A Question about Healing in a Campaign

[Hopeless]

I'm looking at placing a restriction on certain types of healing magic.

Originally I thought about there being a curse that prevents anyone outside of a specific cult or links to said cult being able to cast healing magic but I figure this would be a little too extreme so I was wondering about making healing potions only available via a specific cult on the grounds that nobody outside of the cult has the means to create them making the fact they exist of greater importance once the PCs realise there must be more to this than what they know.

The original idea I had was that all magical healing was dependent on the mortal descendants of the Lightbringer Cult's founder who literally prevented the extinction of all life following a cataclysm.
Due to the forces of darkness trying to resume control over the shattered world she sealed them away and restored access to magical healing but because life had a way of screwing up she set up a condition that healing would remain available for as long as her bloodline remained this was to insure the forces she had bound ultimately at the cost of her own life would be kept prisoner for as long as her descendants remained.

Now I figure it would be too much to explain away why only one cult could make use of healing magic but figure it make more sense if it referred to healing potions as it would make an interesting idea that whilst say one nation is good at making magical weapons another has a different speciality.

The bit I'm wondering about is that my campaign idea evolves around the idea that the bad guys are under the misunderstanding that if they wipe out the last descendant of the Lightbringer it should allow them full access to healing magic as their previous attempts to seize control were thwarted because their emnity with the Lightbringer Cult caused any spellcaster who could cast healing magic losing said ability once the last member of the Lightbringer Cult within their nation or city was slain, imprisoned or driven out of said settlement/nation, etc...

I was wondering what you thought about that since I'm waiting for the print copy of blood magic to be released before going any further with this idea since i think there might be some new ideas in there that might be worth looking at.

I'll check later.

 

[camocoffey]

It's an interesting premise. In my experience, however, Legend (and all previous RuneQuest incarnations) has always been much more about personal magic than that of magic items, such as healing potions. If, in your own games, healing potions are the norm, favouring alchemists over spellcasters for example, then yes, that a certain cult guards that secret could well support a sustained campaign. Healing is incredibly important after all! But if you don't also restrict personal healing magic in some way, I suspect that characters (protagonists or antagonists) simply won't care either way. They'll just cast Heal Wound instead.

There are a few limitations to the various types of healing magic already built-in:

Heal can't repair a Major Wound.
Treat Wounds can't repair a Serious or Major Wound.
Regenerate is slow to cast.

Heal Wound or Heal Body are pretty much the best spells available - and it's very reasonable to limit those spells to specific cults. MRQ1 had exceptionally restrictive divine spell lists: unless your cult had the Fertility Rune, it didn't have access to Heal Wound. I suspect most groups relaxed that restriction somwhat! But you may well prefer to keep something like that in place, so as to drive your campaign concept. Perhaps the Goddess of Healing is jealous of her secrets and refuses her magic even to Allied Cults?

 

[Hopeless]

It's an interesting premise. In my experience, however, Legend (and all previous RuneQuest incarnations) has always been much more about personal magic than that of magic items, such as healing potions. If, in your own games, healing potions are the norm, favouring alchemists over spellcasters for example, then yes, that a certain cult guards that secret could well support a sustained campaign. Healing is incredibly important after all! But if you don't also restrict personal healing magic in some way, I suspect that characters (protagonists or antagonists) simply won't care either way. They'll just cast Heal Wound instead.

There are a few limitations to the various types of healing magic already built-in:

Heal can't repair a Major Wound.
Treat Wounds can't repair a Serious or Major Wound.
Regenerate is slow to cast.

Heal Wound or Heal Body are pretty much the best spells available - and it's very reasonable to limit those spells to specific cults. MRQ1 had exceptionally restrictive divine spell lists: unless your cult had the Fertility Rune, it didn't have access to Heal Wound. I suspect most groups relaxed that restriction somwhat! But you may well prefer to keep something like that in place, so as to drive your campaign concept. Perhaps the Goddess of Healing is jealous of her secrets and refuses her magic even to Allied Cults?

Perhaps I should consider an alternative such as revealing that they have potions for far stronger healing types including the divine versions they're just rarer but available if they find the right courier or gain a contact in the cult since membership is kept strictly secret to avoid anyone other than the couriers' coming under threat of abduction or pursuit.

My reason for the restriction was that at one time the bloodline was reasonably well spread but were nearly completely wiped out in a conflict over four centuries past the only survivor effectively conquered the known lands to thwart the machinations of the real enemy and eventually stepped down rather than produce a heir who would inherit the throne.

His successor was betrayed and murdered but the combined realm fell apart because the one person who could have either backed the new ruler or assumed the throne himself refused in disgust at the actions of the so-called nobles who betrayed the successor.

The bloodline barely recovered from the loss and any remaining members of that family have been in hiding ever since (like the Belgariad except no plan to have the heir assume the throne) this event is what people refer to as the curse and are unaware that the real reason is that the attack nearly severed the world's source of mana the only physical evidence was a loss of access to healing magic all healing magic including divine no matter what cult existed and ever since then that event has been linked to the Lightbringer Cult making most believe they have some secret hold over healing magic nobody else has.

Alchemy I see as more technology based than magic based so they have the capacity to make healing potions just nothing as capable as what their magic variant can do essentially alchemy is no better than existing medecine is today.

I am thinking about chaos taint and see them as being the major foe of the campaign and the reason behind that is because the Lightbringer Cult has access to the only rumoured means of curing that taint something they think is technology based unaware they're dealing with a variant of radiation poisoning thats beyond medical means to cure but not beyond a potential equivalent of a rune priest or whatever the Legend alternative title for this would be.

I suppose a better description would be "Atonement" but thats another story altogether.

Anyway thanks for the reply.

 

[soltakss]

Personally, Legend combat is so deadly that I wouldn't even think of restricting healing, unless some of the PCs were part of the people who has access to healing.

Making Healing Potions only available from a particular cult makes some sense. However, all it does is stop PCs from making potions as they can always go to said cult and buy healing potions.

Killing the last descendant of the family would stop all healing. Unless, of course, one or more of the PCs came from a hitherto unknown branch of the family ...