CREDO
“Reuse, restore, recycle.”
WHO THEY ARE
When the rules of reality are so often broken, time becomes a suggestion as opposed to a law. No one knows how the Healers do it, much less the Healers themselves, but they can rewind time around them – and good luck to whoever gets caught in the blast. The name is considered both truthful and ironic; while Healers are restoring things to their previous state, that state could be worse off.
The past, to a Healer, is a sequence of captured states. Anything that was once can be again, but anything beyond the current moment is an impossible soup of potential. Healer powers only work in the past and they have a dim view of anything claiming to be divination or influencing the future.
While there’s no such thing as a Healer personality, they do tend to be a little bit impish when it comes to how they use their powers. Only a fool starts a prank war with a Healer.
JOINING
It takes a lot of imagination and focus to be a Healer; it’s hard to hold multiple different states of time in your head simultaneously. As a result, there are never enough Healers and they aggressively recruit (some might say poach) among Hands – both current and potential – if they think you have what it takes.
POWERS
All powers are once between Rests and take an Action to activate unless otherwise stated.
NOTE: DON’T BE IN THE BOUNDARIES OF A HEALER’S POWER UNLESS YOU WANT TO BE INCLUDED. THEY REALLY, REALLY MEAN IT. YOU WERE WARNED.
AT MY BEST, AT YOUR WORST (LEVEL 1)
A Healer may examine a space as large as LoS and know the best and worst condition everything within it has been in the last day per level. This doesn’t change anything; only provides information. This can be used as often as the Healer wishes, but requires an Action to do in combat.
AS YOU WERE (LEVEL 3)
A Healer may rewind all objects within a square no larger than [LEVEL number of squares wide] to a preexisting state. Only non-living entities are affected. This doesn’t fix anything unless the objects were in better condition before. The rewind window is relatively short – X days per level of the Healer. The Healer can select any time up until the current moment to rewind to. It is strongly recommended to use AT MY BEST, AT YOUR WORST before using this power.
SEAL FLESH (LEVEL 5)
The Healer can now affect living tissue, including sentient beings. This can be for good or ill. Yes, you can use it to resurrect the dead. Or redead the living. Have fun.
PLAY IT FORWARD (LEVEL 7)
The Healer can duplicate an unliving object for a short period of time. The object must be smaller than a one-room house and must be a past-state duplicate of an object as opposed to its present state. This object will persist for X (level of Healer) days before gently imploding. If used in combat, the time is shortened to rounds instead of days.
UNDO (LEVEL 9)
Whatever action or Action was taken prior to using this power is now undone. It doesn’t matter who did the thing; no they didn’t. The same action may be attempted but the Healer remembers what happened and the results.
GOALS
We have no idea where these powers come from or why we can use them in this way, so we need to study their limitations and full range of potential applications. Is no one else worried about this?
REALITY PHILOSOPHY: RESTORE
Do we grow from the philosophy or does it grow from us? Being able to rewind time – however limited the scope – means that someday, somewhere, a Healer might be able to bring back the Universe with its separate dimensions. One small problem: Healers can’t look beyond the Collapse. Time dissolves into noise beyond that point. Healers are always on the lookout for likely anchors – places which strongly resemble their pre-Collapse state – in the hopes that one of their own can eventually break through.
STRUCTURE
Healer powers can cause as many problems as they solve, if not more, so the Guild keeps a close eye on its members; not for lack of trust, but because of normal sentient error. It’s easy to work while tired, forget the protocol, and fuck things up beyond repair. Every Healer has a handler: support staff that regularly check in with the Healer and reviewing power use. Some Guilds consider this overkill, but what the Guildmaster says goes, and he hasn’t led the Guild wrong yet.
GUILDMASTER
Arkha Lei Sumn, SriDOSi, UH10
Arkha Lei Sumn has seven arms, eight prehensile bone tails, and a permanent frown. To call Arkha a grouch would be rude to other grouches. He has the harried expression of someone with too much to do who refuses to delegate. The Guildmaster isn’t wrong – Healers are in tremendous demand due to their unique abilities. However, much of his exasperation stems from how little others understand what those abilities actually do and their limitations. The name of the Guild is also a point of contention for him and many within it – Arkha feels that the manipulation of time, however localized, should be examined in greater depth. Everyone’s so busy though and there’s always so much to do…
Arkha genuinely adores looking after others. He’s just an asshole while he does it.
BENEFITS
Your own personal handler. Need extra supplies in the field? Need to get a message to CORSAIR super fast? Your dedicated support staff is available to help you. They still need to sleep, however.
TITHES
Everything you do is closely watched and analyzed after the fact. While everything short of a catastrophic fuck-up will simply be acknowledged and filed away, the surveillance can bother some Hands. Being able to rewind time is a big responsibility.
ACCORDS/TABOOS
ANY POINT ALONG A VECTOR
ACCORD: The Healer manipulates a timekeeping device backwards and forwards while meditating. This takes at least an hour but feels longer or shorter to the Healer.
TABOO: The Healer must service and protect the timekeeping device if at all possible.
DRINKING THE DREGS
ACCORD: The Healer marks a broken circle on the ground around them and begins stating grievances. For whatever reason, the circle absorbs the sound and no one but the Healer knows what they said.
TABOO: The Healer cannot repeat these grievances to someone else before their next rest.
UN/FOCUS
ACCORD: A Healer sits with an object they’ve rewound, noting its changes and what was potentially lost in the rewind.
TABOO: The Healer cannot willingly, knowingly use that item until their next rest.