> Ernalda's runes include Life/Fertility as well as Harmony,
So do Chalana Arroy's. S:KoH insists that CA healers must have affinities to both runes.
> which to me suggests that Ernalda's take on Harmony should
> include some limited healing, (though clearly not the full range
> of the more specialist Chalana Arroy)
The way I see it, these specialties are mainly the result of philosophical attitudes. Ernalda is more interested in natural life than healing, so anything that you could in principle heal naturally, Ernalda will help you heal faster: broken bones, cuts, blood loss, sickness, etc. Chalana Arroy, on the other hand, is more interested in healing than natural life, so she will help you heal even things that would never heal naturally, like amputation and death. Of course, if you happen to be a starfish, in which case regrowth of severed limbs is perfectly natural to you, Ernalda (or rather Triolina) is perfectly happy to accelerate your natural process.
To Ernalda, death is an important part of the (now) natural cycle, and part of the core portfolios of her aunt, sister, and daughter, so she does not reverse it: she lets them keep what is theirs, until the soul comes around again in the natural cycle of rebirth. To Chalana Arroy, the mere existence of death is a wound in the pre- Gods War nature of reality, so death itself needs to be healed. Ernalda is perfectly capable of healing death (she has her own heroquest to resurrect Barntar, Esra and Uralda from the care of the underworld side of her own earth family), but she chooses not to do so anymore (except in so far as plants and animals themselves die in order to give life to others), as part of her interpretation of her place in the Great Compromise. Chalana Arroy's nature, by contrast, does not include accepting compromise with Death. Chalana Arroy believes in fighting against Death at all costs; Ernalda accepts Death and Life as equally important parts of Nature, just as she does sleep and wakefulness. Those who gain their life from devouring the bodies of the dead (which includes cows and humans just as much as it does vultures) are all Ernalda's children, too, and she knows they need the deaths of others to live. Chalana Arroy, being a fanatic, does not accept this, and wants to return the world to the Green Age, before anything ever knew how to die.
> My ultimate point, I guess, is this: why does Ernalda need Chalana
I don't think Ernalda needs Chalana Arroy at all. She heals from her own power as the Great Goddess of Earth and Life. The raw power of healing is just as much Ernalda's as it is Chalana Arroy's. Surely at least Votenevra the Earth Healer is solely Ernalda's power: Chalana Arroy only seems to care about healing animals, not the raw earth itself. Where Ernalda and Chalana Arroy's healing differs is mainly in how their views of the world influence their choices about how to use that same power.
> the wizards and sorcerors might see Chalana Arroy as a pagan's
> superstitious misunderstanding of this ultimate source of healing
Actually, sufficiently materialistic sorcerer-healers should have worked out the importance of harsh disinfectants, if not quite all of germ theory, which will tell them that Death is as good a healing rune as Life, perhaps even better! Cleansing a wound is all about Separation: kill the invaders but not the host, cut the dead tissue off from the still living and discard it, and prevent any growth except that which restores what was originally there.
Ryan
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
Powered by hypermail