Covert Hospital Building / Landmark in Manifold Sky | World Anvil

Covert Hospital

The Sorority of Solace is a charitable organization most famous for its medical outreach programs. Because of the deliberately non-partisan nature of its ongoing mission of mercy, the Sorority often finds itself playing host to patients who, for one reason or another, are at odds with one another. For example, soldiers from opposite sides of the War of Reunification might unknowingly be treated in the same facility for injuries sustained in that war, or travelers from the famously rowdy Burning Hearts Social Club might have need of medical services where their enemies in the Avarix Corpsare also active. Fugitives, absconders, combatants, and spies - the Sorority doesn't judge what people do outside of their clinic.   Unfortunately, while the non-partisan nature of the Sorority makes it able to travel and operate with relative impunity in its quest to bring peace to the Manifold, it also sometimes puts them at odds with state and non-state actors with agendas of their own. For example, a Biocosmist apostate to the Church of the Unexpected might find themselves pursued by Daughters of Misfortune - even into the domains of the Sorority. As such, the Sorority has taken to creating carefully secured and hidden medical facilities to continue their mission in relative peace. Known as 'covert hospitals,' these hidden medical facilities are spaces of healing and intrigue in equal measure.

Architecture

Covert hospitals are often constructed in spaces loaned to the organization by individuals, families, and businesses sympathetic to their casue. For example, the Vestra Inn in Vestra houses a covert hospital beneath its sub-basement that serves numerous Grand Army of Voxelia and Coalition Defense Forces casualties generated by the constantly shifting front in the nearby Booming Hills Range. Intercostia, with its independent government and heavily fortified infrastructure, is also known to contain at least one covert hospital.

Defenses

Covert hospitals are often situated deep in pre-existing underground spaces, the entrances to which are hidden behind false walls, moving bookshelves, piles of empty crates, rock jumbles, or fallen timber. A defensible antechamber will usually be set up, prefferably in a way that allows the hospital's defenders to surveil any would-be trespassers from concealment. In cases where the Sorority's hosts are wealthy or powerful enough to discourage snooping, the hospital may instead be 'hidden in plain sight' within a private villa, guest house, or folly.   The charter of the Sorority discourages killing or injuring opponents except when absolutely necessary in the course of self-defense, but temporarily incapacitating opponents is fair game. Methods of accomplishing this include creating pockets of hallucinogenic or sedative gas. Hidden defenders clad in HC-1 "Meantwig" Hazardous Condition Auto-Armor and carrying paralytic GF-1 "Tarantula" Assault Needlers will sweep in to capture and interrogate those who fall into this trap. Mercenaries and members of allied organizations, such as the Burning Hearts, can provide muscle when a more vigorous defense is required - so long as the Sorority's own image of neutrality is not endangered thereby.

Tourism

The Sorority imposes an oath of silence upon all 'guests' in their covert hospitals; as long as they agree not to reveal the presence of the hospital to any outside party, people of any stripe can seek treatment therein. Occasionally, non-Sorority specialists sympathetic to the organization will offer their services to the organization when the Sorority's own abilities won't do, though these are carefully vetted to ensure that the covert hospital remains undetected.

Owning Organization


Cover image: by BCGR_Wurth

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