> Personally, I don't see how magic would cure harelip or clubfoot. It
> seems to me that healing magic works by bringing the patient back to
> his or her "normal" body configuration, which includes the deformity.
> If you did an kind of operation on a patient's lip, casting "heal" to
> stop the bleeding would presumably restore the harelip.
When it comes to "standard" healing I thoroughly agree. But this isn't
standard healing. This is a once-off effort on a new-born. I could move
the whole thing back a few days to the moment of birth if you like:
shades of the old idea of bears licking their young into shape from lumps
of clay.
Come to think of it, there is a spell that seems to work like this, but in reverse. "Seal Wound" apparently fixes the "body norm" in an injured state, thus preventing magical healing.
> There are some Gloranthan magics that tend to prevent or limit
> deformed births, but I don't know of any that cure them. Case in point:
> trollkin.
Good point. Hmm... suppose I said what this ritual does is to bring the
patient back to the "normal" body configuration for the species, rather
than for themselves? This is of course only possible because the new-born
is not yet a person, and therefore does not have their own "norm" as yet.
Those babies that do have their own personality defined already and can
resist the change are obviously special. (A priestess of Ernalda, fumble
a ritual? Don't be silly!)
The trollkin then have the problem that a new "racial norm" and indeed a new race has been created; you may deal with the trollkin's cleft palate, but you still have a trollkin.
Better?
Jane Williams jane_at_williams.nildram.co.uk http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~janewill/gloranth/
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