Surgeons rush to every emergency. They are not happy unless they are in the midst of a major energy bending procedure. They heal large gaping wounds and broken bones but also perform delicate procedures like repairing the damaged vessels in the heart. They also serve as dentists. They are students of the human body and its internal workings. Surgeons are known for their large egos and keen focus.
Surgeons are the most specialized of the specialties, honing their craft with gusto. While healing, they cannot also control pain or breathing, so they require help from other Rafa, often Shepherds of Souls and Midwives. Physicians and Midwives often get stuck performing a Surgeon’s followup care.
Specialty Boon #
Once per game session, players of this specialty can freely take advantage of the Surgeon’s Specialty Boon:
The Body’s Expert #
The deep, tactile way in which surgeons know human bodies is unmatched, both your own and your patient’s. Negate a single Side Effect incurred as the result of your character using a Rafa Skill.
Describe how your ceaseless practice, unmatched reflexes, or quick thinking let you avoid what would have been a turn for the worse.
Rafa Bag Supplies #
- Bandages
- Small scissors and scalpel
- Alcohol
- 1 hand pie of choice
- 5 silver dollars
Herbal Remedies #
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Tea for Pain
Recipe
Make a tea of white willow bark and ginger to treat pain including headaches, back pain, and menstrual cramps.
Instructions
Brew tea.
Mind is freed from minor to moderate pains only.
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Pain Salve
Recipe
Heat myrrh resin, oil, and beeswax. Allow to cool.
Expensive.
Instructions
Apply to inflamed joints, mouth sores, or lacerations.
+2 to life energy.
Surgeon Skills #
Recommended Starter Skills #
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Ease Pain
A wise Rafa once said that pain leaves marks on the body and the mind. A deeply unserious Rafa once said that pain is weakness leaving the body, and they were made to retake their ethics courses twice.
This skill lowers a patient’s pain. Tell the Rafa how the pain makes itself known as it departs the patient.
Side Effects
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Energy Boost
While boosting the energy of a patient, some Rafa emit a gentle light, while others bring a crisp sea breeze with them. Rafa Yohanan, blessed be her memory, shortly after Freka fell to the ocean, was rumored to cause her patients to twinkle in the darkness of the night.
This skill revives and boosts a patient’s energy. Tell the Rafa about their patient’s energy and how it hums.
Side Effects
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Heal Wound
Stimulating flesh to cover incisions is easier, all things considered, but some Rafa specialize in doing so without scarring. Muscles are literally and figuratively harder to heal, but repairing organs are their own specialization.
This skill covers over any flesh wound without leaving any scarring. Tell the Rafa what they feel at the same spot on their own body.
Side Effects
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Shadow Puppet
Light and shadow end precisely where the other begins. Deaf and non-speaking Avodai developed a language of magical shadow puppets and symbology called Shadow Tongue. Unlike other energy bending restricted to Rafa, Shadow Puppet is learnable by anyone.
The Rafa describes the shapes they are using, and their meaning. This skill costs nothing for deaf or non-speaking characters.
Side Effects
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Staunch Bleeding
Scholar Asher, blessed be his memory, wrote that, “as the blood of life flows within us, so does the Light flow through all the spaces in this world. Even the most full, and especially the most empty.”
This skill stops a patent’s bleeding. Tell the Rafa about the qualities of their patient’s light.
Side Effects
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X-Ray Vision
Ghosts emit a green aura, and Rafa Vilhelm was fascinated by its ability to penetrate human tissue, casting shadows of dense bone against walls. His experiments yielded special reactive paper to capture the results for record keeping.
This skill lets the Rafa see through looser, opaque objects. Tell the Rafa if they notice anything odd for the next few minutes.
Side Effects
Advanced Skills #
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Clear Blood
I am unsure how one cleans something like wine stains from a garment. However, Rafa Physicians know when such contamination occurs in the blood and can perform the subtle art of removing it without disruption.
This skill removes toxins from the blood. Tell the Rafa how the world around them stands ready to devour the impurities.
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Find Hidden Object
We imbue intention into our tools and our treasures when we care deeply about them. Energy bending detects inanimate objects by tracing lingering intentions to the source. Rafa must have an inkling of the emotional resonance, or they will fail in their attempt.
Ask the Rafa about the emotional connection, helping them trace as best they are able to describe it.
Side Effects
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Heal Bone
Healing broken bones is as mundane to Rafas as a square to carpenters. Once, a farmer commissioned a Rafa to strengthen chickens’ bones to reduce their flight risk, but added weight made them harder to market. A Rafa can heal bone marrow in patients with rare blood diseases to replenish healthy blood cells.
This skill heals any broken or diseased bone that is still living.
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Heal Infection
While they are our siblings under the Light, followers of the Lumdai faith have a tendency to ascribe malice to that which inconveniences them. What does that have to do with infections? Good question. Infection and symbiosis demonstrate two sides of the Light’s infinite complexity.
This skill cures a patient’s infection. Tell the Rafa what emotion is radiating from the infection.
Side Effects
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Organ Transplant
Shortly after blood transfusion, Rafa surgeons discovered they could transfer organs too. Rebas posed thought experiments about a ship called The Sea-Is-Us. Is this ship had enough repairs to swap every original part, would it be The Sea-Is-Us?
This skill replaces an organ, requiring a donor. Tell the Rafa what powerful emotion they experience as an echo from the donor.
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Regrow Limb
Avodai look at disability as localized, never assuming that any disability precludes a person from living a life they find value in. However, Rafa saw patients’ attachment to their former capabilities and developed this skill from studying fire lizards who regrew their tails.
This skill regrows any limb. Tell the Rafa how many uses of skill the full rehabilitation will take.
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Remove
The village is a macrocosm of the body, for within the body many codependent beings live. We call the healthful spirits symbiotic and the harmful ones parasitic. Be careful what you excise.
This skill removes a foreign or harmful object from the body. Tell the Rafa how this process occurs in their patient.
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Repair Organs
Waste not, want not. Finding donors is not necessary if you can repair what patients already have. Rafa Karat lost her license for invasively exploring patients just to see if there was anything to fix. Now Surgeons train long before making a single cut.
This skill heals damaged organs that are not broken. Tell the Rafa what weakness they feel in their own body.
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Telekinesis
From a pamphlet by the New Avodai Society: “Who wouldn’t want a second set of hands? For those denied a first set by accident or fate, why shouldn’t they learn telekinesis? Instead we ask our disabled colleagues to metaphorically sit on their hands unless they become Rafa.”
Using telekinesis requires unbroken concentration, yet costs nothing if used to overcome a disability.
Side Effects
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Temperature Control
Outside Houses of Healing, it’s not well known just how few degrees stand between life and death. Rafa Physician Nuri believes in erring on the side of warmth for destroying infection, though they are not known for their bedside manner.
This skill raises or lowers the temperature of a patient’s body. Tell the Rafa how the heat or cold leaving their patient appears.
Side Effects