Essential Healing

[FireLance]

In D'Shai and Hour of the Octopus by Joel Rosenburg, wizards may mend broken bones and torn tendons by applying the Law of Similarity: for broken bones, the wizard uses a skeleton, breaks the same bones that the patient has broken, makes the bones of the skeleton and the bones of the patient Similar, and then glues the skeleton's bones together. For torn tendons, the wizard uses a calf's tendon to mend the tear and makes the patient Similar to a calf (this can be done by having him drink milk).

 

[The Human Target]

For the sake of argument....

In the Malazan Book of the Fallen, certain spellcasters have access to fairly DnDish healing magic. It hurts the recipient, and isn't exactly perfect, but it keeps people up and about.

 

[Roger]

What counts as archetypal "magic healing" in classic fantasy or myth? Post an example from a story you're familiar with and how the magic healing works in that environment.

Sir, said Merlin, look ye keep well the scabbard of Excalibur, for ye shall lose no blood while ye have the scabbard upon you, though ye have as many wounds upon you as ye may have. -- Le Morte D'Arthur, Book 2, Chapter 11.

Not exactly magical healing, but in that vein (so to speak.)

The Golden Bough, of course, has some references:

Pliny tells us that some folk cured diseases of the groin by taking a thread from a web, tying seven or nine knots on it, and then fastening it to the patient’s groin; but to make the cure effectual it was necessary to name some widow as each knot was tied. O’Donovan describes a remedy for fever employed among the Turcomans. The enchanter takes some camel hair and spins it into a stout thread, droning a spell the while. Next he ties seven knots on the thread, blowing on each knot before he pulls it tight. This knotted thread is then worn as a bracelet on his wrist by the patient. Every day one of the knots is untied and blown upon, and when the seventh knot is undone the whole thread is rolled up into a ball and thrown into a river, bearing away (as they imagine) the fever with it.

...

Perhaps the last relic of such superstitions which lingered about our English kings was the notion that they could heal scrofula by their touch. The disease was accordingly known as the King’s Evil. Queen Elizabeth often exercised this miraculous gift of healing. On Midsummer Day 1633, Charles the First cured a hundred patients at one swoop in the chapel royal at Holyrood. But it was under his son Charles the Second that the practice seems to have attained its highest vogue. It is said that in the course of his reign Charles the Second touched near a hundred thousand persons for scrofula.

...

The kings of France also claimed to possess the same gift of healing by touch, which they are said to have derived from Clovis or from St. Louis, while our English kings inherited it from Edward the Confessor. Similarly the savage chiefs of Tonga were believed to heal scrofula and cases of indurated liver by the touch of their feet...

...

In another passage Pliny tells us that in medicine the mistletoe which grows on an oak was esteemed the most efficacious, and that its efficacy was by some superstitious people supposed to be increased if the plant was gathered on the first day of the moon without the use of iron, and if when gathered it was not allowed to touch the earth; oak-mistletoe thus obtained was deemed a cure for epilepsy; carried about by women it assisted them to conceive; and it healed ulcers most effectually, if only the sufferer chewed a piece of the plant and laid another piece on the sore.


I could go on, but you get the idea.


Cheers,
Roger

 

[Vague Jayhawk]

The Black Company Books...

Basic hygeine is enforced. Surgeons stop the bleeding and hope infection does not set in.

Wizards (which are very few) can brew some healing potions. These are very difficult and time consuming to create and even the most minor wizard has better things to do.

 

[Jolly Giant]

Getting back to LotR: After the wraith stabs Frodo on Weathertop, Aragorn mentions that only the healing magic of the elves can heal him. Which it does (more or less).

 

[Frostmarrow]

In Star Wars and subsequently Starship Troopers (movie) wounds are healed by the subject being submerged into a tub of healing goo.

Though it occurs to me that in most movies with healing it's very often some kind of regeneration or super fast healing. Probably because it makes for a descent visual effect.

 

[Aeric]

In Star Wars and subsequently Starship Troopers (movie) wounds are healed by the subject being submerged into a tub of healing goo.

Yeah, but that's science fiction. What the OP seems to be looking for is examples of D&D-style healing magic in fantasy fiction.

The Bible contains examples of healing the sick, even bringing the dead back to life. And, there are real-world religions that believe in "faith healing". As at least part of the inspiration for the D&D cleric was the Christian warrior-priest, I would imagine that there's some intentional connection there.

More than part of the inspiration, I would say. The cleric seems wholly based on the knightly orders of the Crusades.

As for my own contribution to examples, in the movie Conan the Barbarian, the wizard prevents the spirits of the underworld from claiming Conan's soul, although I don't know if that is healing magic so much as necromancy (preventitive necromancy?).

 

[phindar]

A friend of mine was running a short, one-shot scenario where we pretty much knew the party was going to be killed. A suicide run. I was playing a 10th level healer, another player was playing a 10th level tank. The way we ended up surviving was I hid in the corner (I may have been invisible at this point), he stood in front of me, and while he was taking between 50-75 points of damage a round, I was healing him for 40-60. By the end of the combat, I had healed him for over 350 hit points, or roughly five times his hit point total.

We figured by the end of it, our little corner of the world must have looked like a slaughterhouse. Here was a guy who had taken enough damage to kill five of him (or around 50 commoners). For those 7 or 8 rounds, the only reference point in fiction I can think of would be Wolverine's mutant healing factor.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade had a pretty good example of what magical healing my look like, with the Grail.

 

[jodyjohnson]

I think movies and books are full of the kind of morale boosting and ability to recover from fatigue that is more is line with the 'Avoid Injury' and 'Combat Stamina' definition of Hit Points.

The heroic speech, the 'second wind' kind of determination (see SW Saga), healing endurance or fatigue rather than actual physical damage. etc.


I really like the way LOTR Online uses Morale as a label for its Hit Point mechanic.

 

[Shadeydm]

In The Wheel of Time Series Channelers of The One Power can use it heal physical injuries. This type of healing usually results in the recipient being left with the need to consume several days worth of food. It usually leaves the healer fatigued. The One Power could not be used to bring people back to life.