This was posted on August 19th, 2014 and was part of a ‘series’ where people asked questions about Windemere. Not the characters, but the world itself. This was fun because not everything can be tossed into the books without an info deep and small details can be missed.
White Mage from Final Fantasy
This is a fair question since magic can do so much, especially when you have healing potions and magic doctors. So many people get confused when people are dying of diseases and injuries. It gets even more baffling when you have priests who heal people for free. That removes the concept that people can’t afford a healer, which happens a lot in an attempt to either explain the existence of diseases or make all priests in the world come off like greedy bastards.
Windemere has a few reasons why diseases still exist. The smaller reason is that priests are not everywhere. You get sick in the wilderness, at sea, or in a town without a healer then you can die. Priests are also not stationed everywhere so there are areas where you need to send for one or pray to the gods that one happens by. Even then, there is no guarantee that the disease can be cured. That brings me to the main reason people still die from getting sick.
I’ve mentioned a few times that everything in Windemere has a magical aura. I mean EVERYTHING! For example, inanimate objects have them even though they rarely put up a form of defense against magic. So it isn’t too hard to believe that disease possess their own aura and magical resistance. This means that a priest needs to get his or her aura to override the disease, which factors in the following:
- Experience of the priest. Younger followers will be weaker and only get stronger through experience. Old priests with a high cure rate rarely travel too because of their age.
- Severity and duration of the disease. The longer and more severe, the harder to cure.
- Resistance of the disease much like how we have Antibiotic Resistant Viruses.
- God of the priest. Neberith the Goddess of Healing would give more oomph than Skragor the God of Disaster.
- Overall health of patient’s aura. A priest can boost their own success by utilizing their patient’s inner magic, but you have a problem if that has been weakened.
So you can see how curing a disease in Windemere isn’t as easy as hurling a fireball at a goblin. This is why priests don’t charge for the service because they can never guarantee success. There are a few potions that can do it, but those take a long time to make and cost a lot. Potions, scrolls, and other items like that are how temples make money beyond donations. Even then, there’s always a chance that the disease might react poorly to the potion and the situation gets worse.
Guess now everyone can see why Aedyn Karwyn spends so much time praying.
Legends of Windemere 
Very interesting. It’s nice to have all this figured out, without the info dump some resort to. Readers of certain genres have to take a leap of faith, and I think it’s appropriate in this instance. Those who live there would already understand the world and how it works. They wouldn’t normally talk about it. I also think it’s a great blog post, because your fans get a little bit extra.
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Very good point on the leap of faith. I’m always seeing people on-line pointing out flaws or questioning stuff, but then they get annoyed at the info dump. Just can’t win, but I hope that putting the information on my blog can help to some extent.
Some things like how magic works and cultures can work in the book because you can have a character who doesn’t understand. For a while, I used Luke Callindor for this. Yet, as you said, the more basic stuff is known to the inhabitants and having them talk about it comes off as awkward at times.
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ok now I’m going to ask one of those silly questions… Where is Windemere? I am enthralled by magic, myths and legends and would love to visit this enchanting place. Please excuse my ignorance 😉
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It’s another world that’s a few dimension jumps away from our reality like Narnia and Oz. Another way to get there is to read the ‘Legends of Windemere’ series. 😉
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Ahhhh I see. Will have to take a virtual leap and read ‘Legends of Windermere’
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Enjoy the ride when you take it. 🙂
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The outsider is a good trick, and I’ve used it myself. The newb is another one, when invited into a sect, knighthood, samurai band, etc.
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The outsider is one of my favorites. It doesn’t even have to be a big role. A character from that world simply wouldn’t know the information and has the desire to ask. One of Delvin’s old friends is like that with always asking questions.
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I guess I’m a leap of faith type. I read along and accept the facts as presented.
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A fun and relaxing way to do it too. 🙂
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The answer to the question of “why do you read?” “Why do you write?”is a totally different story.
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And it differs for every person. 🙂
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Such a great topic. I never thought to question why diseases are still around, since that’s how life is. Not every disease is cured. And I agree that genre readers have to take a leap of faith. The fact that people still get sick provides great conflict.
It’s sad that people are so ready to criticize. I’d like to see them tackle a complex fantasy series like Windemere!
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The question stemmed from the idea that magic would remove the threat of disease. It gets used as an ultimate solution so often in stories that people might be confused that a magical world would have any mundane hardships like disease or starvation.
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Since magic never really removed the threat of death, it stands to reason that magic has limitations. I love what Garth Nix did with magic and the issue of death in his book SABRIEL.
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Never got around to reading it, but a friend in college loved that book. Good point on how death existing means there are limitations.
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