Gazzrukk never mess up. Gazzrukk best healer since old Dwarf cleric.

Am I the only one who's ever worked with necromancers?

On the one hand, most of the work I do for them is more like taxidermy or fixing bone sculptures than proper doctoring.

On the other hand, being able to call for a little necrotic energy assistance when I've got a patient with a really stubborn infection or parasite infestation is a wonderful thing.

>>15237233
Elves are a bitch to work on. Good thing I don't have many near me.

Now, my most unusual patient was a Beholder. The bastard floated right into town, yelling like a bat out of Baator for a healer, scared the town half to death.

The thing had managed to somehow get its big eye stuck open after a scuffle with some adventurers, and said that it couldn't do anything until I fixed it.

Turns out that there were daggers stuck in the remaining half of its eyelid, as the other half was burnt off.

There's no easy way to tell an eye tyrant that it can't close that eye ever again. Not sure why, but the thing flipped out after I told it bluntly. Tore up a good third of the street before we managed to inject it with something to knock it out, and even then it took it another third of the street before it took effect.

Fucking beholders.

>>15237302
Ask for Zanzib, they'll know who I am.
You knock up a woman and don't want a kid? I got a potion for that.
You need a body disposed of? I can always use another pair of hands.
But if the city watch ask, you never heard of me.

>>15237361
Old brother of son friend was ventrurer. He know necromancer. Gazzrukk paid to help necromancer pick good subject for "zumbficashun."

>>15237305
I'm the medusa guy, and I work on a lot of scaled people. The medusa was the strangest one, but I work pretty consistently with the lizardfolk tribes, as well as the smaller ones that come in sometimes as well.
I don't know why they come here, since they know medicine better than I do, or at least they know herbs and potions better than I do. I can't count the number of times I've caught them poking through my cabinets when I turn my back, only to have one of them tell me that I don't use enough arrowroot.

Freakin' arrowroot.

>>15237392
Gazzrukk laugh at civilized men with no arrowroot.

>>15237381
>>15237275
Ah fuck, a back alley "Medicine Man."
DO NOT trust those fucks. Its an even chance that they'll fix you up, or you'll wake up in a tub of ice missing some bits.
They're unregistered and illegal as hell.

>>15237392

You can never have enough arrowroot. Nothing stops bleeding better.

>>15237361
I've been doing some research into necrotic energy.

It's proving to be a pretty decent cancer cure, though it's difficult for the patient to endure.

>>15237392
You at least keep some willow bark in stock, right?

>>15237412
Aye. Gazzrukk saved many fallen venturers who left to die in ditch because of con artists and alley-back men

Had a pretty bad one last week. Some young mage kid brought in his...."pet". He'd been nicking bits and pieces from the wars off to the West, and built himself a flesh golem. Damn thing was *terrifying*. I still don't know how many bodies he'd taken bits from, but it only had two fingers the same colour.
The thing was, he might have been a dab hand at the whole animating thing, but he couldn't stitch worth a damn. He'd used thick cotton cord, too.
The poor creature was falling to pieces, and it'd started to rot in places, too...I had him get it to lie down on the table. and got Jorge in to help me.
Strapped it down, so's none of the bits would move as we took it apart to fix it properly. Took us a day and a half, cutting out stitches, getting embalming fluid into as much of it as possible and putting it back together with decent leather straps. Had to stop every half hour to get the kid back in to shore up the thing's magic wossnames. He'd said he couldn't afford to make it again from scratch, even with the bits, you see.
Was a bugger getting him in to do even that much. Couldn't look at his precious friend laid out there for more than a minute without bursting into tears. Anyway, we finished up the next day and packed him off, getting a nice bit of gold for the trouble. Rent'll be sorted for the year just on that.

>>15237421
The trick is targeting the spell really precisely. You get it right and you can nail flatworms or staph infections or tumors or what have you without doing any damage to the intervening tissue.

It also makes a decent wart removal tool, I've found. Although you have to pump a bit more power into it to keep the wart from coming back; viruses apparently are close enough to the life-nonlife borderline that necrotic energy doesn't work as well as it could on them.

I don't believe you people, arrowroot is just a thickener!
Sheesh!

>>15237425
Of course I keep willow bark in stock, I'm not stupid. I wrap it around bruises and use the mash in any infusion to bring down temperature.
Fevers common, so I have to keep importing more.

>>15237412

Frontier Doc again,

I resent that, try being the only source of medicine besides a coven of Druids who demand an acre of farmland returned for their services. I can't help it if the Imperial college of medicine doesn't have the stomach to stand up for their patients when words arn't enough.

Being of the metallic persuasion, operating on organics was a rather...optics-opening experience when I was first off the forges. Certainly I am programmed with all the necessary information to operate on humans and the majority of humanoids, but that can only bring a warforged so far; it is the experience that cements the "how" and the "why" together.

Field-dressings and emergency care during conflict is significantly easier, in the short-term; you know the person may well not see their next sunrise, despite your best efforts. Out here, in the 'boonies,' I've become more concerned with how the patient is...feeling. It is a very strange thing, to try and apply what the elf called 'empathy' to a half-orc with ulcer pains, but I am told it will make me a better, more caring doctor. Few are willing to trust a man of metal and wood, so I have heeded this as best as my abilities allow; my duty is to heal others, and to not be able to perform my function would be disastrous.

I will not lie when I say that applying a poultice to the injured knee of a little girl and receiving a smile from her in return does not bring a great sense of accomplishment within me.

Remember when Prince Gregory challenged his brother for the throne? And then the Nobles got involved? Fucking civil wars.

Little town I set up shop in isnt even near the trade route or any cities but the big wigs figured it was worth taking anyway. I got "drafted" into patching up who I could when someone tried to take the town and whoever was occupying beat them off, or when someone drove out whoever was in charge and dug in themselves.

I'm no hothead youngster like I was a long time ago so I can swallow my pride when some bigshot in a suit of armor tells me to sew up his boys. A little arm twisting isnt new to me, and I'll bite my tongue if I can save some lives.

But getting dragged out of bed in the middle of the night at knife point by some kid half my age, scaring the hell out of my wife, because there was a night attack and there arent any army medics available and he wont stop yelling at me to get to work.

He'd already dragged this poor half dead bastard onto the kitchen table and I can already tell I cant save him. Cut up head to toe and stuck with a few arrows to boot, all you can do at that point is try to make him comfortable. The one who brought him in wont stop yelling at me, demanding that I do SOMETHING, I tired to tell him that I it was beyond me, but he was hysterical.

The soldier died on the table, and I feared his friend was going to take it out on me, but he just broke down right there in the kitchen. Eventually, two other soldiers came and took both the body and the other soldier away. I only learned later that they were brothers. Gods damn Prince Gregory.

>>15237412
I know, I know. I'll get over the down thing eventually, I'm sure. It's just hard at the moment. I'm not really going to change my face, to go to a temple, to get therapy from a worryingly over-enthusiastic churchman. Heh. I'm stressed, not crazy.


>>15237381
For the record, though, Zanzib, I might be in touch anyway. Couple of things you might be able to help me with. I'll tell you another time.

>>15237295

One of the best patients I've ever had was an old brown skinned, gray haired orc.

At first when he said he didn't need any anesthetic I thought he was just being a "tough guy".

I decided I wouldn't even slip him any and as soon as he cried out I'd sneak some in.

He not only went through the whole treatement without any pain killers- he fell asleep.

He thanked me, paid me, and then told all of his other orc friends about my gentle and proffesional pratice.

>This thread

This is fantastic. Anon demands moar.

>>15237519
So make some more.

>>15237516
Sound like Tzergol. Hit head when child. Colorblind and feels no pain. Always waking up with spear in leg.

>>15237481
Hey, not talking about YOU. I mean these shifty back alley discount docs that have been cropping up lately
They do more harm then good, but people still keep goign to them. Most of them operate out of a bag on a table they set up in alleys. Half of them don;t even clean their tools..

I mostly use arrowroot for getting patients to eat, and weaning babes. I prefer comfrey or calendula to stop bleeding.

>>15237549
>>15237412
You a copper? You gotta tell me if you're a watchmen, that's entrapment if you don't.!

Anyone else think this is archive worthy? It sorta reminds me of that "town guards stories" thread a while back.

I'm totally using negative energy as chemo in my next campaign.

I demand this thread be archieved

>>15237474
I've got a surplus of willow bark if you have any kava kava kicking around. Been a nasty case of "the bards gift" going around and I keep running out.

>>15237570
Eh, technically it's not.

Look man, you need a good lawpriest. I studied at the University of Erathia, and I know my stuff. Hit me up, I'll keep the guard off your back.

And as for anyone here who was healed by a 'legitimate' healer who turned out to be not so skilled, wound up leaving them numb in their left arm or something? That's malpractice; I can get you proper recompense for your suffering and loss. All for a modest fee, of course.

Theodras & Theragost, on the corner of 3rd and Dock in Bywater. Affordable legal representation for honest, hardworking, but unfortunate, citizens.

>>15237606

Absolutely. This is some of the best stuff I've seen on /tg/.

+20

Boonies Doctor here- things look like they're quieting down so I'll offer a few more stories.

Just this summer I get two teenage human males cupping their groins in pain one evening after everyone had left.
I naturally suspect they must have picked up some sort of STD and told them it wasn't nessicary for them to be embarassed; nothing I couldn't cure and they'd be fine in a week after some medication.

Well it wasn't that.
Turns out the boys had found out that some Oozes were cultivating in a cavern.

They didn't realise that Oozes were caustic.

Burns all over their genitals I had to treat them for a month- and even worse is that I got in a few more kids who had tried the same thing just last week.

>>15237621
Honestly I'm surprised it doesn't come up more often. An autoclave is nice for sterilizing equipment, but a necrotic energy drench is even better. And if you need to disinfect a wound, or debride it? Same thing.

Plus diseases. Positive energy just heals the infectious agent along with the damage it did to the patient, and it doesn't do squat to prevent your own immune system from ruining your day. A balanced approach to disease is best, I think; necrotic first, to kill the infection and suppress an overactive immune response if necessary, then positive energy to heal any damage caused by the illness.

>>15237662
Damn, you'd think they'd know by now that the only oozes it's safe to "practice" with are the ones that were specifically bred for that.

>>15237491

That said, in my year or so of work within this county, there have been cases that would be considered 'strange.' The one that comes most to the forefront is the Changeling that happened upon my office, which is unusual being as far out from the main cities, but I did not ask why she was there.

Changelings have a peculiar biology. A wizard will claim that they alter their shape purely based on magical theory, but this is a misnomer; the primary catalyst is genetic in nature, part of an as-yet understood reaction that fluctuates hormones at an alarming and expansive rate. Magic simply keeps their flesh from exploding outwards or rapidly mutating into a gigantic tumor mound. Extreme physical trauma can sometimes alter this 'magic field' or throw the hormonal balance out of order.

In her case, it was a combination of both. An enchanted arrow had done enough damage to her knee that she could not change it back from that of the tiefling she was posing at, leaving her with one goat-leg to hobble with. Worse, it was beginning to alter her body uncontrollably, morphing it into pulsing, cancerous shapes.

I worked for 14 hours cutting away at flesh that only grew back minutes later, or would actively avoid my blades and tools. I am nothing if not persistent, however, and the sliver of metal lodged within her kneecap that kept her morphic field unstable was eventually removed. It took a week of rehabilitation, but she was eventually able to retain her various shapes. She took her leave and left me with a sizable reward, despite my protests.

I am still wondering as to where the flesh I removed had gotten to, however. I'm afraid it may have gained sentience and left of its own volition...

>>15237634
I'll have to make a run to the north side, but for willow bark, I'll do it in a heart beat.
If anyone has any Meadowsweet, I'll pay in money or herbs as well. There used to be some around, but it all got wiped out a few decades back, a few locals told me.

Where should I send the kava to?

>>15237662
haha oh wow.

What kind of ointment are you treating them with? Self administration may lead to over application, but on the other hand. Eurgh, tough call.

>>15237693
>>15237662
It's those damn bards. They keep spreading around tales about their sexual prowess and things they've conquered.

I swear, the birth rate goes up every time a bard wanders through.

>>15237662
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!
That's the best thing I've heard since some idiot tried to catch a squid-dog.

Frontier Doc again,

Come to find out that rage is a good method of overcoming labour pains....Much to the dismay of her now bard husband who's arm I had to splint after she gave birth

Gods, all this arrowroot talk pisses me off. Arrowroot does not stop bleeding! At least not by itself. The reason why it works is all in the preparation! Without the proper preparation arrowroot is useless. Most "civilized" doctors have no idea about even needing to prepare it because they only ever see it when it's being stored. After arrowroot is properly prepared, it needs to be applied to a wound quickly or loses its potency.

The only reason why I know about it is because I was treated with arrowroot, and couldn't believe it.

You know, you would think getting promoted to House physician would be a cushy job. It's a step up, right? Serving the nobles, recommending the right tea for that oh so uncomfortable cough. Not a chance.

My day? Fixing male slaves. Sometimes a couple, sometimes a dozen. At least I have assistants to strap them down and shut them up, but still. Nothing but taking the knife to slave balls, over and over again. And just hope you don't make a mistake on that pretty-boy half-elf that the Matron had her eyes on, and let him bleed out on the bench. Then it's the feeding pits for you.

Then of course, you get the ones who are trying to conceive and for whatever reason things aren't working? It's never their fault--their oh-so-perfect spawning pits couldn't possibly be barren--so it becomes your problem when they walk in and demand you someone make everything work down there. Or else. It's always "or else."

Oh, and never tell a priestess she has the clap. My predecessor did, and that's how I got promoted. They have an "unusual and exotic malady caused by exposure to fungal miasma." Then they go and get a spell cast on it, and everyone's happy.

>>15237722
I recommend silphium.

http://suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/15236326

Thread archived. Vote it up, /tg/!

>>15237708
Just send it to Orzellia, to the west. There's enough people been brought into the world by my hand it'll make it's way to me.

I can't spare any meadowsweet at this exact moment, but when they're in bloom I'll set some aside for you.

>>15237034

Starting to sound dangerously 'Cave Johnson' there, padre.

>>15237759
Oh god, the Drow. We only have a few elves here, but most of 'em are veterans from the wars 14 years back. Once, a drow adventurer came through here (which is pretty rare in an of itself, since where too far north for the tropics and too far south for any old ruins), and it was not pretty.

And then the local halflings found a passage to the underdark, which just woke shit up for a good 6 months.

>>15237713

The five boys who've had a "hook up" with an ooze are diligant enough to apply it to themselves and patient enough to not over-apply.

It helps that I threatened them with a "house call" if I notice they're misusing their medicine.

None of the boys are exactly eager to have their parents find out.


Though when the fifth teenager came in with burns on his genitals I had to put up a public notice that essentially told the neighboring populace to "stop fucking oozes."

>>15237679

Dammit! When is this quackery going to die off already?

Necrotic energy isn't simply anti-life; it's corruption and decay and disease. It's life all right--just the wrong kind of life. The tumor that eats you up from the inside out, or the parasite that turns your brain-stem into a perforated mass of wriggling larva.

At least when people try to "sterilize" their instruments with necrotic energy they're not doing any active harm. Not like you can give leprosy to a set of forceps. But then you start actually applying it to wounds? Do you have ANY living patients left, or do you just have a bunch of ghouls that keep stumbling in and paying their bills because they've forgotten how to do everything else?

I mean, that's a great business plan. But it's WRONG. Morally wrong! Goddamn "alternative necromancy" lobby. Gets thousands of people killed or zombified every year who could have been saved otherwise.

>>15237826
I'm surprised you didn't have to deal with any girls. After all, oozes are capable of extruding multiple pseudopods.

>>15236845
>>15236814

Gentleman, if I may? I've experienced this from both ends of the spectrum. Started out as a slum physician, treating those the respectable herbalists and price-worrying clerics wouldn't see: back alley prostitutes, mad beggars, the mentally infirm, or a member of whatever 'always chaotic evil' race feelings are running against these days. It true, a lot of them don't have much, and what they have, goes to feed their kin, their debt, or whatever drug get them through the day. But I always believed it was worth it, raised on the words of Pelor, of charity and aid for all those walked in the sun or not.

But a few years ago, I get a knock on the door and it's an adventuring party, the lot looked like they were just starting out. Despite the filth they were covered in, their armor hardly looked used, and they were so young. I have nephews and nieces that were older. They were holding their companion up, an Orc woman who is bleeding through all the rags and spare cloths they could cover it with. They explain they were taking on local bandits when she was hit by a crossbow from the retreating miscreants.

It's bad. They had pulled out the crossbow, not knowing any better, and it caused severe laceration both ends, as well as causing more bleeding. I send a messenger to find out if any of the more equipped clinics have Orc blood stored.

>>15237875

I work fast, disinfecting the wound, applying yarrow for clotting and sap for closing the wound, when she starts coughing. First soft, almost kitten-cute, until she's hacking up green and black gunk from her mouth and nostrils, with tears running down her face. The smell is gods awful, like sulfur and tabac gone rancid. Turns out, the crossbow was poisoned but neither her companions or I know what by.

At that point, I know it's in Pelor's hands and tell them they need to get to Shepherd's Crook, the local clinic being run by the Sun God's priests. Their eyes were so empty as they told me that was who they went to first; the priests refused to treat her because didn't have enough gold, and wouldn't even heal her in exchange for a errand, citing their inexperience.

I looked down at their poor girl, who has stopped hacking and gone so still, and I will tell you with no shame: I started to cry. It was unprofessional, I know that. You're not suppose to let the patient see that you're worried. But at that point, it all just caught up to me. The constant struggle to get funding, the low supplies, the faces of a patient's peasant family when I have to tell them the surgeon who could treat them won't taken anything under 500 gold, more than all of them made in a life time. How many people had died because they just didn't have the connections, the gold, or time to get the treatment they needed. What of the other temples of other faiths, through out the city? How could this have happened, when the Church was commanded by the Sun God to do everything in their power to heal their fellow being? How could their hearts have hardened so?

>>15237735
Midwife here- yeah. Yeah, even run of the mill human women will do that.
It may have been wiser to give her something less fragile than a mans arm, however if the choice was between that or a weapon I can see how you went with the choice that would have resulted in less injury.

Is mum going back to adventuring or is she going to settle down for awhile first? Some blessed thistle might help her temperament (though with half-orcs it's hard to tell) but she may end up lactating a bit more.

>>15237886
I did the only thing I could do: I prayed. I closed my eyes and started to recite the Evening Rite. If this girl was going to die, she deserved to have the last rites said before joining her ancestors.

I had never felt anything like it. It was like a hot summer's day, where your skin feels like it's just a few degrees from burning but intoxicating at the same time. All the sorrow, frustrations, the fear and doubt, it washed away. For a few moments, it carries me away before reality sets back in. I need to stop losing my head and find a way to make those sun-forsaken clerics do their job or I was going see all the demons of the Nine Hells be set on them.

I open my eyes, and her companions were staring down, but not with sorrow.

When I examined the Orc, she was completely healthy. No cross bolt wound, no infections. Even childhood scars were gone.

Pelor had answered my prayers.

The Orc's friends told the noble that hired them the whole story and word spread from there. Well, the scandal is what finally got people talking about what passes for health care around here and what is due from the medico-magical community to the patient in need. The head of Shepherd's Crook was 're-assigned' and a Tiefling from the town over has taken her place. She's the one currently teaching me scriptures and spells, and I'm the one teaching her about the back streets and the dark alley connections to find out just who needs our help.

>>15237886
We've expanded our operation in the city. We employ both physicians and clerics to treat the purse-poor of society. We've just received a large donation from the human noble who hired those adventurers, and we're going to start offering mental health care as well. The Orc and her companion stop by every now and then, donating their skills and time to the cause. I've grown rather fond of them.

I think things will get better.

>>15236912

It's people like you who give the priesthood a bad name. We're here to help those who can't help themselves, not line our pockets. We make sacrifices so as to lend aid to those who need it. Perhaps you should review why you took up the profession.

>>15237826
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
>>15237788
Can do. It'll be coming from a bit west of the Ocansar Swamps, so don't expect it for a month or so, but I'll have the l'folk pack it in sand and brine so it stays fresh. if you could send the casks back, that would be great though, since we don't have a cooper anymore, and the l'folk are terrible with wood.

>>15236355

There's a setting idea for you. Everyone has taken all the good territory and dwarves have to live in underground reservations, drink their lives away and engage in domestic violence.

I'm no doctor, I'm an accountant, really, part of a big group of traveling fellows from all walks of life. We've been invited to help settle a small town on the shores of some distant jungle continent down south, among us specialists in herbs, exotic creatures, relics, art dealers, all sorts of 'support staff' for the teams already sent in. Anyway, I'm the bookkeeper, so I get sucked in to help out most everyone around here with odd jobs.

We got a little native creature in today, one of the adventurers carried it back into town after it had wandered into his camp and passed out. I've never seen something like it before, kind of a toad crossed with a fish, with the curiosity of a child. I'm not well traveled, but I think it must have been something related to the Sahaugin or Kuo Toa I've read about, but gentler, somehow, despite its heritage. Some kind of naive backwater tribe of the fishmen, I suppose.

Anyway, the thing has gone and gotten his arm caught in a trap set by one of the local hunters, I'd imagine, or something else out there. I'm not sure what sort of trap is was, but the arm was mangled pretty bad. I think it must have tried to grab bait on the trap and then simply just pulled its arm away when it got caught. The docs here patched him up best they can, making a splint and using simple herbs to help with infection, but we're not too sure what else to do. I've sketched out the little guy, although his cute nature doesn't really translate into the drawing. I wonder if any of you well-traveled doctors can tell me what this is? It was greenish purple, sort of hops along instead of walks, and has a curiously large mouth and a big tongue that seems to just hover in there when it speaks. It's mostly just patchwork right now, we're hoping to to restore full use of the arm.

Also, if you could tell me more about the scaled folk and trolls you've encountered, I'd imagine that'd help me out a bit too in the future.

>>15237832
You're misunderstanding. It shouldn't be used to treat wounds, that's simple damage. It should be used to attack a foreign intruder in the body, such as an infection or a cancer. When carefully targeted at the intruder, it does minimal, easily repairable damage to the patient. They can be in and out in a day, and over the course of weeks, save them from otherwise incurable diseases.

If used to treat an uninfected patient, it would only serve to harm them, as there is no foreign agent.

>>15237832
No, no, that's not right either.

The problem is with the damn mages and clerics, using non-scientific classification. My research indicates that necrotic energy actually includes at least three separate types of magic.

The first is 'life' necrotic energy, which is actually the same thing as non-temporal healing spells, or 'nature' growth spells. It's simply being applied to vermin, disease, fungi, or bacteria.

The second is 'death' spells which are tricky; they appear to use something similar to radiation to cause quick death. This is the type you want for chemotherapy or sterilization.

The third is reanimatory, of course; you know, zombification and all that.

That said, if you must use magic to sterilize, please. Just stick with a fire spell. Of course, more properly, that should be called a thermal spell, and they're really in the same family as 'ice' spells much more than those of water, earth or air.

>>15237899
You know... I gouge prices for adventurers. I help out everyone, but I lose money doing it.
Until an adventurer comes along. I mark up prices by a lot because they always have more money then the rest of the village put together. It's Adventurers where I make enough to buy supplies.

Y'know what gets me the most? Bards. Poor bastards.

Fighters can fight with one arm gone, clerics can heal from a wheelchair, but tell a bard he's gonna lose half a finger and the sod's in tears, says he'll never be able to work again.

You'd think they could get by just playing music, but it's just not enough for them after being out adventuring.

At least the notes they leave rhyme though. Heh. One last song.

>>15237759

Well this kind of makes me glad I'm all the way out here in the middle of nowhere.

The biggest anxiety attack I ever had was when I recieved more patience from the orcish community this >>15237516 one belonged to.

Every single one of them was a true gentlemen.

They were all very generous.

They all arrived on time.

If I pescribed them medication they took it religiously.

They would even bring me gifts of produce, meats, smokes, and alcohol- even though I don't smoke.

But by far the best part about them was their sense of humor. You ever get an orc under the knife and you'll both be in stitches by the time it's over.


Not a big fan of their women's aggressive romantic advances towards me though.

>>15237901
Of course. I'll send the bark on its way come morning. I'm afraid I haven't had the time to powder all of it properly.

>>15237955
Patients, not Patience.

Look, I know she's a nymph and all. And all the blood is going from your brain to your dick. But for all that's holy, put a goddamn sheepskin on your rod first. She's a NYMPH. Just because they never get sores on their lip doesn't mean they aren't carrying more bugs than a warm puddle of hog manure.

If you've got an STI epidemic in your town, ask the druids if there's a nymph in the neighborhood. Unless you live in Brothelton Hookersquare, I guarantee that the nymph is the problem.

>>15238009
>Brotheltown Hookersquare

My players made a party of clerics and paladins. I am so sending them there now.

>>15237955
You usually get really good patients from some of the more "savage" races. Orcs, Hobgoblins especially, Gnolls and the like.

They know first hand what happens when wounds aren't healed properly, they've all had friends die from festered wounds. Secondly shamans and medicine men are often the backbone of their community so they see you somewhat closer to kin.

Now I've managed to acquire something of a reputation for being able to cure unusual and difficult diseases and wounds. I've even built up a respectable reputation among the nonhuman population.

But when a goddamn air elemental walks into my office and asks to be examined, and I hear that bastard John snickering outside the door, I get SO MAD!

>>15238009
HEY! I'm FROM Brothelton Hookersquare buddy! And I assure you we do NOT have those kind of problems!

>>15238026
He had malaria, didn't he?

>>15237955

Really, the problem is the unnecessary procedures. You get an orc buck comes in, he's got a finger that's gone gangrenous and has to come off? You practically have to bum-rush his five friends out before they start demanding you chop off their hands as well just to prove that they're every bit as fearless as their buddy is.

It's a weird kind of one-upsmanship. Not hypochondria; they don't actually believe they have a problem. They just want the treatment anyway, especially if it's painful or disfiguring.

>>15238035

Nah. Probably just a case of the vapors.

>>15237955
I tell you lads, being the Orc Surgeon is the easist gig you ever get. Just take out the bits that should be there and sew all the holes he doesn't need. Orcs are too tough to die from it and too Proud to complain about the pain.

Hell I aint even a real Doctor, My mother was a tailor and my father was a butcher, I just put those skills to use.

Does.....Does no one use eschew materials?

Fucking warforged. Sure, I've heard the same stories everyone has about warforged wanting to understand existence, and become more human. Well, either everyone else meets different warforged that I know, or I have the bad luck to meet a very small percentage of sour constructs.

Ok, many warforged I've seen aren't monsters, and aren't worse than most overzealous fighters, but after the war, a small gang of warforged took up shop in the town where my small clinic is based. They're lead by one who calls himself Warbringer. Bastard still has the blade of a longsward stuck in his head. All the trauma patients I see have run across these bastards. I was still learning during the war, so I don't have the experience of seeing the terror of a battlefield, but I don't see how anything could amount to what I HAVE seen.

>>15238021
True.
And they'll generally know where to find certain herbs if you need them. Of course, I rarely see them unless it's a bonafide emergency. They usually already know more than most about patching themselves up.

The real trick is in getting Gnolls to stop licking their wounds. Sometimes I have to construct collars for them if it's really serious. It's kind of funny.

>>15238088

The one case I'll always remember, from my first month here in town...I didn't know about the gang or anything, and sure as hell wasn't expecting it. It was in the morning. I was getting ready to open the clinic...bastards must not care about the time of day. There was a rumble and I didn't think much of it, the alchemist down the street often messed up an experiment, so I just went about my duties opening the clinic, waiting on the doctor to get there.

Not five minutes later, some kid kicked in my door. I was startled, but I realized he wasn't there for money when I saw his eyes. Gods, his eyes. I've never seen so much fear and urgency in an instant. His left arm was missing below the elbow, only thing left was shredded flesh with bits of bone. But what made my stomach turn was his sister. Cradled in his right arm, no more than four or five, was a girl. Or what was left. Her right leg was gone above he hip, and her right arm was missing similar to her brother. He dropped her on my table, and her right wrist dropped out of what was left of he jaw. I couldn't do anything, she was far gone. But her brother wouldn't let me touch him, just kept begging me to save his sister. He bled out trying to get me to just save his sister. They don't have that shit in the books.

Fucking warforged...they were robbing the local store. Word has it they got away with 10 gold...fucking warforged.

How much do you guys know about aquatic respiratory systems?

Because I just moved into a fishing town. And there's somethin' that's been cutting the legs of the local merfolk and sea elves. I know I should've expected this kind of thing, but....

I just don't really understand how gills work. My teacher spent all his time teaching me about wings and how they work. Said I was more likely to need to help a harpy than a merfolk or something.

Honestly I think he was just hydrophobic. But anyone got any ideas?

>>15238086
Do you know what happens if you're a cleric who swing that and you try to set up shop in town around those who can't? Let me tell you, it's not pretty. They do not appreciate having their business under cut in the slightest. Don't even try to start that it isn't a business, it fucking well is with how competitive they get.

But have any of you ever managed to treat an elemental? How about an illithid?

>>15237934

Priest physician, here. I can understand the reasoning behind it. I've had the do the same a few times when I just can't scrape the copper to buy enough arrowroot or soap. I wasn't proud of it, but it was that or start turning people away to save on cost.

But just be careful about it. You get these ruffians, all high on their recent conquest, demanding to be treated before anyone else or why they have to pay more a few stitches than for a prostitutes's clap cure. They can cause all sorts of trouble for you and and any other patients there.

It's why I was always glad for one of my assistant's help in those matters, a Minotaur who can put an end to a scuffle faster than you can blink.

>>15238120
Our biology is not entirely different from that of our host species. Ceremorphosis, while it does produce drastic visual effects, does not change the body enough to render medical knowledge useless.

>>15238021
>>15238091


For the record: Gnolls are the second most difficult patients I've had next to Elves.

They're too "energetic" so it's almost impossible to get them to do anything.

Their females have outside plumbing so I don't know whether to treat them as males or as females when it comes to medication.

They CHEW on everything.

Half of the time they bring their sister or daughter and offer sex in exchange for medical services.

I of course always decline because -they're animal people- and then they think I'm being proffesional so they leave the offer "open" so I can receive "payement" when I'm ready and then they walk out.

>>15238120
Every weekend. Elemental weekend is what they called it. Guess it comes with the territory of being the physician of an arcane academy. Thought they had something to prove by avoiding any divine magic. Fire elementals are the wost...sure it's tough to cut open air, earth, or water, but at least you can keep hold of the damn scalpel. I just feel sorry for the creatures...ripped from their home planes by students practicing summoning spells...the new ones always mess it up. Just try helping an earth elemental the size of a house who was conjured with it's leg coming out it's forehead. Without divine magic.

>>15238110
Well I suppose I don't know much about the rest of you, but I have taken the vow of poverty. I sleep in the alley outside the local tavern.

Well I would, but I have maximum level vow, so I don't need to BREATHE, let alone sleep, eat or drink.

I do it all for free.

And for those who try to shut me down, that's what celerity and disintegrate are for.

>>15238104
Blood flow to the gills runs differently than the rest of their body, be very careful not to nick them or the thin membrane of the gills.

>>15238104
See if you can get a pool made, or if you live near any large tide pools, make a larger one for any waterbound patients, that way 1. you can keep them close, 2. you can keep the place clean, 3. you know who's going in and out.

Another important thing is to make sure that the gills don't heal together, which can be a problem, especially with anything that has a land counterpart.

>>15238088
>>15238098

I apologize on behalf of my more...violent brethren. We are not all like that, and I can only surmise that they are internally damaged or otherwise compromised. Give me their information and I will see to it that they are handled.

Personally.

>How about an illithid?

Ohhh now you're thinking, why wouldn't they eat your brain and treat themselves?

>>15238159
>>15238120

I knew a surgeon that treated an Illithid once. Blood clot on the brain, from what I recall. The illithid came through the operation just fine apparently, but they found the doc's body three days later rotting in a ditch with his skull sucked clean through.

I know you all take oaths or some such when you start practicing, but I think there's a point where ya gotta consider your own safety. Personally, I'd draw the line at helping out eldritch sociopaths.

>>15238209
Our town has more than enough warforged as is. You'll excuse my bitterness, it comes well earned, and I don't mean for it to be personal.

>>15238166
I have been friendly with a tribe of Gnolls for a long time; they were local to the mountain ranges I have been working on for the past few hundred years.. You needn't have sex with the female they offer - you can have her perform a service for you; the younger ones are usually more 'craft-wise' than their elders are, and they are fond of beading and leatherworking as they are two things that the tribes can collect a lot of and do not find valuable enough to keep for themselves. Ask the elder to give you privacy, have some beads and thread or leather thongs or the like handy, and they can make you some rather intricate braids and necklaces of beads fairly quickly. Also, the female biology is more male in nature than not. So, do not use herbs that will increase aggression or alter a female's nature to one more male.

>>15238166
I don't know about that. I find that making them wear 'the party hat,' as I have informally dubbed it makes them a bit quieter. At least while they have to keep it on.

I suppose it helps that I'm the only game in town and I can threaten to ban them from my practice if they get out of hand.

>>15238140
Oh ye gods. I can't thank my assistant enough. Medusa, found her bleeding out by the side of the road one day.

She was on her way out, hunting I think, when she ran into some adventurers. Damn near eviscerated the poor thing. After I patched her up, lady decided to stick with me.

God knows why, I can barely afford to keep this practice open, so it's sure not the money. But I can't say I don't appreciate her. Keeps the local toughs from knocking me off, keeps adventurers in check. She's a godsend.

>>15238140

The richer they are, the more miserly they get.

You charge one of the young fellas just starting out a couple hundred gold to counteract some snake venom or something, they might complain, but they'll chalk it up to experience and suck it up.

But boo fucking hoo when Captain Ironpants the Fifth comes in dragging the seven-day-old old corpse of his buddy, who tried to talk his way out of a wight. Then they try to dicker, like I'm grinding up all of these perfectly good diamonds just to feel better about myself. No, I can't knock twenty percent off the price; no you can't pay for it with an epic song, or a lap-dance from the elf. No, I don't take "future shares" or used treasure maps. I'm upsetting the fucking laws of nature here, and Nature demands payment up-front.

You don't like it, there's a cemetery out back that's good enough for all the "normal townsfolk" who live here.

>>15238230
>>15238228
It continues to amaze me the short-sighted stupidity that my lesser kin exhibit. Attempting such a delicate operation one's self is almost impossible so having such an avenue of aid open can be a great asset.

The real challenge is to treat something pseudonatural. Manage that without going bugshit and you're the world champ.

>>15238230

An illithid is just a parasite with two legs and an ego. Treating one is like putting a lamprey on someone's back just so the poor thing will have a safe place to live.

Man, all you doctors and medics. Me, I'm a barbarian--sure, I'm educated, I adventured for a few years and learned some things, even got trained in medicine. Don't consider myself a doctor hardly, but I got outta the adventuring business pretty quick after a bad trip involving some vampires... but that's neither here nor there. Went back to my tribe, thinking I could save some lives, maybe... not really modernize us--I respect our ancestors and traditions--but at least give us the upper hand in all those little tribal wars. Maybe even unify all the local tribes and make a nation of ourselves.

I've been patching up wounds and healing as best I can for the better part of three years now. We've conquered three neighboring tribes with the usual combation of big sticks and friendly words. Our Shaman's been pulling miracles more or less out of his ass more often, lately--weather, mostly, our traditions aren't big on small magics--and I thought I'd seen alot of what could happen to a body.

But there's been a plague sweeping through. I've been trying to contain it, but nothing I do works, and well... I ain't a real doctor, I only know a little bit. It starts with redness at the fingers and toes, and after awhile you just start burnin'. Literally. And the fire don't kill you until it's gotten to your heart, and it hurts like hell. I've settled for just quarantining the infected so far, but it's still spreadin'... and the way the chiefs and villagers look at me, they're expectin' a miracle. I'm the Doctor, they say. I know bodies, I can cure this plague. They expect a miracle that I can't give.

I don't know what to do, man.

>>15238244

I would have never pegged Gnolls for being the cultural type.
It's been ages and I could use some new boots and my Tartan needs to be stitched back up.

You know when they first heard about my clinic and they came in I thought they were Dwarfs suffering from lycanthropy?

>>15238245
I'll try the threaten part.

I'm the Boonies Doctor thats been here since. >>15236636


Though the "party hat" sounds like an adorable name for the cone.

>>15238187
>>15238188
Thanks! I'll see what I can do. The villagers here are pretty close with the local seafolk, so they'll help me get a place set up.

Besides. It apparently takes them a while to trust outsiders. The fact that they're coming to me means that I'm there last hope, and I don't want to see a community die because I'm not good enough at my damn job.

>>15238242

I do not take things personally. What I do is through duty and programming, and I am well aware of the bad reputation some of my...wayward brethren have produced.

>>15238274
However a few things look like an illithid.

>>15238275
Plagues are really difficult to deal with, and almost impossible without magic. For a nasty plague like that you need to quarantine all the infected and have everyone else wear masks, avoid physical contact with others especially kissing and sex, lots of nasty stuff can be passed that way. It might transmit through water so make sure to boil your water before using it and try to get it from a well.

This will help slow it and might keep your tribe alive. Really the best thing you can do is try to track down any former adventuring buddies and see if you can call in a favor if one of them's a cleric, or if they know any clerics and bring one of those out.

I love adventurers, well most of the time. Sure sometimes the sad case comes in, but I always find it amusing when they bring in a buddy with a shriveled arm in an eye catching bracer. They never have payment, but say they'd let me keep the bracer. I may be a humble doctor...but even I can spot a cursed item. It may be bad, but it always makes me chuckle at the end of the day.

>>15238275
This sounds magically induced to me. You should talk with the Shaman, see what you can do. If you can't work it out, I don't know what to tell you.

>>15236326
:(

>>15238320

That's what I've got people doing so far. Convincing one of the tribes under the Chief to wear masks was a tough--cultural thing, you see--but it did help, but there's still cases. There's been talk of just puttin' down the infected before the burning starts, as an act of mercy, but we haven't, yet. I sent out a sending to my old cleric buddy, but it turns out he can't--some bullshit about being a Bishop or Archbishop or something in the church and having duties or some shit. I saved his ass no less than a hundred times over four years and this is what I get for it? Shit, man...

I'm half thinking this might be some sort of heavy magic thing--one of the tribes in the swamp a couple mountain passes over has a cultural thing for diseases, but I ain't never heard of them usin' fire like this. I talked the chief into sendin' out some scouts that a-ways to parlay and see if somethin's up, but they ain't due back for another couple weeks.

And I'd get in touch with my other old adventuring buddies, but, uh... they're either dead or vampires now, and while I might have reason to still trust them, after the hordes of the Archlich came through three generations ago, no tribe from my area has trusted the undead. They'd never agree to help from them, even indirectly. It's a last resort, but...

>>15238275

I agree with >>15238341 , this sounds magically-induced. I would determine the source of the outbreak, and find patient zero and what they were doing. I've had colleagues tell me of entire town consumed by cursed items uncovered by kids playing in their barns. Terrible stuff.

(( instead of posting how much you like this thread, contribute something guys ))

I see a lot of talk about zombie this and undead that, but I bet none of you fancy 'living' docs have had to treat a whole town of the shuffling slightly-dead.

On the one hand, yeah you can just sew bits back on when they fall off, but on the other hand if you mix up the one hand with the other they get mighty bitchy.

>>15238364
>I sent out a sending to my old cleric buddy, but it turns out he can't--some bullshit about being a Bishop or Archbishop or something in the church and having duties or some shit. I saved his ass no less than a hundred times over four years and this is what I get for it? Shit, man...
Tell him in person. Then he'll know it's important business. The religious types like to do tests and such. Bit roundabout, but that's how it goes.

>>15238378

That's at least three months of travel to get the place he's holed up into. I got people dyin' every day, and not just of the burning plague, either. I leave for three months, when I come back there might not be a tribe left to save.

>>15238378
That or just start sending patients his way, once half his flock goes up in flames he'll be all too eager to help out.

>>15238281
The reason most people do not see them as the cultural type is because the only gnolls you are allowed to see are the warriors, which is what their culture revolves around. When they younger ones are capable of taking what they want from others, they cease the childish acts of creativity and time-filling in favor of raiding, hunting, and controlling the slaves who are allowed to become better at crafts than they are allowed to be.

I served as midwife for the clan for some time, because childbirth is a terribly self-destructive process to their females. It often leaves them incapable of siring more. I have found that using strands of ettercap silk to ew their wounded flesh together obviates the need for removal of the sewing. It dissolves in internal wounds after a time and falls away from the external wounds. You must steam the ettercap silk for some time to render it clean and usable, but it is much better than thread for sewing opened wounds.

>>15238364
Further details are required to successfully identify the nature of the plauge however at this stage based on what has been provided, I would like to ask if ticks are a common occurance in your area?

>>15238364

Priest physician here. What order does he belong to? I have some pull now, so if he doesn't get off his ass and start helping the ill like we're trained to, people higher up will start asking why an emergency wasn't declared and aid sent, and make him look bad. I won't stand for such politicking when there are people to help.

In any case, is there anything I can do? Depending on where you are, I can arrive with a fully equipped team by next week. Just give the word.

>>15238364
>>15238378

This has been bothering me, but do you people not have any praticing healers besides the ones provided by the church?

No Human Shamans or Medicine Men?

I live out here hundreds of miles from any "civilization" and every community has handfulls of people who activily teach and pratice magic. There isn't a community out here that doesn't have atleast one being capable of healing magic.

Hell, the only reason I get any buisness is because of my doctor confidentiality and my no question asked about different species.

Though it never gets any easier declining a patient with a magical illness or a curse.

>>15238424

Fairly, yeah. Not as common as furthur south, but we've got a couple species of ticks I've managed to isolate. Some other biting insects, too--fleas are a problem with our animals sometimes, and the swampy valleys nearby breed all sorts of mosquitos and biting flies and gnats. But the most common in the lands of the infected tribes are ticks, yeah.

>>15238098

Another case I can thank the "mighty Warbringer" and his game for. Two weeks ago a local farmer brought in his mule. Poor creature had it's throat slit. Warbringer must have thought it would be amusing to to headbutt the man's mule.

I of course am not a veterinarian, and could only offer to put the beast out of its misery. To Warbringer the mule had been nothing but target practice, but for that farmer, the mule was the only thing helping him sell his crops. To get another would take months, if he could manage without it. If I had any form of combat training, I would go kill all the bastards myself. Are there no organic adventurers left in the world willing to help a small village just for the sake of helping? We can't afford to pay, but I would personally give them whatever I could.

archived

>>15238426

Order of the Mailed Fist. I dunno what the difference is, but he was a hardass. Great man to have at your back, but a hardass all the same. And if you want to send some help... please, please do. We're the Tribe of the Ankle, allied with the Tribes of Red Silk and Clubfists.

>>15238430

We've got shamans, yeah, but they aren't healers. Our sort of magic is... big. Summon a tornado? Start a blizzard? Collapse a drowish tunnel system? Earthquakes? Blight crops? Our shamans can do all that. Fix a broken leg? Detect magical auras? Light a torch? Clean someone up? Fix a piece of cloth? No go. It's just not something our type of magic can do.

>>15238438
If the rash starts as a light pink in color accompanied by nausea, fever, vomiting, and a lack in appetite before worsening into the deeper red spots along with joint and abdominal pain, then to the best of my knowledge I would diagnose the plague as 'tick typhus'.

Should this be the case, exterminate all ticks found in the area. Treatment via purely nonmagical means is difficult at best due to the rarity of the fungus that contains the required materials to combat the plague.

>>15238473
Worst case scenario...you could get your shamans to somehow help enforce a quarantine by weather. If you could get the diseased to another location far enough away, of course.

>>15238446
Assuming you would not find it morally reprehensible for me to use the remains of Warbringer for experimentation my travels could be moved in that direction.

>>15238509
I don't see how a Mindflayer could be any worse...as long as you wouldn't suck anyone's brains out while you're here. I can't exactly cure that ailment...

>>15238364
Shit, that... that takes me back. Back when I was adventuring, me and my buddies... we once got a job from some random crazy noble guy, said he was from the mountain towns. Said there was a plague up there, killing off all his subjects, and maybe we could help.

Only... we got there too late.

By the time we arrived, there wasn't anyone alive left. The infected were everywhere; most of them were pretty much dying, jerking around on the ground, thrashing and spewing up blood... there were some though that were still alive, clawing and biting at everything and everyone in reach.

The corpses... they just lay there, soaking in their own blood and bile. The flies were everywhere. There wasn't anyone left to bury them.

I'll never forget when one of them turned around and just started shuffling towards us. I still remember the man's eyes... the desperation, the pain, the knowledge that he was gonna die, all weighing him down. Over the moans and screams, I could hear him saying through a ruined throat, through the blood and the phlegm:

"Help me. Please."

... Shit. Shit, I'm sorry, you didn't need to hear that. I... I just... sometimes, it just comes back to me, out of all the cases I've failed... that one is the one that always keeps coming up.

>>15238520
It would not be in my long term interest to have MORE adventurers coming along with their self-righteous spiel trying to kill me.

Fortunately it's easy to subsist on a diet of those that do seek me out with violent intent. On the upside thought it does provide me with spare parts. It's far simply to perform a biokinetic liver transplant when I do not have to frabricate the liver out of miscellanious tissue.

>>15238524

Hey man, all adventurers have a case like that. For me, it's definately the vampire delve. The one time I can honestly say I abjectly, complete failed my friends... but hell, it's the past. Can't let it control you, or you'll never get anything done, yeah?

>>15238499

That's going under consideration, sure. We've been discussing it at tribal meetings for a week or so. It'd take alot of power, though.

>>15238491

I'll let the tribes know to start killin' all the ticks they can find. What fungus is it? We get a surprisin' amount of rare stuff coming through on occasion, and if I can get a sample and some instructions I can try to cultivate it...

>>15238524
Anyway, if >>15238364 doesn't mind, I can go there and help. I think one or two of my old pals are still up for an adventure; maybe I can even get the cleric to go with us. He's pretty well off now, helping with a local monastery; I hear they even started a program to teach peasant kids how to read and write. Nice guy, that Samuel.

Recently there's been a rash of, well, idiots in the town nearby. I know some basic first aid, see, and my family comes from a medical profession. So everyone calls me doc. Not by my name, just doc.

It's become an imperative that I learn medicine, now.

Anyway, on to the idiots. See, a few people have been selling rings that heal major wounds in only a few minutes via speeding up the natural healing process. Not a new idea by any stretch.

This isn't about them putting me out of work with it. No, I'd be glad if people stopped barging in yelling at me and calling me doctor. They've been coming back with cancerous growths and lesions. It turns out that the people making the rings removed the limiter in the base spell. Not coming from a magic background, I didn't even know this was possible; I found that out by asking the people that made them.

Reading up a bit, this wouldn't have been a problem, if it had been a short-term medium, a potion, maybe. But they put it into a ring.

Three people, or more, a day coming in with arms or legs grossly out of proportion with the rest of their bodies. Or, worse yet, bones that mended, and the fractures grew new bone that split its way out of the skin, or didn't bother pulling the bone back into shape, resulting in v- or u-shaped leg and arm bones are the result.

>>15238520
Friend, you'd be doing yourself a disservice. It's common knowledge that the Illithid are nothin to be trusted. Sure, it sounds reasonable, even helpful, through this wide area communication node, but allowing one into your town is comprable to a sheep opening the gate to a hungry wolf and gesturing invitingly to its juicy, tender flanks.

The natural races are nothin but livestock to those gods damned abominations. You'd be better off letting a tarrasque rampage through your village and hopin for the best.

>>15236355
Do you realize how crawling with bacteria and dirt water would be without modern water treatment? How do you think people survived until now? Alcohol is a sterilizing agent. Also boiling will sterilize water (see: tea).

>>15238473

Hmm, sounds like one of the more militant of our priesthood. I'll start an inquiry into their actions, that sort of absurdity shouldn't be tolerated when there is a damn PLAGUE on. That can turn into a continental disaster if it isn't taken care of.

Right. I'm sending out word to my fellows, and putting together a requisitions list for supplies. I'm also sending out for a favor to that Orc and her friends I was talking about earlier. If this thing is being caused by some sorcerer or ancient curse, we need to be prepared for it.

In the meanwhile, I would follow >>15238369 's advice. Things could get a lot worse than even this.

>>15238593
Two things:
One, that's very racist. All wolves are pretty much the same; they're animals. But Illithids can be self-serving evil bastards without killing every living thing they see and using them as food/slaves.

Think about it. Killing cities worth of people gets adventurers down on your ass, and he specifically said he doesn't want that.

Second thing: Where in the nine hells did you hear about the Tarrasque?

>>15238556

If it is indeed ticks...I may be able to assist. I grew up in an area well known for being tick infested (but no fire plagues). My grandmother used to make an ointment to repel them. Take fresh clay from a river bed and put it in the bottom of a tin pot, smoothing it across the bottom and up the sides. Grind some month-old monkshood into a powder and spread it evenly across the clay, and cover the entire bottom with clean sand. Slowly add water so as to not stir the sand and monkshood in the bottom, and let it simmer for a night over a fire of oak wood. Don't let it boil, for that will mix the sand and monkshood, and create a lethal contact poison. By morning, the water should feel oily. Spread that under arms, in crotches, in hair...anywhere ticks typically like to stay...once per week, preferably twice per week. But keep it away from the eyes and mouth, just in case the brewing went wrong.

>>15238556
It is a miniscule variety of fungus that is known for its exceptionally earthy scent that starts off as vegetative growth that eventually have filaments rise up off of it to release spores by which is reproduces. You can mostly likely find it on root vegetables.

While I would telekineticly extract only what I require from it, I do not believe you will have access to such talents and will be forced to simply make do with ingesting it. A word of warning, it will take much trial and error to isolate the specific strain and there are bound to be side effects.

>>15238605

Any help would be appreciated. If it is a curse... hell, we could fix that with a clear idea of who cast it, why, and where, and enough shamans working in tandem. Meantime, I'll try my best to keep the quarantine goin', keep our water boiled, and keep killin' all the ticks we can.

>>15238637

I'll have a look for it. And we're a hardy people, used to trial and error when it comes to my concoctions. Long as it won't be lethal, we'll come through.

>>15238634

I'll break out my monkshood stocks and give it a try. Thanks.

>>15238593

If you know any other adventurers, I'd be glad to accept their help. It's not that I trust any Mindflayer, but if you were in what essentially is a warzone where common patients are children coming into your clinic missing limbs...you'd resort to drastic measures as well.

>>15238569
These condition are caused by continuously wearing the rings. I have seen such things happen in my mountains when trolls or tendriculos suffer from the....overgrowth? The cancer, one said. If they only wear the rings while the injury is present then it will not be so unpleasant to them. If it is a bone that is broken, the bone must be set straight. You can....use a hammer and anvil to break such bones as are bent wrongly and set them properly. Those bones that are...cancered? Overgrowthed? Those bones you must remove before setting the remaining proper bones.

>>15238644
Alright, then. I think it'll take me at least a week to gather supplies and my friends, so... I'll try and make it there in about three to four weeks. Just point us in the direction of where the plague started, and we'll try aour best to isolate the cause.

>>15238446

Oh, my, I seem to have stumbled upon something interesting.

My name is Tholan Light, an Artificer by trade. I am interested in assisting you, and the only pay I ask is the...remains...of the hooligans. I'm sure some of my compatriots would jump at the chance to assist me in my research, and I'm no amateur to the crossbow, myself.

What village did you say you hailed from?

>>15238593
How quaint. Did you know that it's common knowledge amongst your kind that blood letting can cure diseases? I believe theory is called 'humorism'.

I would prefer to call it humorous as its usefulness is laughable.

And on the note of livestock, I do not see the entirety of your kind displaying the cruelty toward your livestock despite your 'superiority'. The same thing exists between we Illithids and your kind. Keeping your kind well and reasonly content in your life is of far more benefit to me than the alternative. The only reason my cousins prefer pillaging and plunder is because it is far easier and less costly on the short term and they have been won out by their baser needs.

This discussion has turned to become very depressing- I need to change that with another BOONIES STORY~!

So it's around autumn and it's really early in the morning; I'm just opening up the clinic and I've got my first patients for the day.

A minotaur and his wife: an elf.
You can imagine where this story is going, but it has a bit of a twist.

The minotaur came in and he said he wanted to speak with me privately. As it turns out he had been married to his wife for a year as of then and he still had not figured out if she was indeed a woman or a man.
I would have thought he was an idiot but I've had the same problem as him many times before.
I asked him if they've had sex and he said "Yes, but I've never gotten a really 'good' look down there."
I then asked him if it really mattered to him after marriage with steady sex that if his wife was a man or a woman.

It turns out that he was trying to work up for some children and that he had suspected maybe something was wrong- this was the most obvious conclusion he came to.

I told him that Minotaurs and Elves couldn't have children in the first place. He got up, thanked me, and quietly left with his wife.

That Minotaur and his little Elven wife still live as a happy couple on a ranch just a few miles outside of the his wife's Glen. But I don't think he ever got over the fact that he would never be able to have kids.

>>15238625
Racism don't even enter into it, friend. Although perhaps my metaphore was too broad. I would not dream of implying that an illithid is a bloodthirsty killing machine, nor an animal that cannot control its primal urges. What I *am* stating *outright* is that these creatures *have* no primal urges. They are walking crimes against the natural order, cold, emotionless efficient predators, that - while they may not kill everything they come across - see absolutely *no* issue with preying on the weak, foolish or unfortunate in order to sate their own unnatural temptations and desires. Willingly allowing one into your midst is to invite misfortune upon yourself and your neightbours.

As to your second question - you've answered it yourself. I speak as a worldly man - and this is not the only plane of existance I have visited.

>>15238664
If I cannot convince you by force of words of your folly, then I can do little else than wish you the luck of the gods. Keep a wary eye out around the thing, and trust not a single word it speaks.

Mountain Doc here.

I've had to deal with some pretty mundane stuff compared to all of this. Broken bones from falling and rock slides, scrapes from tripping, all sorts of pitfalls.

Got a bit of an odd case, though. Apparently some adventurers got into the nearby caverns and came out with 2nd degree burns and hypothermia. At the same time. I couldn't treat them, but I did give them some anesthetic and pain dampening before I sent them off to the church on my bill.

Herbs are rare up here. Climate is piss and the soil is worse. Any suggestions on how to treat those sorts of things? I know rumors are going to spread about that cave, and I'm going to be seeing more patients because of it. I know a little bit of transmutation, if that helps.

>>15238713
Either that's the freakiest weather system in a cave I've ever seen, lava and snow in the same cave or you've got magic going on. The best thing you can do is make sure the adventurers wear warm clothing covered in fire proof stuff and hope for the best.

>>15238701
Such a biological limitation can be circumvented with creative use of biokineses. An external womb symbiote can be manufactured in extreme cases (I have done so once for a hill giant and halfing couple) though the process is generally considered 'grotesque' and 'horrifying' in most kinds eyes.

>>15238682
As long as you and your compatriots are...precise. I don't want to be the one responsible for inviting a solution that ends up killing more children in the process.

It's a small town about two week's travel south of the main city. It's called Overnight, and is...or was once...popular among traders traveling along the southern road.

>>15238713

What my people traditionally did for hypothermia is pretty simple---have them drink lots of water, and warm the area up. Unless it's bad, you won't lose more than a toe or two, and that ain't killed nobody. Burns are a bit rougher, honestly, and all I can suggest is clean the wound and keep it wrapped.

>>15238605
IIf you pass through my mountain ranges, I will give what help may be given, in passing. I do not leave these territories any longer. The world is a different place than when I left, and it seems that the brand of magecraft I practice is no longer acceptable to the short spanned races.

I do know that the ticks will prefer the boughs of evergreens or oaks to those of other trees, and the leaves of ferns to other plants. They are disturbed by winds and will not seek prey if the cold or the wind is strong.

>>15238713
Herbalist's grandson here again. For the burns, the best treatment I know of is moist clay. Simple, and effective. As for hypothermia, a warm fire and hot tea is the best treatment short of intensive herbal care.

>>15238713
In my mountains, the only creatures that cause such damage are behir and salamanderkin. Frost drake? I think that is what you call them now. Their cold is so potent a thing it burns flesh as a great heat will.

But there is one other beast that can do such a thing. The burning wyrm. They are large, more like insects than wyrm or serpent. If one is there, it will be hungry, for such a creature always is. If there are giants there, then it is certain to be that. Do not seek to slay such a beast. You must convince it to move elsewhere. They are cunning, and clever. It is not entirely an animal in its thinking. They do not speak, but understand the elder languages. The....tongue of the ones who stride long and far. That those you treat survive if it is such a beast is testament that there is a great food for it there. You should be careful, for what it feeds on will most certainly feed upon men.

>>15238725

Probably the last one.

Some archeologists found a whole lot of Dwarfish ruins around here, and of course people spelunked without the proper gear in hopes of finding goodies. Natrually, there were all sorts of weird traps cooked up by those old dwarves. I wouldn't doubt that there was one that froze a person and then flooded the room with lava.

>>15238735
>>15238753
Ah hah, right then. I should have thought of that before. The moist clay I can transmute. . .Yeah, this'll work.
Sorry I don't have any epic doctoring tales to share, though.

>>15238731

Overnight? Why, I was there not that long ago. Perhaps you remember me--the, ah...odd fellow. With the gadgets on his head? For misfortune to befall such a relaxing place so soon after I passed through is insulting. If I have my calculations right, we're approximately three weeks away. But with a bit of hard riding and a pinch of my special brand of magic, We can cut that in half, at least.

We can try to draw them away from the village before any engagements first. If we can't, we'll be as...surgical, excuse my pun, as possible.

>>15238767
Could be one of those frost drakes around here. Dunno. We're an outpost village, so I wouldn't doubt it. No giants around here, though.
I'll keep that in mind, though.

>>15238771
I'm sorry that I don't recall you. Warbringer's casualties don't tend to allow me much time out of the clinic. You must have passed through during a lull in his activities. It saddens me to think that the problem could have been solved if the bastards had made trouble while you were here.

Ugh, I thought that this was a thread for physicians. Instead I find this. >>15238694

Hey, here is a thought? Why don't you take that no-rate, clown college "medical degree" you bought from whatever Underdark scam sold it to you and stuff it up your cloaca? The first commandment of a physician is to do no harm.

Your sneering comments about livestock are to be expected from an illithid. Sporting an M.D. while you do it? Sadly unsurprising. If you cared about the opinions of "livestock" or the fraternity you mock I'm sure you would die of shame, but shame isn't an emotion you feel, is it?

>>15238672
Oh yeah, I know that bit. Kinda hard to explain that to an adventurer that just hobbled in wearing a borrowed robe to cover his injured limb and the shame it causes him. Answering, "what can you do to fix this," with, "well, I'll have to take this hammer, bash your leg hard enough to re-break it, set it, then I'll let you put your ring back on to heal it," usually ends with them pulling a sword or dagger on you. And then they fall on it and practically beg you to do it, just so long as you put them under for it. You do, smash the odd angle the bone's bent at and set it.

The limbs with bone growths on them? I usually have a nearby mage come in to put them under for a while, usually a few hours, but sometimes for a day or more, then take the ring off, strip the skin down to bone, and chisel the bone spurs off. There's no other way; the skin's in the way, so I can't see just how far they go, and they have to come all the way off or else they'll still cause problems.

In either case, the ring goes back on long enough to re-heal the wounds, it then comes right back off and gets mashed under something heavy.

The mage nearby has a neat spell for this. Shunts their spirit onto the ethereal plane, so they can't feel their bodies, but they're still in the room, and have to watch what lengths you go to to fix the screw up they got themselves into.

The hugely misshapen growth covered limbs are a lot easier. Lop them off at the nearest undamaged joint, clean the other growths you can see off, and put the ring back on. A few minutes later, when their new limb finishes growing, yank the ring back off.

For those of you that call foul, I treat the normal cases a lot better. I just got tired of trying to treat these cases like normal cases. Magic is involved, and a whole new set of procedures is required.

Well I think it's time I called it a night.

All this talk of Work, Orcs, Minotaurs, and teenagers fornicating with Oozes has exhausted me.

It's been a pleasure talking with all of you.

This has been Urahdin, aka the "Boonies Doctor"; The half dwarf, half human, and the only physician for 150 miles this side of Smoking tower- Just east of Red Knuckle.

>>15238795
To be certain, one must act as one must feel, but you do injustice. Those who seek help from those who offer it must always take their own lives in hand. To claim that a healer must do no harm opens up dark places. Much of what has been learned has been learned at high costs.

>>15238797
I have seen many such things happen over the course of time. I am always amazed by the vigor with which life is clung to. It gives me hope that such as yourself are willing to aide the foolish.

Were I you, I would give the ring to one of the cu...orders? The priests. Perhaps they can find those who performed this perversion of magics.

>>15238795
And so you would claim that any physician that does harm is, in fact, not a true physician? I would suggest you brush up on your logic.

>>15238682
Judging from the accounts, I'd say he's from around northeast. That's where Warbringer and his hordes usually go on their yearly raids.

I had the pleasure of having to clean up after that monster's mess myself. Warbringer's hordes really did a number on the last town I went to. They had to bury at least ten bodies when we were done. One of the people he'd hurt had to be put out of her misery. I saw what he did: the fucker cut her skullcap off, enough to show her brain. We tried patching her up, but even Stephen couldn't do it.

Fucking bastard.

>>15238767
Damn, that's bad. If you're right, we'll be seeing more and more guys like the party the doc mentioned. Are there any huge sources of clay nearby? Maybe you can transmute them into some sort of preventative shell.

I have a tale to tell. Another strange case.

Some months back I treated his commando-type fellow for an arrow wound. Well, not so much a wound as he had three of them sticking out of his chest, and wanted some disinfectant so he could patch it himself. A real hardass with more pride than prudence- I got his shirt off and there's scars everywhere, claw marks and such. Then I look at his back and it's all tattoos. Honestly, he made me nervous as hell. Every now and then adventuring types come along, and you see some of the strangest alterations. The man hadn't eaten in over a year, lived on vodka and positive energy. The next surprise was that he'd grafted alchemical silver into his eyes, gave him eyeshine like a cat, let him see in the dark.

Who does this? I mean really, who goes through all that pain and blood for these things? Anyway, back to the matter.

>>15238844

I took a few notes and didn't think about it much until he comes back, out of the blue. Teleported into my office with a drow woman in his arms, immediately laid her on my operating table and said it was an emergency. I could immediately see the problem, given there was a dagger sticking out of her belly. It took me a solid hour to get it out of her without causing more internal bleeding, and another to get her sewn up, but I got it done. Let her recover on a cot in the back for a while. He practically stands guard over her at this point, and I ask what's going on. Why he came to me.

The soldier tells me he just came from the dwarven city to the north, the one at war; no one would spare magic or time for one wounded drow among all those warriors, so he came to me. A week later, I received my standard fee in triplicate, a tray that sterilizes (then cools) my instruments, and a scalpel that seems capable of cutting damn near everything. A wraith came by and pricked his ghostly appendage on it. Of course, I haven't seen hide nor hair of the soldier fellow since then, but this is the middle of nowhere.

I don't know if I had a point to the story, but there it is.

>>15238844

Speakin' as someone who spent some years in that trade myself, I think I can honestly answer that it's fewer than you think, but more than you'd assume. Adventurers have the whole pride thing goin' on, bad as it gets. I've got some tatoos and scars myself, but the worst I ever did to me was gouging out my own eye and replacing it with a magic diamond, but that was a temporary fix. Parasites, see.

Ain't never heard of someone livin' just off positive energy, though. THat's possible?

>>15238794

Then we will talk trade after this business is all sorted.

Help is coming, friend, but I'm afraid I must turn in for the night, as we leave early in the morning.

...Though I suppose I have some time to make a few tanglefoot bags and thunder stones...maybe some blasting powder...

Ha! Who needs sleep when there's science to be done? That Warforged is in for so many surprises his eyes will rust open.

I'll see if I cant whip up some gadgets to help you in your practices, while I'm at it.

>>15238842
It is cases like this that leads to me wonder why more of your kind do not cultivate your psionic potential when it presents such a far more potent tool than say divine magic in the proper hands. Such a case would be an easy fix if you could make flesh pliable to your will.

>>15238842
If Warbringer raids in the northeast as well...that explains the lulls in his activity every few months. I figured he went to another town for some reason, but never that far.

>>15238842
Icarael? I thought you left the mountains after. . .well, you know.

There is a deposit of clay near the mines, but it hasn't been tapped into since there are not a whole lot of potters around. That'll last us for a while till I can work out Stone to Clay. Can't be too hard.

>>15238860
As I understand it, yes. There's talk of "ring of sustenance" which more or less sustains the body through magical means. What I was told was that the man had taken such a magical item and implanted it somewhere in his torso. He wasn't too specific.

>>15238860
I have heard tell of such people doing so. They are mystics, who delve deep into the mind, such as the eater-of-brains. They are a strange kind of mage, and clever, and often taciturn.

>>15238871
Most of the short spanned races revere the body too much to alter it so. The discipline is also telling. Only the strongest of wills harness such power in my memory, though I see many more now than centuries past. I am almost envious of their will to live at all costs granting them such immense power so quickly.

>>15238850
Is that guy... from the big industrial city? Shit, I think you may have run across one of their warrior nobles. Guys like them, they usually have enough cash and treasure to pay you the way he did.

I know this because I worked for one of them once, before I became a freelancer. The guy wanted me to cure his son, said he was suffering from some kind of brain fever.

Turns out the kid had slaad eggs in him.

I don't know how the got there, but me and my cleric pal pulled those suckers out and squashed them. Guy was thankful as all holy hell, gave us a job and a lot of cash for our trouble.

You wanna know why we left?

Well, it turns out the son of a bitch was using his son as a guinea pig for some fucked-up experiments. The slaad thing was his attempt at creating his own minions.

So we took the kid with us. He's all grown up now, and working to become a cleric of St. Cuthbert.

As for the noble...

I think some fates are best left unsaid.

>>15238860
Provided the flow can be reduced to a trickle and the body is placed under enough stress to keep it just below 'fully healed' most of the cancerous effect can be easily averted.

I have attempted several experiments into it myself using squirrels. Worked reasonably well for some 10 years before the aging process began to require steadily more and more positive energy to counteract. Eventually though it reached such dangerous levels that I could not maintain the delicate balance between too little and too much which resulted in the experiments termination.

Said adventuer will, assuming he is not killed first, likely die when the energy is no longer able to hold off the effects of entropy upon his body as the alternative of becoming a cancerous mass is enough to provoke a shudder out of me.

>>15238838
Oh, I found them. One of them came in after a bar fight where he got a pewter mug buried into the side of his skull. He died, but not from that. Well, not directly.

He came in with bone spurs growing from his scalp around the edges of the wound. It partially caved his skull in, so he was jerking around like a man having a seizure, half conscious, half unconscious, barely even lucid. I found later that the bone spurs had grown on both sides of the damaged piece of skull that got knocked in.

They just kept growing, and the seizures got worse until his head jerked straight up from hanging down to his chest. One quick motion and a relatively quiet snap. It didn't kill him immediately, more spurs sprang up on the vertebra, piercing the neck muscle, and grew together on the inside, again found later, forming a solid disc of bone. His body died almost immediately afterwards, and I yanked the ring off his hand to stop his suffering.

It all took only a handful of minutes from the time he got there. Happened so quickly. I won't deny it was a snap decision to take the ring off, but really, living as just a head not even lucid enough to speak or even blink, is no life I'd wish on anyone. Not even those people.

If you want them, they fled to a certain coastal town of no little renown. They even make the rings still. I pity the doctor of that town, I really do.

>>15238916
I do not venture far from my mountains, but....perhaps I shall pass on your experiences to others whom may be there. Such curses - for it is more curse than cure, that magic - are easily followed home. If those whom are healers there will dream of your words, perhaps those whom might suffer would be spared a cruel fate.

I think I might be in over my head here.
Midwife, just had a patient come in ready to pop- definitely not one of the locals. Something about her didn't look right, but I've got a duty. I get her on the table and start getting everything ready.
Then.
Shit, I can't describe it. She. Exploded... fuck, there was carnage everywhere. I didn't rightly see it, but the noise, I'll never get that sound out of my head.
I'm looking down at this gory pile of what used to be a woman, and in the middle of it is some kind of... Abomination.
When holy types use that word I never really got what they meant until I saw this. Words alone can't express the horror of it.
It was mewling, helpless, and covered in what was left of that poor poor woman. I didn't know what else to do.

I killed it.

So help me, I smashed an infant with a fire poker until it stopped moving. Until it was a bloody purple pulp.

I'm outside, considering burning the house down now so no one else has to see that horror show inside.
What have I done?

My fellow physicians and mystical healers, it has been a profitable evening for us all, I feel. I hope to spend time with you again in the future.

Overnight doctor/herbalist's grandson signing off

>>15238838
>>15238841
I will not be drawn into an ethical debate with one who considers itself a veterinarian looking over livestock or their apologists.

>>15238860
I have seen the positive energy thing once myself. It's a death sentence. An utterly scrambled metabolism and reverting it is beyond my skills. The patients support network changed as relationships often do and he was wasting away. One of the sad cases where I could do nothing.

>>15238910
I don't know, his accent wasn't a local one. The uniform I didn't recognize, nor the language in his ink... hmm. He said he'd served with a "Sorscha Kratikoff." Does the name meaning anything to you?

Honestly, much as my training illuminates my job, it's hard to get much news out here on the tundra.

>>15238911
>>15238999
The man was more magic than flesh. It wouldn't surprise me if he's replaced his guts by now. If I knew more about magic I could decipher some of what he said, but at this point "astral capacitor" and things like "regulatory algorithm" means all of squat to me.

I do, however, possess an eidetic memory, so ask and I can try to answer.

>>15238886
I left, but I had to come back and take samples of the disease so the towns below knew what they were up against. It paid off: the town got burned, the villages were safe. and the epidemic was stopped.

Still, if we had gotten there sooner, the epidemic wouldn't have happened in the first place.

Anyway, yeah, that clay deposit will help tide you over.

>>15238985
Tell me, how many cases like that have you had in the past two months? Are there any peculiar mutations observable in the people of that area? Has there been a recent increase in health and fertility? Are there any healing springs nearby?

>>15238985
The right thing. It looked helpless, but if you hadn't did what you did, and don't do what you're considering, it would and will likely grow, and quickly. They often don't follow the, "rules," of our plane. Gravity might mean nothing to them, they might not bleed, or die by normal means, their bodies are laid out in a manner that just plain doesn't make any sense.

Undead and dragons and the like, well, they're often thought of as greater threats, but at least their bodies make sense when you cut them and look at them with the eyes of a doctor. Their organs are in the right places.

So some Drowish Mobsters have a shoot out with some Ratfolk Gangsters just down the street. Apparently after they finished, they packed up their wounded and retreated in opposite directions to take a round about way to a healer.

The same bloody healer.

Me.

Aaaaaaaawkward.

>>15239044
Not to break the immersion, but does this line of inquiry have anything to do with >>15238522 over in that one thread? Because I would feel very cunning for making the connection.

>>15238985
I have borne witness to such occurrences among the animals of my mountains on occasion. There are sometimes....strange things which pass through these realms and will occasionally beget foal upon those here. It is curel to put such down, but often, to do naught is far the worse.

I have seen one such abomination change an entire mountainside's nature in the course of mere decades. I sent it....away.

>>15239044
"Sorscha Kratikoff"? Not sure, but I've heard of him. I believe he participated in the Pacifying of the Salt Pans? A cousin of mine served as a medic in that war.

>>15239072
Yeah, that might be the same guy! Hear that, >>15239044 ? This man found your guy!

>>15239062
Did you at least have the means to treat them in different rooms, or did they just sit there glaring at each other and screaming obscenities?

Or did it come to the worse, and they started fighting outside your practice, giving you more business, but causing a big damn mess?

I have a lot of blood in cold storage. The benighted poor of the city come to me for cheap health care, paying me every two months in a pint of their blood. I am a vampire and a man of medicine. Most of the blood I collect, extracted with sterile needles, never passes my cold lips despite what many of my patients believe. Once I assure them they will replenish that blood in eight weeks time, I do taste a sample of those I do not known to determine their blood type and most of it goes into cold storage in case someone finds themselves lacking in a lot of blood, which happens especially in this crazed crime-ridden city. And if the patient is beyond my abilities to bring to true life, then I always have the option of offering them unlife.

Please. Archive this thread.

>>15239091
Zounds, I've been revealed! Kudos to >>15239072 , though, really. As stealthy as a Greylord may be, one cannot hide from a player. And with that, I've just looked at the clock. Keep the good stuff archived and the spirit true, elegan/tg/entleman. This has been an excellent and enjoyable thread. Do svedanya!

>>15239059
There is a healing spring about 2 days trek, it's close enough the townsfolk can usually make it on their own so we're all pretty healthy in these parts. Been there for generations with nothing untoward happening.
And actually, I don't know if you'd call it unusual, but people have been getting mighty tight lipped. Even the town gossip started being quiet as a church mouse a couple months back.
I just figured folks didn't feel much like socializing.
I'd say the birthrate's gone down lately. I've only had to deliver a couple of babes in the last few months, both hale and hearty. One of the mothers seemed a bit distant, but it was her first and I've seen that before. The mum would always snap out of it eventually.

I'm watching my practice burn now. I hope I made the right choice, I have a feeling it's best I leave this town.

>>15239128
A vampire doctor? Now I've heard everything. Next thing you'll be telling me is that you worship pelor, right?

(also, this thread is FUCKING AWESOME!)

>>15239059
I'm not sure if there was much we could do about that plauge. We got the samples to prevent something from happening in the future, and that's what matters.

In the meantime, has anyone tried to get into Hydra? I heard it's this really top of the line medical group that deals in the research and prevention of incurable diseases. . .Only the best of the best get in, though.

Sorry about my absence as well. Had to head down to the mines and get the clay ordered, and I was mucking around with some Stone to Clay circles. .. looking promising, so far.

>>15239197
Check that healing spring and watch for any abnormalities in the land or the sky. I've heard of this before. Old legends, you see. About the stars going right. And I think something's about to go wrong.

I hope it's not true.

I sincerely hope it's not true.

Because if it is... no, no, it's not possible. Those are myths.

In any case, if you see anything off, tell us right away.

Needs an archive, my good sirs.

>>15239130
Already been done.

>>15239128
You are way ahead of the game my friend. You know about blood typing. You need to track the blood that works best. I personally call this blood type O because it is an omni-donor. If you mix other blood types they will clump, discard all that clump. Or drink it. The other types... I wish they could be saved but in the crush of an emergency I don't have the time to test their blood for clumping with other blood. Stick to the O type.

Also... I know that this is hard but unlife can be a curse to your community. The jaundice disease can spread like wildfire when a feral vampire feeds. I am told that the orders that seek out your kind use it as a sign to bring out the torch and stake.

>>15239219
Worship a god of the sun?

I respect sun gods like you may respect a god who brings eternal rays of happiness on his people but if you get close all you get is shining death rays forever.

Just stay the Hell away from each other, we'll be cool. Please don't burst me into flames Sol Apellor, whatever your calling yourself. It's incovenient.

No, I give tribute to a plethora of deities, the goddess of mercy and painless deaths whose idols I bring out for those who have nothing left to hope for, the god of animation and working systems, both bodily and mechanical and the lady of healing that everyone clinic or higher-up is required to display.

Dammit Jim I'm a Doctor not a Cleric.

>>15239219
It makes sense in a way for a vampire to worship a sun god. His food supply needs the sun to live and therefore a vampire still needs the sun.

However the Cult of Pelor under the vampires would operate very differently than it would under humans. For one thing vampires wouldn't see him as an ever-present diety, He'd be more like santa. He comes in the night and he leaves his bounty in his wake.

I work in pediatrics. It is not easy I can tell you that for sure. Minotaur with horns growing in the wrong shape. Orcs who are worried their kids aren't getting the musculature that all the other orc boys are getting. ELVES. Have to treat a snotty kid for half your fucking career. Oddest case though was a human boy who was obscenely hair and muscular. Turned out the mother hired a minotaur nurse maid. I intend to keep track of him and do some studies on the nutritional differences in humanoid races lactations. Do any of you have any research that may help me?

>>15238009
Fucking nymphs have ruined my practice.
Had to finance a safe sex campaign. Hired adventurers to say "Real heroes have safe sex". Payed druids to try to keep their presence to a minimum. Dick fungus everywhere still. I am pretty sure this is how they spread their seed.

>>15239641
Hah! Dat' ent....

>>15239641
Huh. I've heard about this before. You ever try an application of rosemary oil and milk on the, erm... affected area?

>>15239657
Tried my friend. Tried. Works if you don't keep going back to the source for more. Doctor I couldn't help it. Doctor she was begging for it. Fuck them. Hired a wizard to cast a permanent illusion on the dryad. Any suggestions as to what
?

>>15239683
Ahh, that's the problem. I think that it would be best to send the dryad away instead. However, that is a matter out of my expertise.

If you know a druid or two, they might be able to help/

>>15239704
Only know the one wizard who is an illusionist.
Need something that will dissuade people but isn't too big as it's already costing me an arm and a leg for it to be permenant

BUMP FOR EPIC

So, uh, hi.

I'm currently working on Post Mortem Communications, in a small town on the other side of the Black Forest. Goes by the name of Crypthaven. The chandelier of bones in the church brings in a lot of tourists.

Is it true that I could get better paid for my work in one of the big cities? There are plenty of others who do what I do in Crypthaven, and I was wondering if there was somewhere better for me.

Had a Dwarf come in today, covered in scratches and bites. Turns out he'd accidentally tunnelled into a den of badgers.

Aah well. Got some nice furs out of him I did.

Hi local doctor and researcher here. Found a tribe of trolls. Trolls that do not heal faster then a normal man oddly enough. The only thing i found different about them is they appear to be vegetarian.

>>15237888

Seeing a few fits of rage in my own adventuring day I knew her having her axe on hand would have turned the situation bad (the local midwives refused to see to her unless it was nowhere within reach).

Her husband didn't mind, he seems something of a masochist as being injured by his wife is nothing new or uncommon but now they've settled down and are raising their new baby girl. Giving her a little wooden axe as a toy is not what I imagine the best child's toy to be but than again....

>>15239899
Sometimes that's a fetish....
If he comes back again with the same injuries... Maybe turn him down

>>15239736
I think you'll have to stick with the illusionist plan until she gets bored and leaves for greener pastures. In the meantime, try whipping up a couple of fungicidal solutions.

>>15239951
Anything else of interest about these trolls?

Apologies, but I have been called away on urgent business. I will return to you as soon as is possible. Until then, goodbye, and may the blessings of the gods be with you all.

Regards,
Icarael, half-elf physician from the city of Barenston, east of the Black Pine Pass

>>15239683
You could, perhaps, cure the dryad instead? Just have her come in for regular checkups. Or even see if you can hire her on as a nurse; dryads usually have an easy time getting in fresh supplies of any plant- or fungus-based ingredients, and patients find their bedside manner very comforting.

>>15240344
I bid you farewell.

>>15240568
What exactly do you pay a dryad nurse. Also how do you stop her from sleeping with all your customers. Your idea does have validity and that illusionist is an expensive bastard.

>>15237888
You have never seen true strength until you've seen a what a woman during the pain of childbirth can do to anything on hand.

Last time I handled childbirth the woman was a drow. She literally ripped off her poor human husbands arm at the elbow right before the birth. Reattaching that was a far more difficult operation I can tell you.

It's funny though, whatever horrors may happen during the birth, seeing a couple holding a newborn in their arms just makes the whole thing worthwhile. It's the sort of thing that keeps me a doctor you know?

Though I'm still not sure about that particular couple, a human mage and a drow barbarian (I had no idea such a thing existed) may just be the weirdest couple to ever walk through my doors. I hope that child turns out okay

Hey, my mage friend goes to the Positive Material Plane to retrieve some of its essence so I can make the best medicines, and guess what? The fucking church gets all pissy because they want to have the monopoly on magic-based healing. Fucking nearly fined for demarcation.

Bump!

>>15240699
>>15240699
Is there any side effects from exposure to the positive plane?

>>15240935
Yeah, if you got a bacterial infection it makes it much worse. Viral infections, not so much, but I still advise you to keep away from it. And if you're overexposed to it, you explode.

>>15241002
You explode...
Alright.
How much positive material plane is required to treat certain things and how the hell do you apply it?

I'm not a healer, but when ever business is slow, give me a letter I'm there. What do I do? What don't I do!

As a Changeling there's either two paths, the easy path or the hard path. The hard path is announcing you're a changeling or just try to emulate one race keep your head down and hope no one knows who you are. Chances are you're going to be living a short life or a boring life.

Ever since the war no one trusts Changelings (even before they didn't so I heard). So announcing you're one, is bringing heaps of trouble upon you. The easy road is life of crime. When you can change your appearance at will, getting away with crime is easy.

People call me Jak, Mad Jak, Jak Ripper, w/e. It's all me. You want bodies, live, not so live, anywhere between. You may think I'm mad for disclosing this, but chances are even if you do turn me in, all I have to do is grease some palms and people magically turn a blind eye.

I've been in the employment of the most foul beings. Just last week I was contacted by a serious pale looking human. From the look of it, he's either albino or vampire. Didn't ask, wasn't part the deal. All the client asked for was 40 bodies, gave me 100 gp up right and told me that each head I bring in alive I get 100 for, dead but fresh 50, dead but not so fresh 25.

Being the honorable person I am I accepted the work, I was told where to drop the cargo off and I told him where he can drop the payment off afterwords.

Think me a monster? Well that's fine, but when you're business slows down due to w/e, and you got food to put on the table. Well I'm your man. You tell me what you want, I tell you my fee. You get to feed your family, I get to feed mine.

Fighter here, just starting to make a mark in the adventuring scene.
I keep getting these itchy red rashes under my arms and my inner thighs, and it's gone from embarrassing to dangerous. Last fight we were in I was distracted and a bandit got in a cheap shot. We still won, but it hurt. The cleric helped me out, but it didn't work on this rash.
inb4 it's a STD- I'm no bard or rogue, and I'm married. She's back home, and I haven't been unfaithful.

You guys must really hate Witches...

>>15241888
I can't be sure without actually seeing it, but it sounds like either a fungal infection or simply skin irritation from keeping your armor on 18+ hours a day. If it's the latter, loose clothing and regular bathing should clear it up, and additional cotton padding in those areas should prevent the rash from appearing. If the former, I hear clerics have some kind of disinfectant spell that'll clear that right up, so you should be covered there.

>>15239575
I've heard dwarven milk is quite flush with nutritional benefits, and is essentially akin to human milk in many way, save that it is a bit thicker and sweeter - one colleague of mine joked that Dwarves lactacte eggnog, and to my surprise, he was not too far off, as due to the liquid staple of the typical dwarven diet, even their milk has a low-grade alcohol content; not much mind you, only roughly equal to a bottle of wine diluted in a barrel of water.

>>15242023

You can all tell the young would-be hardasses, straight out of the local guard or right off the farm. "I can sleep in my armor," they say, "it's not a big deal, taking off your armor is for pussies."

Dumbasses. We don't tell you to take your armor off so it doesn't poke you when you roll over, you gotta let the padding air out. You sweat into that shit day after day, and after a while you're growing potatoes in your crotch and you've got myconids colonizing your armpits.

>>15239736
It might be out of your wizard's league, but see if he can make the illusion sensitive to each person who sees it. If he can, make it an illusion of the person's mother.

>>15241888
you may have been faithful, but has she been?

I go to bed.

Wake up.


And you're all STILL here?!

Well I think that kind of preservation deserves some more stories!

>>15241888

This sounds like something a lot of ogres, cyclopses, and orcs get around here.

Are you a heavy-set individual?
Do you weather leather armor?
What species are you?
Has there been a history in your family of these rashes?

Well, guys, barbarian doc here. Scouts just came back from the swamp tribes few valleys over.

I think it might be a curse they put on us, considering the scouts came back in mobile pieces, with a note. Sounds like the usual end of the world apocalypse stuff I'm used to from my adventurin' days, purgin' the world with fire and blight and all that. Figure now that we know for sure it was them the shamans we've got can get to work on some big magic, but there's still a doomsday cult a couple of valleys away to deal with. Might have to sharpen up my axe, do some preventative medicine if we get a chance.

>>15242445
Can you get your shamans to bathe the hostile areas in lava, or to do something similar? I would assume that that would sufficiently remove the source of infection, or at the very least express the feelings of your tribe.

So like I said- it looks like it's time for a few stories.


I have a handfull of regular patients out here; you know, a lot of people get hurt or banged up on a regular basis and they come to me and I always give them prompt, helpfull, service.
Well there's this kid; he's a half breed, I think he's half elf half human or something. He has the brown complexion of an elf but he has a little peach fuzz.

He's a Beast master.
He comes in almost every week with a new injury from some animal he's trying to train or domesticate:

A bite across his entire body from a chimera that had alligators for arms.

Wrist burns all over his legs and a few more bites marks from the same chimera the week later- it had snakes for a mane and the head of a salmon.

Broken leg from getting it crushed by a behemoth.

Split Ankle, dislocated arm, and five different bruises all over his body from falling down a hill when he tried to steal giant hawk eggs.

The worst though was when he went out to the Elves rice patty, alright?
There was a very small fledgling hydra living in one of the paddys and he agreed to get rid of it.
The reptile couldn't have been bigger then a small dog: he had bites all over his arms and legs and he was rushed in LATE by elves after of course they tried to fix him and failed.

I had to clean his festering boiling over wounds, he was running a fever, and he was spastic and paralyzed.
And that was before I administrated him the anti-venom for the course of an entire night.

Then came the chills and the direaha and the holding his hair back while he vomited.

He made a full recoverey, but now he ALWAYS goes to me first whenever he gets an injury what so ever. And if anything that Hydra incident has got me even more Elf patients because now I'm some sort of Miracle doctor.

I miss the Teenagers with the Ooze burns on their dicks.

wandering doc here, I've got a story to tell. Keeping my name out of it, though. You'll see why in a minute.

I'm an adventurer, of the 'explore strange new places and find interesting stuff' variety rather then the more typical kill-people-and-take-their-stuff sort. During one of my last jaunts into what legend described a hollow mountain, I found tribes of missshapen, patchwork people living in a series of massive, city-sized caverns. And when I say patchwork, I mean limbs and organs from every humanoid, monster and animal species I could name, and a few I can't, and believe me, I've been to some strange places.

Medically speaking, they were in a bad way. Injuries were near impossible to treat, since every one of these people had a unique and often conflicting biology. The first step of any diagnosis was just trying to find out what kind of part it was that was hurt.

A real medical nightmare, right?

>mfw I am the OP of this thread.
>mfw I left after >>15236845 and just returned to a thread full of awesome.

>>15242738

Anyways, I went digging for information and stumbled across an old wizard's lab. Now, my first guess is 'experiment gone awry.' Now, I'm a wizard myself, but still, some goddamn people...

But it gets worse. It wasn't some random wizard who thought it'd be fun to screw something he conjured or pulled out of a pit who was the start of all this. He was a fleshwarper. I'm sure you've all heard some horror stories, but this guy fit the bill to a 'T.' His notes told me how he abducted thousands of people during the Castobel-Aradia war about 300-ish years ago. Shelves and shelves of detailed notes on all the horrific things he did. Lists of all the creatures he blended into the population. Freakish breeding experiments. Let me tell you, I've seen some things in my time, but when I was done there I needed some time off and therapy where the nice feathered guys with the trumpets hang out.

Now you all know how the sane world views fleshwarpers and abberations in general, and that's the reason I'm keeping my name out of this. In the end, I had to pick up some of his techniques just in order to help the locals, and I'm sure if anyone came across this bunch, there'd be a whole lot of burn-first-and-ask-questions-later types storming the place. These people don't deserve that. They didn't deserve any of this.

The sad part? The medical/surgical techniques this guy knew are years ahead of anything I've ever seen. It'd be nice if something good came out of all of this, but coming from a fleshwarper's library means they'll never see the light of day.

>>15242602

That's what we're workin' on. Got six of our old shamans working their magic right now. Should be a nice little rumble going up in the swamps.

Man, this thread is still going? I saw it last night and found it a good read, but it must've stirred my mind as I remembered a good story overnight.

I'm not the medic here, mind, that'd be my wife. I'm just a blacksmith myself, but I'll be damned if she doesn't have the harder job of the two of us. Anyway, about a year ago, I was busying myself with the day's orders in the forge when I hear my wife scream for me, telling me to bring a red-hot spike. I get one ready as quick as I can, wondering why she can't just conjure up some fire to cauterize whatever this wound is like she usually does.

Little did I realize that the patient in question was a sorcerer already so caught up in Wild Magic that introducing any more could cause some kinda reaction.

Now, I'm not squeamish around blood; my father was a guardsman and I was a mercenary for fifteen years before retiring to become a smitty. But this poor spellslinger was bleeding so badly I could hardly tell if his robes started off red or not. In the midst of helping my wife keep the wounds clear, it was all I could do for the guy to give him a few thick leather straps to bite down on while his wounds got seared shut.

And through it all, this woman who barely comes up to my shoulders and wouldn't hurt a fly without cause was stone-faced as she pressed glowing metal to this horribly wounded man.

It's moments like that that make me remember why I married her.

>>15242738
>>15243003

This is actually a lot more common then you think.

A lot of would-be-next-"demigod" types walk through here and end up causing trouble and either accidentally kill themselves or they're mutated so horrible its all we can do to put them out of their misery.

If anything they're the ones responcible for the chimeras we run into once and a while.

Sure, sure: A magic user thinks he'll be the next guy to cure all disease both magic and natural. He commutes all the way out to the "boonies" to get away from the restrictive magic legislation of the city. They'd arrive in the fall and by the time it was summer we'd find them mauled to death and a chimera: head of a an alligator, body of an ape, otter tail, a turtle head for one arm and a crab claw for the other.

They never learn.

They never even ask for help when things go over their own heads.

They're idiots.

I like the dragon breeders and the beastmasters that walk through here better then them. Atleast they have actual experience with Zoology, husbandry, actual hands on experience.

Speaking of dragons and wizards, patching up a lil' one in front of an angry momma can be mighty stressful. Felt for sure I was gonna get showered in acid any moment.

Of course, the wizard that had caused the little one's pain got blasted with acid and claws, and good riddance. He was one of those with no sense of ethics or morality that took to experimenting on things two days ride from the village.

We're still cleaning up what he left behind.

>>15243531
Do the dragons by you pay well? Because down here they demand all sorts of discounts. Mostly the "I'm not burning down your town" discount.

I am a doc living on the edge of a swamp, one morning I wake up to a lizardman banging on my door. Not that unusual so I look around and hes alone. He tells me I am needed deep in the swamp. So I gather up my stuff the entire time hes standing outside my door staring at me. A couple hours later I wind up at the lizardmens encampment which is showing some battle damage and come across the strangest thing, A mated pair of green dragons. Apparently some adventurering types attacked the fort and managed to hurt one of the dragons that the local lizard folk worship as gods.

You try putting out a dragon for surgery and operating on him as a entire clan and a dragon watch you ready to pounce. Managed to pull it off and in payment they let me have all the adventurers stuff I wanted, even though some of it was acid damaged it was enough to keep me afloat for a good decade.

>>15243668
Oh and forgot to put this in addition, not something I am proud of but what the hell. I am glad the swamps smell bad otherwise they prolly would of smelled me needing a new pair of pants.

>>15243586
The bronze decided she wasn't going to burn down the village and she took care of some of the bigger, weirder things from the wizard's place.

We're also now on trading terms with the local kobolds which has proved nice.

>>15243689
It was a very scary situation, worse then fighting a dragon I'd think.

>>15243668

Adventurers for me are a mixed blessing:

They always come in banged up and half alive, but they pay well enough or they atleast offer something thats as worth the payment.

But it's awkward in this areas since I'm heavily invested in a clan of Orcs as I've mentioned before: >>15237516>>15237955

A lot of the house calls I get are from orcs: Deliver a baby, adventurers attacked, treat our wounded raiders and so forth.

I'm also constantly being invited to dinner parties.

Orcs throw some of the best dinner parties: Nothing but meat dishes after meat dishes made from every sort of animal that they could get their hands on and even though they have tusks and sharper canines it's so tender and juicy it pratically falls off the bone. Even if you're not a big fan of meat they also have a lot of other dishes as well: Orcish Pierogis, Roasted tusk onions and yams, Foot of the troll broth.

This isn't even touching up on the booze.

I've become good friends with this one orc who comes in about once a month. He's a little rotund and gets regular check ups for his blood sugar and his cholesteral levels; he's retired early from a life of being a warrior and instead became a Chef and a butcher.

I recommend every single one of you that has any love for meat to try Orcish Kielbasa.

Vampire doctor here:

>>15241888
Let me tell you, that shit can STILL be an STD. STD merely means sexual transmission is one way it gets transferred but you could have caught it will roughing and tumbling with whatever mad idiot you got into a death match will.

And you'll never know till your pretty wife starts coming down with rashes too.

>>15239370
Oh please, none of that cockameney. Yes, occasionally you get some vampire who thinks he can start a cult to a benevolent god to trick people. He better hope he isn't the type to be weakened or outright sickened by holy symbology. I'm not but some vampires have that weakness (Really, it's kind of varied with us).

But when that shit gets uncovered, and it fucking will, people start looking sideways at every other vampire and then it's torches and pitchforks and wooden stakes and that's why I moved to the city. Nobody asks any godsdamn questions here.


Now here's a funny story: Had to treat a sentient skeleton for a broken leg.

But first we had to find it!

>>15243876
I must agree, The young Half-Orc to whom I helped deliever her little girl has settled down and opened a pub in the village. The menu is rather sparse but what she lacks in options she more than makes up for in flavor.

Granted she has little patience for some of the adventurers which ultimately leads them to my clinic. Thankfully her husband handles the tabs