Source Player Core pg. 241
Source Player Core pg. 241
The Medicine skill embodies the desperate ingenuity that keeps civilization alive on the edge of cosmic chaos. Whether you're a guild-certified medtech with access to cutting-edge temporal stabilizers, a scavenger sawbones improvising with salvaged tech, or a Rift healer channeling chaotic energies to mend flesh, you are the guardian of life in a galaxy that wants you dead. Every patient saved is a victory against the void—and every death is a lesson in survival.
In the Starfall Galaxy, medicine is practiced in conditions that would horrify Inner Sphere academy instructors. Rift-tainted pathogens mutate faster than antibiotics can adapt. Temporal anomalies cause wounds that age or reverse healing. Black market stims keep crews functional but exact brutal costs. And the wounded can't always afford a guild-certified medtech—so they rely on whoever has steady hands, a medkit, and the will to act.
Medical practitioners range from:
Guild Medtechs: Chronologist-certified healers who maintain temporal stability in biological systems
Scavenger Sawbones: Self-taught field surgeons who've learned anatomy from salvaging cyborgs
Rift Healers: Mystics who channel chaotic energies to mend flesh—at unpredictable cost
Combat Medics: Military veterans trained to stabilize soldiers under fire
Street Docs: Underground practitioners offering cheap treatment, no questions asked
Medicine allows characters to diagnose ailments, treat wounds, stabilize the dying, and counter diseases and poisons. Even untrained characters can use Medicine for basic recall and specific first-aid actions.
Medicine Skill
The Medicine skill is the backbone of survival and resilience in the harsh, neon-lit cosmos. Where guild-certified medtechs scramble to patch wounds after Rift anomaly exposures, where scavenger crews stabilize dying comrades on derelict hulks, and where chronologist field teams rely on quick intervention to survive temporal flux—the Medicine skill is the thin line between life and void. In Starfall Galaxy, healing isn't just clinical—it's desperate, improvised, and shaped by the same survival-driven innovation that defines every other aspect of the setting.
Medicine Actions
Untrained
Administer First Aid
Recall Knowledge: diseases, poisons, wounds, and forensics.
Trained
Treat Disease:
Treat Poison:
Treat Wounds:
Non-Combat Applications
Medicine in Starfall Galaxy extends far beyond battlefield triage:
Forensic Examinations: Determine cause of death, identify Rift-taint exposure, analyze wound patterns from unknown weapons
Health Inspections: Assess crew fitness before Rift jumps, certify workers for hazardous environments
Medical Consultancy: Provide expert testimony in legal cases, advise on quarantine protocols
Prosthetic Integration: Help patients adapt to cybernetic replacements or bio-augmentations
Temporal Stability Monitoring: Chronologist medics track temporal flux in living tissue
Black Market Operations: Street docs perform unauthorized augmentations, treat criminals off-the-books
Societal Impact
Medicine has transformed Starfall society in profound ways:
Survival Economics: Access to skilled medical care is a measure of wealth and guild status. Commission Core citizens receive certified care; Frontier settlers rely on autodocs and self-taught medics.
Guild Power: Medical guilds wield enormous influence, controlling access to advanced treatments, temporal stabilization, and anti-Rift therapies. Guild clearance often determines who lives and who dies.
Augmentation Culture: Medicine blurs the line between healing and enhancement. Cybernetic limbs, neural implants, and gene-mods are routine—but medical experts gatekeep access.
Rift-Taint Management: Exposure to Rift anomalies causes unpredictable mutations. Medics who can diagnose and mitigate Rift-taint are invaluable—and often targeted by those who want to control their knowledge.
Temporal Medicine: Chronologist healers use time-manipulation to accelerate healing or reverse aging—but these techniques are experimental, dangerous, and jealously guarded.
Backgrounds
Background: Words
Medicine Feats
1st Level
Grants Training
Barathu Lore: From your upbringing, you’ve learned the ways of your people while also seeking to expand your mind in the fields of creation.
Requires Trained Proficiency
Battle Medicine: Words
Medicine Style
Through Desperate Times: You step up to lead during difficult times. You might have experienced a traumatic event, perhaps escaping a pirate ship during a mutiny, or you fought in some notorious battle. Your allies trust your instincts, knowing you’ll keep them safe.
Adventure Hooks
The Plague Ship: A derelict vessel drifts through Rift-Space, its crew dead from an unknown disease. The Commission offers a fortune for samples—but the pathogen is mutating, and the ship's automated defenses are still active.
Black Market Surgeon: A notorious street doc is the only one who can remove a neural implant tracking a fugitive NPC. But they're in hiding, hunted by both guild enforcers and criminal syndicates who want their skills—or their silence.
Temporal Toxin: A high-ranking official is poisoned with a chrono-venom that ages them decades per hour. The PCs must find the antidote—hidden in a collapsed Chronologist archive—before time runs out. But the archive is guarded by temporal anomalies that make traditional medicine useless.
The Medicine skill embodies the desperate ingenuity that keeps civilization alive on the edge of cosmic chaos. Whether you're a guild-certified medtech with access to cutting-edge temporal stabilizers, a scavenger sawbones improvising with salvaged tech, or a Rift healer channeling chaotic energies to mend flesh, you are the guardian of life in a galaxy that wants you dead. Every patient saved is a victory against the void—and every death is a lesson in survival.
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