Surgical Skills

* **You cannot use any surgical skills on yourself**
* **Surgical skills require both hands free and your attention on your patient**

## Chirurgeon

* **You must purchase chirurgeon before you can take any other surgical skills**

If you spend at least 30 seconds of appropriate roleplaying treating a character who is bleeding to death, then you can restore a single lost hit. The bleeding character's death count is paused while you treat them. This skill has no effect on a character who is not on zero hits. You must complete this time without being interrupted. If your character is a physick, you may also apply a single herb during this time.

## Physick

* **You can use appropriate roleplaying to treat a range of conditions**
* **You can also apply herbs to an affected character to treat them**
* **You cannot use this skill on yourself**

If you spend at least 2 minutes of appropriate roleplaying treating a character then you may restore the use of a limb ruined by the CLEAVE or IMPALE call or treat the effects of a traumatic wound. Some traumatic wounds require longer than 2 minutes of treatment, as directed by the trauma card.

* If you spend at least 3 minutes of appropriate roleplaying treating a character who is terminal then you may allow the character to act as if they are not in pain.

If you spend at least 5 minutes of appropriate roleplaying treating a character who is wounded then they regain all lost global hits after ten minutes of rest and relaxation. This roleplaying can **only** be performed in a tent or similar building suited for use as a physick's chamber - it cannot be performed on a battlefield.

You can also use this skill to attempt to diagnose what is wrong with a patient. You must ask a ref if there is anything else you can tell about your patient, and what you can do to fix the problem.

You can also apply medicinal herbs directly to a patient to treat them. There are five herbs in Empire, each can be used to treat a different effect. You must spend at least 10 seconds of appropriate roleplaying to apply a herb, but it is possible to apply a single herb while spending thirty seconds treating a character using the chirurgeon skill.

Herbs are produced by a Herbalist, and are measured in *drams*. Any character can choose to start as a Herbalist, which is a profession. A starting herbalist produces fourteen herbs per event, six drams of False Vervain and two of each of the others.

## Apothecary

* **Herbs can be mixed to produce a potion that can be taken by any character**

You are able to mix herbs together at an event to produce a potion that recreates the effects of the herbs but that can be drunk by any character. It requires five seconds of appropriate roleplaying to drink a potion.

This skill gives you the ability to mix all five of the Apothecary Potions automatically. You can take the extra recipe skill to learn how to make additional potions.

## Extra Recipe

You can choose one additional recipe set of potions that your character knows how to make each time you purchase this skill.

## Further Reading

* You can find a useful, short article about medicine and healing in the Empire world here.