Hi There! I’ve been wholly interested in the art of ‘RP Healing’ for some time now, with my main having a primary focus in just that. What I’ve noticed over the past year is that healers, combat medics, etc seem to be in short supply. I hope to somehow reignite the class with this little guide and discussion.
I by no means claim that anything on that page is factually correct or accurate to ‘lore’ and will not enforce it as such, this is a fantasy game after all and I’m just applying my own understanding to this game.
Introductory Discussion
Click to Read
This topic consists of a small summary of topics written by both Sparklighter and Arakine, some instances may be paraphrased but is to better suit my understanding.
Healing in role-playing has become a very broad and not necessarily understood niche in the role-playing scene of World of Warcraft. The main issue is maintained that the concept of ‘healing’ is a boring after-battle action, with very little focus to mid-event/in battle abilities that consist of not only healing spells but buffs, de-buffs and protective spells as well.
A healer is to not only make this role interesting for themselves, but for those who they are healing as well. The process is long, and you need to be able to communicate with the player as it is ultimately their choice on how the healing will affect them. This is especially true when dealing with the likes of severe trauma as the patient is currently in a life or death situation and they are quite literally obligated to make your job hard for you.
Now, World of Warcraft is depicted in a fantasy setting, so nothing is right or wrong in terms of what you could do to heal the person. While reading up on case studies and such can help, ultimately you don’t need to have a medical degree or something to be a healer in role-playing, it’s up to you how you tackle it, as long as it’s not at all overpowered or ridiculous in nature, it should be fine.
Eustace | Argent Dawn EU says:
“Your objective as a healer in roleplay is to:
- Try to remove the immediate danger from the patient
- Give an opportunity to feed into their outcome
- State the need for conventional medicine
- Let the patient define their own recovery time.”
Arakine also has quite a few insights that he has shared and it’s helped me come into my own as a healer as well. There are a few key things that one needs to consider in terms of how healing functions in a roleplay setting, such as:
Your objective is to promote storytelling through healing, injury and illness and you should tackle this by tackling the concept in a manner that is appropriate to your characters’ beliefs, ideals and philosophy, more on this later.
Healing is not meant to trivialize the danger and consequence of injury and sickness. You and the person who has been faced with severe trauma should be aware that when your character has been put out of the fight by a major injury they cannot re-enter the fight unless the story demands it. You need to acknowledge the major ramifications involved as though this was a real setting.
Magic is there to alleviate immediate danger where practical healing cannot. It speeds up the process but doesn’t necessarily mean you are out of the forest immediately after it is done.
When patients roleplay something that is psychiatric, it should be researched correctly. One cannot trivialize issues such as depression, addiction or other such disorders that would otherwise cause people to be upset. Do your research and understand what you’re doing, or as a healer, who you’re dealing with.
Furthermore, you cannot heal every single injury with magic. While magical healing is a benefit - it is always wise to reserve this energy for times that are dire - such as the war, or serious injuries. Understand that we are not necessarily giving medical treatment but actually performing a miracle. This is because most healing magic is considered part of the Divine Domains.
You need to understand that most forms of magical healing are mostly considered a temporary fix. This is because every form of magical healing has its own benefits.
In short, all magical healing has its benefits and its pitfalls. It is best that even though magical healing can be an ideal skill to learn, to also hone in your skill as a practical healer and perhaps focus on ensuring that your knowledge as a practical healer is great.
Big props to Arakine and Sparklighter for compiling a few resources that I used to motivate this discussion, you can find links to their Forum Posts below.
Topics
I. Magic and Healing
While magic is a good source of restoration, there are limitations. These limitations, though, are as tight and elastic as your training. If you train very little, you may be able to mend a small cut; while those with decades or years of it might be able to close a major artery that has been sliced open.
It’s never about healing and walking away either. Like practical healing - magical healing needs constant care and attention. You will get tired, no matter how good you are. Magical healing takes a massive toll on the body and mind.
Other limitations include the fact that sometimes types of magical affinities such as light, nature, chi or to a lesser extent, shadow are suppressed, which means using your abilities could prove futile.
Practical vs Magical
You cannot heal every single injury. While magical healing is a benefit - it is always wise to reserve this energy for times that are dire - such as the war, or serious injuries. Understand that we are not necessarily giving medical treatment but actually performing a miracle. This is because most healing magic is considered part of the Divine Domains.
You need to understand that most forms of magical healing are mostly considered a temporary fix. This is because every form of magical healing has its own benefits.
Divine Healing Magicks & Nature Healing in Brief
Divine magic involves the blessings of a supernatural being. The Holy Light of Creation grants supernatural healing, while the Forgotten Shadow provides similar powers. Some Night Elven healing can also be considered divine due to the fact that Night Elves, mostly their priest counterparts, draw their power from the Goddess Elune. Nature magic is a different class on their own that doesn’t necessarily fall under the term ‘divine.’ This is because nature magic involves drawing upon the spirits of the earth to invoke a natural phenomenon. It’s naturally regenerative. These stem from the Emerald Dream (and Cenarius), Elements, Wilds and ‘Spirit.’
Healing with Light
The light works in a way that it is channeled within the wielder. The light is only granted to a person who is fuelled by their belief of the light, and whether their cause is determined as righteous and just. Healing with the light is the forced regeneration of damaged body tissue. It is very tiring for the healer because of the immense concentration involved in healing the right parts in the right way and also continually channeling the light whilst doing this. It is, even more, tiring for the one being healed as their body works overtime to regenerate the damaged tissue whilst also coping with the amount of damage sustained in the first place. The Light also cannot heal those who use the void or shadow without causing excruciating pain and perhaps worsening the injury. When it comes to dulling pain, the Light doesn’t ultimately take the pain away but creates an illusion of serenity whereas Nature, Elements or Chi can draw out the pain almost entirely.
Healing with Nature, Elements or Chi
I’m not at all sure on this part, but my understanding is very loosely based on my experiences and would better like to interact with others to expand and share, this will be rectified once more research has been conducted…
Nature. This is considered to be the most versatile form of magic and healing. The user is capable of commanding the forces of nature to fill a variety of different roles. Nature magic itself possesses a symbiotic relationship with its’ caster. Just as living creatures in nature tend to coexist in harmony, nature magic and their users also tend to share a similar bond. Druids are also known for their sustainable healing. Unlike most healers, druids who can heal tend to be most useful with their ability to keep healing constant and unwavering. Which is a benefit in combat? Unlike other forms of magic, the use of Nature magic is sometimes more difficult or less powerful when used indoors or away from natural areas. The Druid’s connection to the Emerald Dream is also a limiting factor. Should a Druid’s connection to the Emerald Dream be severed, then the Druid themselves are no longer able to access their magic.
Amendment: Since death is the opposite of nature or ‘life’ it means that nature magic has little to no effect on undead or Death Knights.
Shamans have their powers granted to them by the elemental. A bond that is created through respect, aid, and offerings. Elementals are primal beings and some are much harder to “control” than others. A shaman’s powers depend solely on the trust they have earned with the elements.
Chi is the Pandaren word for spirit. It is the fifth element an as such the primal life force used by them. Monks harness their inner chi to power their abilities while using their bodies as their main tool.
Healing with Shadow
Shadow magic while not a source of healing, it’s abilities allow the user to do what would be perceived as a means of patching together a wound. While it’s recommended to seek out all other options first when pushed and limited in your choice it can still be used as a means of keeping the person stable and alive until they can receive proper medical treatment. It works primarily by manipulating the flesh, one must give something in order for it to take. You wish to patch up a knife wound? The shadow will allow its user to manipulated and pull the flesh back into place, often burning and fusing the flesh back together, as one can imagine this causes a great deal of pain. Often times one must thin the flesh of the person in a healthy region of the body to be able to then use it to patch the wound, covering it in a thin new layer. Some considerations include the fact that shadowmending can heal undead and particularly Death Knights, due to the fact that their souls are loosely attached to their own bodies through shadow magic.
All magical healing has its benefits and its pitfalls. It is best that even though magical healing can be an ideal skill to learn, to also hone in your skill as a practical healer and perhaps focus on ensuring that your knowledge as a practical healer is great.
II. Dealing with Blood Loss
Regardless of how intense blood loss is, it can still be controlled. If left without treatment, severe bleeding can lead to shock or even death. Most of the time, with the right knowledge, one can stop bleeding without the help of a trained person but that does not mean you should not be having someone find help while you’re attempting to control the situation.
Times where you have to find someone who is properly trained is if:
- The bleeding is internal
- There is an abdominal or chest wound
- Bleeding can’t be stopped after ten minutes of applied steady pressure.
- Blood spurts out of the wound.
Steps:
- Apply direct pressure to the cut or wound with a clean cloth or gauze until the bleeding stops.
- If the blood soaks through the cloth or gauze, apply another layer over that one and continue applying pressure. DO NOT remove the previous layer. Peeling off blood-soaked dressing will remove vital clotting agents and encourage bleeding to resume.
- If the wound is situated on a leg or arm, elevate the limb above the heart, this slows the flow of blood. As it slows, it becomes easier to stop with direct pressure.
- Use pressure points. These are areas of the body where blood flows close to the surface of the skin. By using these pressure points, blood flow will eventually slow and cease at another point further away from the initial wound - at the point of pressure.
Common Pressure points include:
- The arm between the shoulder and the elbow, which has the brachial artery.
- The groin area, which has the femoral artery.
- Behind the knee which has the popliteal artery.
III. Tourniquets
How to apply a tourniquet:
Firstly, a tourniquet is a tight, non-stretchy band that you will wrap around a limb in order to stop bleeding. Tourniquets restrict blood flow from limbs severely and can cause permanent damage to a whole limb if done without need or incorrectly. A tourniquet should only be applied as a desperate move where you will have to make the decision between life and limb.
Steps:
- Tie the tourniquet around the injured arm or leg, several inches above the injury. If the injury is below the elbow or knee, you may need to tie the tourniquet above the joint.
- Place a stick or other item strong enough to act as a windlass - a lever type handle - on the knot and tie the loose ends of the tourniquet around it in another square knot. Anything can be used as a windlass, as long as it is strong enough to hold the tourniquet and can be secured in place.
- Twist the windlass to increase the pressure until the bleeding stops.
- Secure the windlass by tying one or both ends to the victim’s arm or leg.
- If possible, mark the time the tourniquet was placed to track how long the tourniquet has been in use on the patient.
IV. Dressing
Properly dressing a wound is one of the most basic first aid techniques there is. The process remains unchanged regardless of the size or severity of the injury.
Steps:
- Stay safe, ensure that you are wearing protective equipment in order to work with the patient and ensure that your hands are clean so as to not transfer any bacteria that could cause harm to the patient.
- A little bleeding is OK; it helps flush dirt and other contaminants out of the wound. Call someone who is experienced with wounds if:
- There is bright red or squirting blood
- it’s a deep (more than an inch) puncture wound on the head, neck, chest, abdomen, pelvis, or back
- it’s a deep puncture wound on an arm above the elbow or a leg above the knee
- Clean the wound with fresh water. Use tweezers to remove particles.
- Only cover the wound if it is likely to come in contact with clothing or dirt. If the edges of a laceration are not easily pulled together, then the wound may need stitches.
- Deep lacerations are those that extend into the tissues below the skin. If you can see layers of tissue along the sides of the laceration, it’s pretty deep. Puncture wounds are harder to evaluate, and should be based on how long the offending object is. Seek medical attention for a deep wound if:
- it’s a laceration with jagged edges or won’t close
- the wound is tender or numb
- the wound is inflamed (swelling and redness)
- the wound is draining pus (yellowish, thick liquid)
- Once these steps have been taken, you can apply the appropriate bandages over the wound to keep filth from getting inside.
V. Dealing with Shock
Shock is a life-threatening medical condition that is essentially a decrease in blood flow to the brain and other important organs. Shock can arise in several situations, including due to uncontrolled bleeding from a traumatic injury. This is known as hypovolemic shock. Because blood carries oxygen with it, this can result in a destructive lack of oxygen to the tissues. It can also lead to cardiac arrest. Untreated, shock from bleeding will almost always cause death.
- Make sure the victim is breathing. If not, apply CPR.
- Before any other treatments for shock are done, bleeding must be stopped.
- If you do not suspect a neck injury, lay the victim on his or her back and elevate the legs. This will help increase the circulation to the heart, brain, and major organs. If you suspect a neck injury, do not move the victim or change his position.
- Keep the victim warm so he or she doesn’t develop hypothermia. With decreased blood flow, he or she will chill faster.
- Continue to check on the victim. If the victim stops breathing, begin CPR.
- If the victim vomits, roll the victim to one side and sweep the vomit from his or her mouth with your fingers.
- Do not give the victim any fluids by mouth as this may simply result in vomiting. The person in hypovolemic shock often is thirsty, but you must not give him fluids by mouth.
Once the victim is stabilized, you may take the necessary precautions to move them to a safer area.
VI. Arrow Wounds
What would be deemed more dangerous, an arrow wound or a bullet wound?
The correct answer would be neither as both instances are circumstantial and both can have catastrophic results, a bullet wound is highly likely to travel through the body while an arrow wound tends to lodge itself into the body. Even so, bullet shots could be safely left in the body to be encased in bone or tissue. Arrow heads are sharp and once they are pierced through flesh they continue to injure and inflame the tissue around them – ultimately resulting in infection and death. As you might imagine, removing the head is therefore vital.
So why can’t you just yank it out?
This is entirely dependent on the design, however, most ‘homemade’- or just, the cheaper sort - arrowheads are secured to the shaft using gut, a strong rope or animal sinews, which begins to loosen when it gets wet – such as from your blood soaking into it. This means that yanking on the shaft will likely rip the head free and leave it in the body. Once detached from the shaft, locating and removing the head is much harder and causes more trauma to the wounded.
A shaft can, however, be carefully twirled to determine if the head is lodged in bone. Alternatively, you could enlarge the wound and use a finger to follow the shaft to the head to check if it is stuck. If the arrow is stuck, a larger incision is required to remove the arrowhead - followed by a lot of force to pull it free.
The Fish Hook
Complications can include the arrowheads tip bending in a fish hook like shape, making it nearly impossible to remove the arrowhead without causing more damage, therefore, you need to push the wound forward slightly in order to dislodge the hook and then pull it out directly after using your finger to cover the hook part of it to prevent it from lodging itself again.
What is the mortality rate of being shot by an arrow?
Firstly, you’d notice that wounded parties would almost always have more than one arrow lodged into them. Now, injuries in the chest are most common this is because your chest is the biggest target, with a large majority of these injuries involving lung punctures - if your lung isn’t punctured, you might find yourself a good chance of survival. Nearly all wounds to your chest and abdomen are fatal due to the issue of blood loss and intestinal damage - which leads to nasty infections due to all the nasty business that happens in your bowels. Without magic. Thankfully we have magic on our sides, which also happen to increase chances of survival, to an extent, however, it is almost -always- still a miracle.
Wounds to arms and legs were more likely to have the arrow pass clean through, in which case the majority would heal within a week with minimal complications. Wounds to the head were rarely fatal unless it was a shot to the eye as an arrow would not generally penetrate the skull except at extreme close range.
VII. Bullet Wounds
Once bullets have stopped moving, they are largely harmless and the injured can most likely keep fighting with one if the wound is not serious, but like with arrow wounds, they must eventually be removed to avoid infection. The only time you can try to remove a bullet wound is if it is bleed profusely, as you need to remove the bullet in order to treat the wound. If the wound is not bleeding much or it appears too deep, it may have hit a vein and removal will cause incessant bleeding - more harm than good, which implies that you will need to undertake serious precautions before attempting to remove the bullet.
Removal of the bullet is quite similar to that of removing an arrow wound. With both of these instances one needs to be aware of fragments being lodged in the wound with the arrow or bullet. Such as cloth, bits of metal, and other such debris, which can cause infection, this can be removed along with the offending parties.
While in some cases a bullet wound is far easier to remove, in many cases, this by NO MEANS implies that they are without complications. Like arrowheads, there are a large variety of bullets with their own complications, with many ending up shattering if they impact bone, or if the maker of the bullet has created an explosive one, it can cause a number of serious issues that will ultimately mean life or death of the patient. These require quick work and meticulous care - as failure to remove the shrapnel is a death sentence.
Sucking Lung
Something that bullet wounds predominantly cause if lodged in the chest is a term called a sucking chest wound, this is when the bullet has penetrated the lung - air is going into the wound, but not coming out, resulting in a collapsed lung. Signs of a sucking chest wound include a sucking sound emanating from the chest, coughing up blood, frothy blood coming from wound, and shortness of breath. Take airtight material and tape it around the wound, covering all sides except for the bottom of the wound. Oxygen will escape from this hole and the blood will run out. As you seal the wound, encourage the patient to completely exhale and hold his or her breath. This will force air out of the wound before you seal it.
- Unconventional Healer Types
- Equipment to carry as a combat medic.
- Common Combat Injuries
- Negative Pressure Wound Therapy
- Diseases, Poisons and Toxins
- Other Considerations
- To be continued
Credits and Resources
This is always being updated as I go!
Click to Read
An Alchemical and Herbal Guide to Azeroth and beyond - by Greáves (MG)
https://herbalcompendium.tumblr.com/
Cannibeans Guide to Herbs and Alchemy
https://wow.gamepedia.com/User:Cannibeans/Plants
Arakine’s Healer Guide
https://eu.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/17611351863#post-1
Sparklighters Healing in RP Thread
https://eu.battle.net/forums/en/wow/topic/831473995#post-1
Arrow Wounds
http://ciaraballintyne.com/uncategorized/2015/02/properly-remove-arrow-crazy-things-learned-researching-books/
& https://allthingsliberty.com/2013/05/battle-wounds-never-pull-an-arrow-out-of-a-body/
Bullet Wounds
http://heroesnetwork.forumotion.net/t1273-how-to-dig-a-bullet-out-of-yourself <— Questionable, but its a fantasy game so…
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/WeHaveToGetTheBulletOut
Thank you for reading!
I’ve got notes on tourniquets, stitches, bandages, how to stop bleeding and have also lined up older techniques such as using maggots (or the WoW equivalent), tilapia skin for burns (the WoW equivalent, or my view on it), etc! I’ll update the log as I post! 
![:wink:](https://d1bg94bbsh66ji.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/wink.png?v=6" ":wink:")
![:blush:](https://d1bg94bbsh66ji.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/blush.png?v=6" ":blush:")
![:slight_smile:](https://d1bg94bbsh66ji.cloudfront.net/en/wow/images/emoji/twitter/slight_smile.png?v=6" ":slight_smile:")