Order of the Bleeding Heart

Although modern medicine’s popularity has grown in leaps and bounds through the last few centuries, it is still very much the newcomer to the village. Every town in the Empire has a shrine or temple to the healing goddess Shallya, and the Order of the Bleeding Heart remains a trusted source of care. Emperor Karl Franz himself prefers the healing hands of the Shallyan High Priestess, despite his patronage of the Physician’s Guild. So why would anyone visit the unproved and often unhelpful doctors? 1a 1b

One reason is novelty—many consider medicine to be better than the tried and true approach, simply because it is new and must therefore be more “enlightened.” For others it is status: the temple is free, while doctors are expensive. Anyone who can afford a doctor makes sure to see one and takes care that his neighbours know of it. Soldiers, warriors and seafarers have always shied away from the Order, too, not least because its members are typically female. They have grown accustomed to the ministrations of the barber-surgeon or field doctor instead, despite the painful procedures and frequent amputations that occur in their care. Among soldiers the temple is only used for those too far gone to be saved, and when a soldier dies, he is often said to have “gone to the temple.”

There are also real differences in the services offered. The Order places emphasis on care, food and housing first, and medicine second. Their reliance on divine powers means that the mortal members themselves need not focus on perfecting their own skill or knowledge, which can of course lead to misdiagnosis. Rare are the members of the Order with a Heal skill above 50%, and the art of surgery is almost entirely unknown within its ranks, not to mention frowned upon. Some Shallyan priests have been so often called to deal with the mistakes of botched surgeries that they consider the practice as a whole to be akin to butchery.

Not every temple has an Anointed Priest in attendance, meaning that the higher-level magic required to treat the diseased, the pestilence-stricken and the insane is unavailable. Such ailments must therefore be left to doctors. Their effectiveness in treating the small plagues that arose in the aftermath of the Storm of Chaos has greatly improved their reputation. However, doctors do not offer hospitals or continued care; most work out of a single consulting room, and only the richest patients can afford regular home visits for chronic conditions. The elderly, the wasting, the incurable and the infirm only find help from the Bleeding Heart. Indeed, doctors often prescribe attendance for a week, month or year at a well-adorned Temple of Shallya, enjoying its mineral spas and restorative beverages.

Source
pg. 55