When
the Severing ended many
Aotran magic users' connections to
the Myth, it halted medical progress, too: so much of Aotran medicine was bound up in restorative magic that it was impotent without magic. In combination with the devastating loss of life caused by the Severing, the sudden lack of the ability to conduct medical treatment left Aotran clinics grasping at straws. In the wake of the destruction of contemporary medical practices, what rose from the ashes were techniques much older: occult practices of traditional apothecaries and herbalists which had long been confined to the shadows of true magic. Perhaps most important among the renaissance of occult healing is mycomancy, the science or art of medicinal fungus cultivation and preparation.
Birth and Rebirth
Mycomancy is, like much of the occult, an incredibly old practice; it is difficult to estimate exactly when it developed, but there is evidence medicinal fungus cultivation dating back approximately four thousand years. Mycomancy and herbalism were crucial medical sciences for much of human history. After humankind harnessed magic, though, widespread access to the objectively-quicker and more reliable magical healing lead to the decline of occult healing. Some communities did maintain their practices of mycomancy and herbalism, particularly those that are small and remote enough not to have predictable access to restorative magics, and a few families passed their knowledge of it from generation to generation, but by the time the Severing struck, there were at least as many who had never even heard of mycomancy.
That changed quickly when it became apparent that restorative magic was no longer as reliable or commonplace as they were prior to the Severing. Community apothecaries, though numbering few at the time, rose to the challenge of filling the void left in Aotran medical practice. Over the following three years, occult healing grew more popular than it had been for thousands of years, and thousands trained, apprenticed, and began working as apothecaries, herbalists, and mycomancers. Mycomancy now thrives across Aotra.
The State of the Art
Now, with the attention focused upon it over the past few years, mycomancy has reached new heights. With fresh eyes and new talent, innovation abounds. While the details of the science could fill volumes, the fundamentals of contemporary mycomancy are as such:
Mycomantic remedies exist for most common diseases, like sunsickness and winter fever.
Mycomantic treatments cannot rapidly heal wounds, but they can support and accelerate the body's natural healing. A salve applied to a burn will not fix it in the same way that a curative spell would, but it will ensure it heals much more quickly than it would untreated.
Mycomancy depends on carefully-cultivated fungi. While most of the fungi most commonly used as part of mycomantic remedies were once wild, contemporary mycomancy relies on cultivations developed over hundreds, if not thousands, of years; a mycomancer's fungi are likely unique.
Mycomancy exists alongside herbalism, though the two are not the same. Smaller communities may have a single apothecary who functions as both an herbalist and mycomancer, while larger communities may have multiple specialists of each sort.
Mycomancy remains "the common man's healing", even as magic users begin to pop up again post-Severing. The few casters of restorative magic that remain are not enough to support the population; that job falls to community occult healers.
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