Blood of the Hydra

Rules

Performing the Ritual

Performing this ritual takes at least 2 minutes of roleplaying. The character with the target ruined limb must be present throughout.

The ritual fails if you or the character are hit, or attack another character.

Effects

At the completion of this ritual you may restore a limb ruined with the CLEAVE call or IMPALE call.

This ritual is not powerful enough to regrow severed limbs, or to restore damaged internal organs. Treating such conditions is the purview of a physick, but the ritual may be useful in treating a traumatic wound under supervision by such a character.

Additional Targets

This ritual can affect additional limbs. The magnitude increases by one for every two additional limbs. All targets must be present throughout, and the ritual fails if any of the targets are hit, or attack another character.

Description

Blood of the Hydra is a simple healing ritual that is more powerful the more patients it treats. It draws on the same powers as the restore limb incantation. It sees most use on battlefields, or in the aftermath of accidents and disasters. A single competent ritualist can restore a dozen injured people with a handful of mana crystals.

The restore limb spell is more versatile, and takes less time to cast, but any magician is likely to find their personal reserves of strength quickly depleted in the aftermath of an especially vicious engagement. The ritual is also quite easy to improvise in emergencies; anyone who has made even a cursory study of the lore of Spring can spontaneously evoke the healing power of the hydra.

The ritual causes a ruined limb to spontaneously regenerate; broken bones, torn flesh, ruptured blood-vessels and ripped muscles spontaneously knit back together. The experience can be very painful, and can be quite unnerving to watch. This healing usually restores the limb without leaving a scar, restoring the limb to full utility within a couple of seconds.

The ritual is only effective at repairing ruined limbs; it has no effect on internal organs and can't regrow a severed limb. It may sometimes have other applications when dealing with seriously damaged patients, but employing the ritual in such situations requires supervision by a skilled physick. Some healers describe this as the ritual being too "blunt" or "clumsy" to restore more delicate targets such as internal organs or eyes.

The hydra is a multi-headed reptilian beast that possesses both incredible healing power and a deadly poisonous bite. This combination of features means many scholars draw parallels between the beast and the magic of the Spring realm. This particular ritual is modelled directly after the remarkable ability of the hydra and some other lizards to restore their own crippled limbs with almost supernatural speed.

Common Elements

Performing this ritual often includes herbs, bandages and other trappings of the healer's profession. It is also common to mix earth or clay with water to create mud, which is slapped onto the damaged limbs to help seal them. Indeed, as with many other healing rituals, water is a common element. Washing the ruined limb with fresh or salt water is a common way to begin the ritual.

The sight of ruined flesh and bone restoring itself can be unsettling, and so many ritualists especially among the Dawnish and Urizen wrap linen, silk or cotton bandages around the ruined limb during the ritual, removing them only when the magic has run its course. In a similar way, Marcher ritualists weave braces of corn or grass around the elbow and wrist or knee and ankle of their target, drawing on the fertility and healing magic implicit in the harvest. In The League this ritual is often associated with the character of The Doctor, and the use of The Chalice.

Elements such as wholesome food, the Rhyv rune, the constellation of The Fountain and (obviously) the supernatural regeneration of the hydra can all be evoked to restore vitality to the targets of this ritual.

Some magicians call this ritual Blood and Ashes, and evoke the power of the legendary firebird when they perform it. These ritualists often mix ashes and fresh water or honey together to create a poultice, and draw on the healing power and warmth provided by fires and hearths to speed the healing process.

Life flows through each of us; our magic allows us to reach out to our fellows and nurture that life as a gardener might nurture a failing flower.