Of Dart Dragons & Spital Huts!

[Standing-Stone]

Upon reading about this for the first time, page 25....

Dart Dragons!

It requires one Earth Power Point to be expended for enough energy to flow, expelling a dart from the Dragon shaped funnel.

I always thought these were regular devices powered by simple mechanics and kinetic energy.

Otherwise the use of Earth power seems like a unessasary requirement.

Upon reading through the Properties (Iron Age Celtic Housing!) section, page 32......

There is no mention of the Spital Hut. Unless I missed this. In case your wondering. It's a place of medicine and healing. The first-aid hut. The word Spital is taken from Hospital, I beleive.

My guess is that it would be a small round hut, with a small number of bunk beds inside for the injured. A herbalist or druid would be close by to mix herbs, operate, set broken limbs or remove unrepairable limbs.

I think the Druid would be the best choice for doctor. With knowledge of herbalism, and the human/animal/beast/ anatomy knowlege as well. Not to mention their medical supplies and equipment. Such as the medical sickle.

I would suggest reading the Slaine story "Creeping Death."
If yyou have or you can purchase the latest editon of 'Slaine Warriors Dawn" it is sure tp o be found in there.

Ukko uses his knowledge of herbalism to collect various plants. I think they were oats to heal Slaine of a minor skin malady when bitten by some animated skeletons in some bog lands. I think there was a Spital Hut handy, nearby . Ready for use. Slaine was all healed after the application of a layer of oat meal paste over the affected parts of the Slaine's body and leaving him to sleep it off over night.

 

[Standing-Stone]

I guess it's foolish of me mentioning the Spital Hut when it's quite possible that any other building could be prepared for that purpose.

As long as their is herbalist or Druid and the right equipement. Mixing bowl and mortar, a hand operated centrefuge( portable), a small forge for heating up the operating sickle. A mixing cauldron ( perhaps more than one , a trough filled with sterile water. Another trough filled with some ice and spare severed limbs. A overhead rack with some metal braces fitted for broken limbs of all shapes and sizes. Plenty of Titan Dwarf Spirits, but not for drinking. Shelves filled with glass jars filled with internal body organs, some of them not belonging to human. Some ufurled animal hide hanging from one wall with lots of anatomical drawings on it and the earliest schematics for a wheelchair. A slab of stone or several slabs of stone ( With cannels carved into them to let spilt blood flow in to container nearby.) to be used for patients to lie on. Some wards or spells that would help keep the Spital hut a clean and sterile enviroment.

I think it should be made clear that you couldn't be using this building for anything else that might taint that area set aside for this at the same time.

Like a brothel, or place for keeping livestock or a drinking hall. although some people might believe that this type of confusion up would be a good source of comedy.

Could be like M*A*S*H 4077, but back in the alternative iron age of the Celts.

 

[Standing-Stone]

After re-reading 'Slaine "The Creeping Death" which is what happens when you are bitten by the half-dead. if your not cured before the green scales have spread across your body entirely you become one of them.

I'm really sorry to say that I couldn't find any mentionof the "Spital Hut". Though I know I read it somewhere. Either from a Slaine story or it might have been from the original Slaine D20 which makes this all the more embarrassing for me.

Anyway, Ukoo and Blind Bran dig a healing pit ( Like a grave.) filled with water, herbs ( I know not whcih!) and bone marrow outside his Hovel.

Though the spelling is different here. I'm relieved that it's referenced here in the Wikipdeia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spittal

 

[Standing-Stone]

While watching that lkatest verson of Robin Hood made into a television series they had some sick guy lying on a cot.

They used Leeches from a jar of water on him as one of the treatments.

Totally forgot about those.

 

[tarkhan bey]

I had a look at the Wiki link. I reckon that the term "hospitality" probably has some root basis in this. I don't think that these Spittal Huts would just be like an ER room for the sick but also, depending on location, a wayfarer's resting place.
The reference to Scotland and a place that was safe from wolves to sleep is a good one.
I imagine that they might be isolated from the rest of the local community for the reasons above. I think that wounded or injured members of the clan/tribal grouping would recover in their own homes.

 

[Standing-Stone]

I was just reading the Steven Saville Novel "Slaine the Defiler" which at some point coveres the death of Ragall. King of the Sessair tribe successor to Grudnew.

In this version, he's murdered, but that is all I'll say about that.

Apart trom that and a few other things the scene plays out the same way it does in the original comic book version.

Which I started to thumb through "Slaine the King" just to make comparisons.

Anyway getting to the point......

I finally found the SPITAL HUT reference referred to on this thread long ago.

Over the page from where Ragall is dieing in the hands of Slaine. From his ....the ritual sacrifice for failing his people.

In the top left hand panel on the next page where Madad the Quarrelsome --Identifiable by his missing nose-- is yelling head to head with Mongan Axehead ---Slaine's Foster Father--

Who says "You? I could put you in the Spital Hut* with one hand tied behind my back"

With the added foot-note.

*Spital Hut -- Tribal Hospital.

That must have been where I read it originally and only to forget when I needed to find this page. Thinking it was originally in the "D20 Slaine Rulebook and in a earlier Slaine story called "Creeping Death".