Welcome to Part 11-2 of my World Building blog series 😀 I’ll be covering just about every topic I can think of that goes into world crafting. If you have any topics you’d like me to write about, please let me know 🙂
Magical healing is a fascinating concept and has a lot of potential to build a story. Depending on how you set it up, you can explore the effects of magical healing on both the healer and the recipient. In the previous post we talked about setting up magic in general and here you’ll need to be aware of how your magic works so you know what the healers have access to. Are they using their own energy, another source, herbs, artifacts, etc.? How much of traditional medicine are you going to include with the magic?
What are the implications of healing someone through magic? This really depends on the abilities of the healer and what they’re healing. How do abilities like empathy and telepathy influence healing? Is magical healing more intimate than traditional healing? Do healers and patients form any sort of bond if empath abilities are used? You’ll often see what is referred to as the Florence Nightingale Effect, where patients develop romantic or sexual feelings towards their caregiver. How does your world view this and how do you deal with it if it occurs?
What are the limits to magical healing? Are they different or the same as traditional methods in your world? Does the entirety of the healing come from magic or does the magic simply augment traditional methods (ie. decreasing healing time)? What things cannot be healed no matter the method used? What things can be healed by magic, but not other methods? Depending on how you’re setting this up, you might end of removing some of the obstacles that are present with traditional healing, namely that you might need to be in a specific location to receive care. If one of your character is a healer using magic and is with your other characters, then they need only be together to receive at least some level of care. Figure out the hard limits and stick to them.
How are you going to approach physical vs mental trauma? Healing a wound might erase the physical effects of it, but what about the trauma that comes from receiving the wound in the first place? What about mental illness in general, can it be healed with magic in your world?
If you have limitless healing potential with magic, how does this reflect in the recipients? Are they more reckless because they need never worry about injury or dying as long as they have access to a healer? Could healing be applied in such a way as to stop or reverse aging? In that case you could conceivably use magical healing to make people immortal? What would the implications of that be? Is there any point where magical healing leans towards raising the dead? Can you heal death? What happens if someone develops a resistance to healing? Is that possible and if so, how would you deal with it in world?
What would stop a healer from healing someone? How does consent work when it comes to this type of care? Is there pressure to receive treatment for certain things? Does healing only apply to things of a medical nature or are aesthetics an issue as well? Can things like acne, poor eyesight, etc. be healed away for aesthetics or are mundane options prefered?
Are healers regulated? What kind of training do they receive? Can all magical healers wield the same types of magic or do they specialize?
Hopefully that helps 🙂
Happy writing!
-Erin