An intriguing archetype with a few implicit built-in world-building details:
In spite of the Blight, there must be enough soil and seeds available for the Herbalist to grow their component herbs.
The references to alchemy suggest that Herbalism is a learned skill, not something that can be discovered innately. So that's already one possible story hook in itself; how did the Herbalist learn to concoct and use their oils? What the massage techniques?
By design, it already sets a more cheerful, upbeat, light-hearted option to the Bloodletter.
That said, it feels like a slight missed opportunity to introduce multi-type Archetypes. By explicitly drawing on both arbularyo and hilot traditions, it feels like an organic way to make a class that heals both Pestilence and one other secondary type:
Flesh - The massage heals physical symptoms of the disease (e.g. boils, lesions, rashes)
Soul - The whispered orasyon and hand movements drive out the spiritual corruption at the root of the disease
This has a direct effect on possible world-building, since the rules state:
Make sure your character’s healing ability is related to the problems faced by people in your world or caused by the Blight
An explicitly multi-type class potentially invites new ways to conceptualize the Blight, especially when combined with options from the Post-Fall Features prompt table.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I didn't notice the implications of some of the stuff I put down there that's cool.
Something that could be interesting is a character archetype that is fighting against the Blight head on (thinking somewhere around the creatures healing type but for plant life and food). I couldn't quite make it work with the Herbalist, and eventually leaned to heal those who are affected by the Blight instead. I think the Earth Guard Archetype really hit the nail on this one though
I never thought of the Herbalist being multi-type until you pointed it out. It got me thinking of how other healing types could intersect. I imagine you can imply a cyberpunk setting with a tech-body archetype, perhaps. So much cool stuff.
Comments
An intriguing archetype with a few implicit built-in world-building details:
By design, it already sets a more cheerful, upbeat, light-hearted option to the Bloodletter.
That said, it feels like a slight missed opportunity to introduce multi-type Archetypes. By explicitly drawing on both arbularyo and hilot traditions, it feels like an organic way to make a class that heals both Pestilence and one other secondary type:
This has a direct effect on possible world-building, since the rules state:
An explicitly multi-type class potentially invites new ways to conceptualize the Blight, especially when combined with options from the Post-Fall Features prompt table.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I didn't notice the implications of some of the stuff I put down there that's cool.
Something that could be interesting is a character archetype that is fighting against the Blight head on (thinking somewhere around the creatures healing type but for plant life and food). I couldn't quite make it work with the Herbalist, and eventually leaned to heal those who are affected by the Blight instead. I think the Earth Guard Archetype really hit the nail on this one though
I never thought of the Herbalist being multi-type until you pointed it out. It got me thinking of how other healing types could intersect. I imagine you can imply a cyberpunk setting with a tech-body archetype, perhaps. So much cool stuff.