Medicine

A family of viruses. The human varieties cause influenza-like symptoms, and have enough genetic drift that re-vaccination is recommended every year. Seasonal outbreaks, concentrated in winter. Like all viruses, it cannot be caught or transmitted by vampires.

Several years before the start of the comic, Sønheim had an outbreak of a new brumavirus, which wasn't anticipated in the regular vaccine and caused unusually severe, long-lasting illness. In the early months, its spread was contained to the region North of the Mountains. Some cases eventually got through the travel quarantines; these were contained to small local outbreaks in Southern countries.

Shutdowns affected the whole country, including the castle of Lady Stanczia and Lord Imri, who struggled to hire/buy additional staff to fill in for servants that got sick.

Characters: Vampire servants

Non-magical burns (thermal, chemical, friction, and so on) can often be treated in non-magical ways, though the more severe cases will require magic. Water mages are the most popular at this for obvious reasons, although any mage above a certain level can handle it. These can be completely healed, without scarring.

Magical burns (caused by a spell, a potion, and/or a dark magical girl) will usually need magical treatment. These will leave scars and other damage if the burn is too severe, or the treatment isn't quick enough.

Dragon burns always need magical treatment, definitely from a water mage, and are going to leave scarring no matter what you do.

Characters: Thorn, Grassie Amande

A condition typically diagnosed in toddlerhood. Named after a myth about supernatural creatures who switch human babies for their own kind.

Features include aversion to eye contact, sensitivity to certain tastes and textures, intense and thorough interest in specific subjects, distress when a favorite setup or routine gets interrupted, and a tendency to be very literal.

(In other words: see autism.)

Characters: Hawthorn Lavande, Hazel

Removal of the foreskin from the human penis.

Almost unheard-of in Sønheim, except as a treatment for specific medical issues. More common in Ceannis, where some ethnic groups routinely apply it to infants for cultural reasons.

A type of bodily function spell, typically ensorcelled on a subdermal microchip.

Compulsions act to change a subject’s behavior. Although the spell cannot directly force a subject’s actions or change their thoughts, it provides an incentive by stimulating pain receptors when a specified condition is not met.

Historically, these spells have been used to manage problems like addiction, compulsive behaviors, and harmful sexual proclivities.

Because of the general ethical concerns and the potential for abuse, compulsions are now super duper illegal in Ceannis. Seriously. Don’t even try it.

Characters: Leif, all the other servants on the Embassy Staff

A type of spelltech: crystals that are programmed with generalized or specific medical spells.

Diamonds are high-capacity and easy to program, so they're the gem of choice for a lot of disaster-relief groups. A stylized blue diamond is the international icon for hospitals and medical professionals, and the biggest international relief organization is simply called Blue Diamond.

Hospital beds are typically embedded with corundum gems (rubies, sapphires, padparadscha) that have broadly-useful healing spells, encouraging factors like wound closure, strong immune response, and steady heart rate. Thorn carries a military-grade healing sapphire, intended to rapidly address any injury you're likely to face on a battlefield.

Medical professionals in Sønheim (the world's largest supplier of medical-grade gemstones) often default to recommending spelltech treatments over chemical/biological ones, even when they're not necessarily more effective.

The idea that water can be substituted for any other kind of medical treatment. Useful when applied to someone suffering from dehydration. Otherwise, unhelpful at best, fatal at worst.

Endorsed by a small subculture in Ceannis, who usually pair it with other forms of pseudoscience. Unknown in Sønheim.

Characters: Rosie Muscade

Protection against financial loss (in this case, from medical bills) by sharing risks across a group.

Sønheim treats health insurance as a business, and offloads as much of the cost as possible onto patients. Indentured servants don't get insured at all. The owners of their contracts are responsible for covering any medical bills caused by their work; all other bills are simply added to their debt.

Ceannis provides universal health insurance to all citizens. State employees whose jobs have extreme or unusual risks (including the military) sometimes have proportionally higher benefits, such as automatic access to higher-grade healing crystals.

Characters: All the Ceannic characters, few of the Sønska characters

A subtype of healing crystal, smaller than a grain of rice, implanted under the skin. The most common ones stimulate the body to produce a substance it can’t make enough of naturally, or suppress production when it has too much. Usually neurotransmitters, or hormones.

Most post-pubescent characters have one, for birth control and/or period suppression. Characters with depression and other mood disorders will have one to correct neurochemical imbalances. Trans people use them to stimulate estrogen/testosterone production; diabetics use them to regulate insulin levels. Professional sports have limits on how much you're allowed to magically stimulate muscle growth.

Some characters have two chips (or more, but that's rare). Each microchip can handle more than one function, but they don’t have unlimited capacity. Also, some spells work better if they’re implanted in strategic locations (e.g. one chip implanted nearer the brain, another one nearer the ovaries).

The spells are encoded to your biology, and heavily encrypted to keep anyone unauthorized from remotely hacking your glands.

Characters: Almost everyone

A more precise translation of the Ceannic word usually rendered as “transgender.” In Ceannis the focus is more on the person's medical needs than their gender identity.

Treated with regular doses of hormones, and surgical intervention as needed.

Characters: Juniper Sel, Delphinium, Lord Imri, Matatuhi Kaihanga, Vine Fenouil

Spiritually Transmitted Acute Dysphoria (STAD) is a state of mental disorder, involving feelings of depression, lack of self-worth, and existential crisis. Colloquially known as “the whispers” because it is contracted via malicious spirits “whispering” negative ideas.

It cannot be transmitted person-to-person, but non-infected people should take care around infected ones, because frankly they can get kinda scary.

Most outbreaks involve one type of spirit (fire, water, or nature), and should be treated by mages whose powerset has the advantage against that type.

There's no equivalent in Northern magic, so it's only found south of the mountains.

Characters: Rowan Muscade (caught it as a 14-year-old, cured)

Some humans grow them. Cause unknown, but presumably magical. See Wings.

Characters: Sigrún Storre, Queen Szélanya, Pine (black feathers), eventually Rowan Muscade (beginning in Level Up)

Albinism (Pascentia Zikos)

Amputation (right leg below-the-knee for Birch Baker, right little finger for Laceleaf)

Bipolar disorder (Clover Estragon)

Hallucinations (Kale Romarin)

In vitro fertilisation (Plum Estragon and Tansy Lavande, Elisa's parents)

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (Thorn, most of the knights, Annie Persil)

Vitiligo (Cress)