The Common Work

Most of the Sisters' healing is learned skill. Their training includes cleaning and dressing wounds, stitching where necessary, splinting and setting uncomplicated fractures, treating burns, preparing medicines and poultices, nursing fevers and common illnesses, assisting with childbirth when needed, recognizing infection, and knowing when an injury or disease exceeds their ability.

A Sister's knowledge is practical and cumulative. Experience is valued as highly as books, and local Sisters learn the ailments, herbs, hazards, and seasonal illnesses of the communities they serve.

Gifted Healers

A minority of Sisters possess genuine magical healing ability. Such Gifts arise from Sídhe blood somewhere in the healer's ancestry. The connection may be obvious, or it may lie so far back in a family line that the Sister herself has no knowledge of it.

Gifted healing supplements rather than replaces medicine. A Gifted Sister still cleans a wound, sets a broken bone, controls bleeding, and tends the patient properly. Her Gift may strengthen natural healing, ease pain, resist infection, or stabilize an injury that ordinary healcraft alone might not overcome.

On rare occasions a Sídhe woman herself may choose the Sisters' vocation and join the Order. The Sisters judge such women by their work and conduct rather than by blood.

Care Without a Test of Faith

The Sisters do not require a patient to prove devotion to Ceros before receiving care. Those who come peacefully seeking help are treated according to need and the Sisters' ability.

Hospices and Hospitals

Wherever possible, a Cerosian temple maintains or supports a hospice staffed by the Sisters. Even a small hamlet may have a modest treatment room, a few beds, medicine stores, and one or more Sisters serving the surrounding countryside.

Larger towns maintain substantial hospices with several Sisters, while cities may support full hospitals capable of serious wound care, prolonged nursing, difficult illnesses, training, and the Order's traditional care of the dying and dead.

Supporting the Work

Local houses help support themselves by preparing and selling medicines, salves, washes, poultices, and other useful remedies at markets. Many are sold for little more than pennies so that ordinary families can afford them.

Those able to pay for treatment may do so; wealthier patrons often donate more, and grateful families sometimes leave gifts or bequests. Those who have nothing are still treated. Temples contribute buildings, supplies, land, or funds, while the Sisters' own resources help preserve the Order's independence.