By Peloquin (ka.vanadis@karlskrona.mail.telia.com)
A middle-aged woman, still alive (he could feel it, oh god he could really feel it), but just barely. Occasionally she would wake up and sob and cry, not even able to scream for help any more. The truck driver was out cold, having hit his own dashboard. Eric looked around. Although he had already called for an ambulance, it wouldn't be way out here for at least twenty minutes. Too long. The woman could be dead by then. With another look around, he ran across the road, heading for the remains of the smaller car. Luckily the woman wasn't stuck in any way; that would have made the whole thing pointless. He took off the rubber-clad gloves he usually wore, and put his hand on the nearest piece of bare skin, preparing himself for what he knew would come.
A bright flash of orange light, a sizzling noise and that familiar scent of lilacs. He stepped back. The woman opened her eyes in amazement as a reddish glow covered every damaged area (and the old scar she got when her bicycle fell over when she was just ten years old), healing her injuries within seconds.
"Who?"
He shook his head sadly, put the gloves back on, and started running down the road. Always the same. Always the same.
"You try making money when people are burning you at the stake for being able to do something they can't?"
They have always been here. Ever since humanity climbed out of the trees, and perhaps even before, the Healers have been among us. Once, they were an accepted part of society. Once. Before cities, before organized religions? Yes, they can heal with but a touch. It isn't something they can control. Yes, they know instinctively how badly someone is hurt, without even looking at them. Yes, they're persecuted and live in the shadows, but not because of some secret organization or great conspiracy, no, simply because of human stupidity and cruelty.
It all began when mankind started making cities. The concentration of so many people made the task of the then accepted Healers much more difficult, and sometimes their abilities weren't enough. Being human, the kin of the ones who were failed in this way began blaming the Healers, saying they only healed those they wanted to, that they had not healed their loved ones because they had some personal spite against them. Being human, they usually stoned, hanged, decapitated, burned at stakes and otherwise murdered Healers whenever they had the chance. After all, they shouldn't go around thinking they're better than us, should they?
The really sad part was that this never ceased. As humanity grew and grew, the role of the Healers changed from the local wise man/woman into the local scapegoat. Crops failed? Kill the Healer. Cow died? Kill the Healer. Your wife run off with the gypsies? Kill the Healer.
Still, Healers are born. Now, more than ever, their services would be needed, but the human attitude usually comes down to two sets of reactions. First, the single individual, thinking the Healer is a kind person for healing them when they were in pain, and wanting to tell the world about this amazing man/woman who helped them. This usually becomes a mass hysteria of hundreds, thousands of people storming the Healer with requests, sometimes reasonable, sometimes impossible or foolish ("Bring back my son from death!" "Heal my dog!" "Tell us who killed JFK!" "Stop world hunger!").
Then, when, naturally, the Healer cannot do all of this, the blind worship turns into cowardly hatred. And suddenly one of us hangs by an oak tree, with a broken neck.
It happened to the man who taught me.
Now will you be more careful when displaying your abilities?
The Technocratic research was a little more successful, unfortunately. The progenitors and the Iteration X are already thinking up ways to make first of all, cloned healers, and second, a way to make it acceptable to Technocratic paradigm. ("Hmmm -- biofeedback? Nah, we've already used that one.")
The power to heal people with but a touch comes from something we're going to refer to as a Link. This is not something the Healers or any other being in the WoD knows about, apart from perhaps the Technocracy who have performed extensive research on the Healers, and the Euthanatos, who do this sort of thing as a way of life. Imagine every living human being in the world being connected by an invisible web of life energy. Every time someone dies, his or her energy is left behind, drifting aimlessly in the ether until another person is conceived, taking over the energy. This way, noone ever truly dies. The problem is, this energy gets tangled up in strange ways, usually because of some metaphysical, Umbral area it drifts through, and when it is again linked to a new human being, it has not only increased immensely in power, but also changed, warped, become -- different.
So far, there are at least four "races" of beings who are created with these twisted energies. The Cursed, the Immortals (Highlander style), the Mortis and the Healers.
In the Cursed, the life energy does not allow the person it inhabits to die, keeping him in undying stasis. In the Immortals (Highlander-style) the energy goes a few steps in the same direction, but is somehow kept under rules. (Presumably, both of these has something to do with the Weaver, at least it would be a very reasonable explanation; it wants to keep things unchanged and ordered, remember?) In the Mortis, it manifests in a highly strange way of becoming a sort of conduit for other peoples life energy, guiding it into the ether safely (this could be because the entrapped Balancer Wyrm is attempting to halt the creation of further Cursed and Immortals, thereby draining the Weaver's power). And finally, the Healers, this energy becomes not only stronger, but overloads itself constantly, seeking to discharge itself in other people's life energy -- effectively healing them.
The trait that becomes of this is something we call Link; this is still not an In-Game term, rather an Out-Of-Character term, and yes, it has dots and everything, for all those of you who're sitting there with pens and character sheets in your laps.
First of all, the Link allows the Healer to see the faint webstrands of energy that connects every being (Perception+Link, diff:6), they call this the lifeweb, no capital letters. This lifeweb doesn't look very different from case to case, the exceptions being Kindred, Kithain (perhaps also the Kuei-Jin, from KotE), Cursed and Immortals (Highlander -- what, I've already made that clear? Gee, sorry). In the Kithain, the lifeweb becomes tangled with a different web, and shapes itself into a faint replica of the Changeling's fae mien. In the Kindred, the lifeweb is permanently disconnected. Although the higher the humanity (or Path), the stronger the faint remains of the connection becomes; vampires who have achieved Golconda are reconnected again. Cursed and Immortals show themselves to Healers as people with unusually strong and bright lifeweb connections.
If a Kindred were to drink Healer blood, he would probably gain a temporary dot in Fortitude (lasts one day), and the blood is considered unusually potent, one Bloodpoint equals two. If a Healer is Embraced, he loses his Healing abilities forever, but always has +1 die on all Humanity rolls (other Paths don't count)
Second, it allows them to see precisely how hurt the person is (Perception+Medicine diff: 4), and third, it heals them. The amount of health levels regained is equal to the character's rating in Link, so a Healer with 4 in Link would heal 4 health levels on a hurt person every time he touched them.
Healers cannot heal themselves with their own Link. A Healer may heal another of his kind, but not himself. The Healers also heal rapidly, healing any normal wound level within a day and any aggravated wound level within a week. Healers brought below Incapacitated, die -- end of story. They never scar.
The Link also allows a Healer to live longer; they still age, but a lot slower. For each level in Link, the character ages slower.
| Link | Ageing rate |
| 1-2 | 80% |
| 3-4 | 66% |
| 5-6 | 25% |
| 7-10 | 10% |
The Link first manifests itself in the early or late twenties, usually when the character is subjected to some trauma, like being hit, shocked by electricity, or something similar. The Healing, as described above, manifests itself in orange coloured flashes of bright energy or lightning, followed by a strange smell of lilacs. (Don't ask me why)
Anyone inspecting a Healer's aura will see a human aura that grows in intensity every two seconds and flares off a burst of orange energy.
Kindred: They take away what we give. Don't trust them for a second.
"They're not the only ones who can heal people -- a little blood here, a little there, and hey presto, no more wounds. of course, you become a ghoul, but everything has a price."
Garou: What? Werewolves? Um, right. Whatever you say.
"Useful little monkeys. 'Course, if they'd just sit down and relax, we could have a serious partnership -- as long as they don't try helping the apes."
Mages: Magicians? Like Houdini? No.
"Here's an interesting thing, whenever we check them, their purpose, their aims, their reincarnation cycle, they always come up as really, really really useful."
Kithain: Faeries? I've met some. They're kind of hard not to notice; they're the only ones whose life energy is multicoloured and tends to shape itself into a strange version of themselves.
"Oh yes, I know tons of these guys -- there are billions and billions of them out there. I swear!"
Wraiths: These are sad. They're the ones whose life energy has gotten itself disconnected. Then again, sometimes they act so evil and weird you wonder why they should even be reconsidered into the lifeweb.
"They did nothing for us while we lived; they do nothing to us while we're dead. Who cares."
Mortis: They're like us, only they serve a different purpose.
"Well, aren't they the lucky ones. You wouldn't believe what I'd give to be like them instead of -- this."
Highlander-style Immortals: Well, I don't envy them. I can tell you that.
"Likewise. I mean, we think we have it hard, having to switch identities every thirty or so years?"
The Cursed: Oh dear. Well, talk about getting the worst end of the bargain.
"We're connected somehow, though I still can't finger exactly how."
Abilities: 13/9/5
Backgrounds: 7 (Consider using only Backgrounds that can easily be transported; they move around a lot.)
Virtues: 8
Link: 1
Freebies: 21 (28 maximum)
Link freebie cost: 3
Link experience cost: Current x 5