Duil Healthcare

> *Note: The following page is currently a bit of a catch-all for any lore related to specific medical proceedures or treatments that have been known to take place in Duilintinn.*
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The healthcare system in Duilintinn is run by the Noble Houses, who ensure that everyone has access to at least a doctor in their town. On a more intensive level, the Lifeworker Institute trains and creates hospitals across Duilintinn, most notably the Iolla Sanitariums.

## Medical Knowledge

### History

In the early days of Duilintinn, there was a BIG disparity between the understanding of the human body in House Schneeplestein versus normal everyday doctors around the kingdom. Thankfully, the vast majority of middle-aged doctors in Duilintinn are now training in the Lifeworker Institute and its various offshoots. As a result, the quality of healthcare throughout Duilintinn has drastically improved over the last few decades.

Prior to Duilintinn’s founding, most ordinary doctors were still in the “well, this worked before but we don’t know why, let’s do it again” phase of medical treatment. Now, the doctors of House Schneeplestein are able to do basic surgery, formulate working medicines, and prevent the spread of many devastating diseases. However, while disease immunity and resistance are known phenomena, vaccines have yet to be discovered.

### Magic

In addition, Duilintinn's magical revival has resulted in a surge of mages wishing to use their skills in the medical field. As a result, healing magic and healing enchantments have become another invaluable tool for Duilintinn's healthcare. However, due to the limitations, risks, and side effects inherent to both forms of magical recovery, traditional methods are still extremely relevant.

### Copper

The people of Duilintinn have known about the antimicrobial properties of copper for ages. They don’t understand why, but every doctor worth their salt knows that copper tools reduce infection rates like crazy.

## Disability Treatments

Disabilities are a complicated topic. People want to increase awareness and acceptance of many disabilities, but simultaneously warn against romanticizing them. This paradox stems from the two types of disability struggles: those that are caused by social/environmental factors and those that would exist regardless of your environment. For example, a person with an amputated leg who can’t get around much due to a lack of wheelchair ramps is struggling with a problem in their environment. In contrast, the phantom pains that often accompany amputations are a struggle that would occur no matter what. Anytime you talk about disability, you need to address both types of struggles.

The Duil are not going to sit idly by and let someone with a disability be excluded from the widespread cultural desire to bring comfort, connection, and unity to everyone in the kingdom. As a culture, people in Duilintinn will go out of their way to accommodate people with specific needs, and taking the time to do so is considered the norm. It’s like checking if any of the kids at a summer camp have allergies and ensuring that they get food that won’t hurt them, only to a greater extent. One of the simplest examples of this cultural norm is how all of the noble lords and King Sean himself learned sign language when the future Lord Jameson joined their band of adventurers.

However, there is little that accommodations can do to resolve the disability struggles that are unaffected by your environment. Thankfully, that’s where the combined minds of the Lifeworker Institute, Mages' Guild, and Inventors' Guild come in. Medicine can help a lot with pain and physical ailments, magic can help a lot with finding new ways of expressing things that a disability of the brain would hinder, and invention can create mobility aids, prosthetic limbs, and even cool devices to aid in communication or other struggles. It will never be a perfect fix, and sometimes you can't do anything about these sorts of things, but there are always people out there striving to find ways to make it a little bit easier.

## Gender Transition

No one has a problem with people identifying as a different gender than they were assigned at birth. The culture of Duilintinn and its Noble Houses revolve heavily around the concept of discovering who you want to be and figuring out where you feel most comfortable, and this applies to gender as well. Obviously, there will be jerks out there who are less accepting, but as a whole, the Duil don't have a problem with people exploring who they are and what they want to become in any area.

However, there's no specific name for this phenomenon, for the same reason there's not a specific name for people who switched houses. No one calls someone who switched into House Jackie a “House-Jackie-Transfer" or anything like that. They're just in House Jackie, and whether or not they want to share their history of house identities prior to that is up to them. Of course, that's not to say that people don't talk about gender identity and all that. Compare these two sentences:

> *“She is in House Jackie but her time in House Schneeplestein has given her a deeper appreciation for logical solutions.”*
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> *“He’s a boy but, since people saw him as a girl when he was younger, he sometimes worries he doesn’t look masculine enough.”*
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These are two very different life experiences, but both are essentially about the same concept: figuring out who you are and where you belong. What house you were born into wasn’t your choice, and no one will blame you for finding somewhere better for you (except for absolute jerks). Since we don’t have a word for people who weren’t originally in the house they are in now, we don’t have a word for people who weren’t originally the gender they are now. You just switch, and people accept that.

In addition, what further steps you take to make yourself more comfortable with the switch and your place there is your choice. Some people move to House Jackie because they identify with the culture there, but keep their job as a farmer and never learn to fight. Others move to House Jackie and immediately begin training to join the guards. Similarly, some people identify with a different gender but don’t feel the need for surgery or hormones, while others want to look like how they identify and take steps to feel comfortable in their bodies.

There are many magical and medical equivalents to taking hormones or getting transition surgery in Duilintinn, and even some clothing items specially designed to mitigate or enhance certain masculine or feminine features, just like there are programs in place to help people switch houses within the kingdom. It’s actually an excellent analogy. And, of course, this applies to nonbinary folks as well.

## Veterinary Care

The Lifeworker Institute trains vets as well as doctors for people, so Duilintinn's ability to treat injured and sick animals are about on par with our knowledge of how to treat various human ailments.

In particular, Duilintinn is known for being well-versed in equine medical care. Duilintinn as a whole is interconnected first and foremost by horseback, so overall, there's a kingdom-wide priority on making sure our horses stay healthy, which is reflected in our knowledge of how to care for them. We may know more about caring for horses than we do most other animals within Duilintinn.

The Wander Legacy as a guild relies very heavily on horses; most members either raise them or ride them. As a result, this guild is very invested in understanding how to care for their steeds on a practical level and often cooperate with the Lifeworker Institute in that regard.