Theoria Humoris

Like all things within the Venerated Republic the practice and application of medicine is both heavily tied into and regulated by the Venerated Church and its teachings. The basis of all medical theory stems from High Avatar Felenius, the embodiment of Compassion, who walked alongside Decus himself. It was she who first set out upon the path of curing the ailed and disparaged and was aided in this endeavor by the divine teachings of Decus.

Her practices were one of balancing both the body and the Virtues, for the soul could corrupt the body as easily as the body could the soul. She was said to possess immense knowledge of medicine and that her compassion alone was able to cure even the most sickly and desolate.

While her teachings and methods have been lost to the annals of time, one quote would become the very foundation of all future medical practices within the Venerated Republic. Seen as divine scriptures, as wholly truthful and unwavering as the words of Decus himself, she is recorded as having said, “Knitted together of limestone, ash, salt, sulfur, I stand in awe at the immensity of our creation.”

It is upon these words the practice of Humorism was eventually established by the monastic cloisters that would eventually become the Venerated Apothecary Corps. Combining the ideals of alchemical practices that were prevalent during the time with the foundations of Decusian teachings.

For centuries these fundamental humors have been the Decusian scientific understanding of the human body’s interaction with the environment, as well as defined the way in which disease and illness work, how emotions fluctuate, and the impacts of Virtues, Vices, seasons, diet, age, and sex on health.

Humorism is the idea that a body of creation is composed of four basic substances: limestone, ash, salt and sulfur. These are also referred to as the four ‘humors’, which are in balance when a person is healthy and become unbalanced when ailed. These substances also have four corresponding fundamental fluids: blood, choler (yellow bile), phlegm, and black bile.

The humors were also used to refer to four individual psychological temperaments: melancholic, sanguine, choleric, and phlegmatic. This reflects the humoral concept that physical health and individual personality were part of the same whole.

These methods extend to nearly all aspects of life, especially those related to the practice of faith and Virtue. Prayer may be prescribed to help balance a choleric temperament and penance for the sanguine. Those who lack or lax in the practice of faith are doomed to find their humors eternally unbalanced. It is believed through the following of Virtue and the good practice of faith one may ensure a balanced temperament, healthy body, and soul.

Due to the difficulty of balancing one’s humors, people tend to have a predominant humor which characterizes an individual’s temperament or ‘complexion’. People who are melancholic dominate present a dark and sad demeanor but are oftentimes creative. Those of the Sanguine disposition are vibrant and mirthful, oftentimes very social. Phlegmatic people are pale and listless, calm in demeanor and tone. Whereas those who present Cholerically are angry and jaundiced. A small amount of disproportion between the humors is expected and seen as perfectly normal and healthy. It is only when that imbalance begins to tip that we may fall ill and it is only through bringing those humor back in balance that one might recover.

The ideal proportion is stated as: one quarter as much phlegm as blood, one-sixteenth as much choler as blood, and one-sixty-fourth as much melancholy as blood.

The foundation of medical treatment is the use of opposites to resolve imbalances. Treatments seek to target the overabundance, or deficiency, of any given humor and monitor the nuanced changes in the patient towards restoring their physical or mental health.

These humors can be brought back in balance through a vast variety of different methods, depending on the exact symptoms and cause of the imbalance. It may be as simple as changing your diet, as taxing as relocating to a different climate, or as invasive as the extraction of a limb.

Each Humor has a corresponding diet associated with temperament; Sanguine (sweet), choleric (bitter), melancholic (sour), phlegmatic (salty). A general health practice is to refrain from eating foods that match your dominate humor to ensure balance; a phlegmatic person would be told to ingest Choleric Foods, a Choleric person would ingest Phlegmatic foods. Melancholics would ingest a Sanguine diet and likewise Sanguine would ingest Melancholic foods.

When changes to lifestyle or diet fail or the imbalance is too great it falls to medicine and more drastic means to bring the humors to balance once again. Common treatments include: Bloodletting, emetics and purging.

As medical science has advanced, so too has the idea of humors and what they encompass. More advanced medicines and treatments generally become associated with a specific humor. Things like depressants, such as Lidogine, for example, are associated with melancholy, given to patients during surgery so that their choleric humor does not become imbalanced during the operation. Likewise, they may be given to a patient who exhibits prominent choleric traits in order to balance their temperament.

Mutagen, described as the ‘thread’ that ‘knits’ the four humors, is connected to all and is able to unbalance all four humors. Unlike the four humors, there is no ‘balance’ of the Mutagen humor, any addition would lead to an unbalance of the rest of the humors, therefore to be avoided. In order to balance one’s ‘mutagen’ one must balance one’s four base humors.

In more recent times the idea of a fifth humor known as “Mutagen” has begun to cause strife within the medical community. The first discovery of the humor dates as far back as 1214 AS when in the height of the Decusian renaissance when the first Modicum Oculus was created; allowing for observation of things invisible to the naked eye. From such study, an abnormality was observed which permeated throughout the blood – with concentrations within the brain. These abnormalities varied from person to person, and in the infancy of its study, displayed elevated levels of the mutagen with the criminally insane – which were the inventors main source of subjects.

For decades after, the study of Mutagen was forbidden by the Church. After the Torment (medically referred to as “Infirmus Aegrotus”) outbreak of 1313 AS it was found that those who possessed high levels of Torment saturation also possessed a heavy imbalance of the Mutagen humor. Only after this discovery did the Venerated Church decide to allow the Apothecary to further its understanding.

Mutagen, described as the ‘thread’ that ‘knits’ the four humors by its proponents, is connected to all and is able to unbalance all four humors. Unlike the four humors, there is no ‘balance’ of the Mutagen humor, any addition would lead to an unbalance of the rest of the humors, therefore to be avoided. In order to balance one’s ‘mutagen’ one must balance one’s four base humors.

Curiouser still, the Mutagen humor has been described as mutating when mixed with the mutagens from the blood of other beings of which the Apothecarians derived the humors namesake. The study of this phenomenon and the human body’s reaction is known as hematology.

The debate surrounding this new science is a contentious one. Conservative minds believe that the future of the Republic should focus on lessening that of the mutagen in the blood, specifically in enriching the soul through Virtuous living. Furthermore, that tampering with the humors to create new, unique mutagen humors is tampering with creation itself, and push the Ecclesiastical Authority to ban the practice outright.

With limited understanding, the conversation surrounding this humor is varying and ever-changing. Most Apothecary academics agree that an excess of Mutagen is believed to be the cause of delirium, or madness. Studies have shown that the exposure to Vice, or the practice of magic is believed to exacerbate an individual’s exposure to Mutagen. This comes as little surprise to the average scholar, as it is widely accepted in Decusian culture that the Resolve were the ones to re-introducing magic practice to the masses in the early years of Torment

“Knitted together of limestone, ash, salt, sulfur, I stand in awe at the immensity of our creation.” – High Avatar Felenius

Vapos Res Novae

The Vapos Res Novae, translated to common as simply the “Revolution of Steam”, is a phrase that appears to have been coined in a letter dated from the 12th of Flowerbloom, 1321, written by statesman and poet Pierse Octavius (hailing from the Eastern Baronies), and addressed to Foundry Seneschal Lord Kenneth Gambol. In what can only be called sensationalism, Octavius insisted in his missive that the Republic had begun a death march of sorts, crawling slowly towards the inevitable decline of Decusianism proper. Octavius writes: “It is without pleasure that I announce the death of our great Republic’s union between both Country and Faith. Though our efforts have long been aimed at the betterment of Man, it is clear that we are undeniably set upon a path of mutually assured self destruction. For nearly one thousand years, our great culture has struggled to meet the demands of a conquest steeped in religious fervor. Today, centuries into this great conquest, we reap the fruits of our labor; yet it is without joy, applause, or effort, for this fruit is indeed rotten. The Western Territories has all but been destroyed, ravaged by the Torment, and the Baronies is naught but a corpulent beast, assisted in movement by the burning of coal and the labor of a thousand strong backs of Foundry tradesmen. And though we have lived in comfort, it is a sad, decaying thing. It is not by chance that we have arrived at what will surely be an apocalyptic conclusion. Tragically, the Reckoning has, over the countless centuries, paved the way for a wagon that has now run away from the road; for it in our haste to meet the demands of an ever-growing empire, our advancements in both industry and technology has nearly devoured the very faith we claim it was to serve! Because of this, I implore you to place sanctions upon the Foundry and its officials, from the lowly laborer to the Seneschals themselves, lest we wake to find that the Republic has slipped the yoke of the faith and devolved into heresy – all at the hands of this revolution of steam.”

Indeed, the idea of a new social order based upon industry and convenience was popular throughout the Eastern Baronies, a region of Vitaveus that the Foundry has been well represented within, and the area that would become the birthplace of steam technologies. Before the onset of the Torment, and the coming of what many believe to be the Apocalypse, the fledgling beginnings of the Vapos Res Novae, or the Revolution of Steam, had been readily apparent. The experimentation of producing and harnessing steam as an energy source had been toyed with by the Foundry throughout the late 13th century. It had not been until the the early 1300s that a more progressive clerical atmosphere within the Venerated Republic of Decus had allowed for more widespread experimentation and, in some cases, implementation of fledgling steam apparatuses within the Eastern Baronies. This adoption of technology that by it’s very nature had been so alien to the laymen of the 14th century had ignited a practical renaissance of technological advancement and discovery in countless fields of trade and science; a golden-era which is now referred to as the Vapos Res Novae.

While this renaissance was no doubt affected by the emergence of the Torment in 1313, it was in no way cut short. Indeed, the Torment has shaped the demands of society perhaps more than any other single event in the history of the Venerated Republic. Combined with the fledgling sciences birthed from the Vapos Res Novae, this synergy of renaissance and apocalypse resulting in exponential growth in fields dedicated primarily to the survival of mankind, such as medicine, weaponry, personal defense, and of course, biology. As a result of this rather unorthodox fusion of golden-age meets dark-age, technological marvels such as hand-held firearms and personal explosives now litter the Prodaian front, taking the place of unwieldy siege weaponry and heavy cannons. Apothecaries throughout the Republic have made few strides in the treatment of illnesses and diseases, but the invention of the hypodermic needle promises new discoveries, and new ideas. It too, is yet another by-product of the Revolution of Steam, and an exciting revelation to those involved in the field of medicine.

It had not been until the the early 1300s that a more progressive clerical atmosphere within the Venerated Republic of Decus had allowed for more widespread experimentation and, in some cases, implementation of fledgling steam apparatuses within the Eastern Baronies.

After all, one must not forget that it was nearly three hundred years ago, early in the 11th century of our grand Republic, when medical schools were forming in isolated portions in the Eastern Baronies, cataloging and dissecting whatever corpses they could procure. They even provided care to those desperate few with both the courage to go under the knife and the coin to pay for it. Such services offered at these oft mistrusted and maligned establishments included bleeding, leeching, dental extractions, amputations, the removal of cataracts, and trepanning. Today, In the 14th century; this is largely unchanged. Medical advancements in the republic have noticeably lagged behind those of the martial sciences and the predominant method of care for internal medicine relies on an understanding of balancing the Five Humors- phlegm, black and yellow bile, blood, and lastly, mutagen; which is believed to be a toxic element that corrupts and poisons the host’s blood, and even their mind. The most basic apothecary training dictates that these humors must maintain a nuanced balance for a fully healthy specimen, and it is the physician’s job is to bring stability to the patient’s body and mind regardless of what they need to cut off, remove, or burn away.

In a bizarre twist of fate, the Torment has changed how Decusians view medicine and it’s necessity in modern day life, and apothecaries have begun to ply their archaic and arcane trade on a willing populace, learning more about their craft each and every day. Most notably, their grasp of the fifth humor has grown in leaps and bounds with some apothecaries calling for it to be separated into its own category, called a mutation. These forward thinking Medicae have begun to establish a new field of Allopathy known simply as hematology; the practice of purposely bringing imbalance to the humors to enhance and improve physical and mental capacity. Among the more conservative factions of the Apothecary Corps, this practice has been compared to witchcraft and worse as the process purposely introduces mutagen to the body in large quantities- defying every standard care practice, as outside the hematologists themselves, it is believed that the introduction of the fifth humor to a human body is tantamount to becoming ‘of the ill’. These very same beliefs have added fuel to the fire regarding the persecution of mages, as the fifth humor has been found in higher than average quantities among those who practice the arcane arts when studied postmortem. Common theory dictates that these individuals are tainted by their craft, and it is mutagen that leads to the diseases of the mind witches often succumb to. Unfortunately, this has led those mundane individuals afflicted with mental illness and diseases of the mind to be associated with Witchcraft, Dae influences, and even the Ill.

Outside of medicine, progress reigns uninhibited. Factories have begun to spring up in the Eastern Baronies, and though many are now broken shells of wood and mortar in the wake of the torment, their purpose is not forgotten. The human powered assembly line has been introduced by Foundry efforts, expediting the forging process of simple items like nails, and there have even been fledgling efforts at mass producing simple blades from molds or even small metal plates.. With the advancements of metallurgy and forging, the process of getting iron from the mines and turning it into a steel blade to press into the hands of an eager Legionnaire has never been easier. Though trade routes are often cut off and made inert through outbreaks and worse, the Republic is strong, albeit dwarfed in size and scope in the past thirty years of hardship.

Unfettered growth has led to a mismatch of ethics, and capabilities in the Republic’s ability to shape the war effort, both at home and abroad. Indeed, while weaponry and the sciences have adapted in such a way that the Torment is no longer the overwhelming threat it may have once been, it does not seem to be advancing fast enough to save what is left of the Populi- despite the advent of so called ‘Holy Weaponry’, and technology which in other, more peaceful times might be described as monstrous and inhumane. Such ethical concerns are no longer pressing to the venerated Church of Decus, nor the citizenry that pay it tribute.

In a time where life is cheap, and Ascension is the only solace granted to a dying people, these technologies are a ray of hope. Where some might see weapons of destruction, capable of putting ten to fifteen bodies to the torch in seconds, others see Redemption incarnated. A redemption granted through chemical concoctions brought to the front by the Foundry which has gained unprecedented influence throughout the republic by stepping into the role of technocrat saviors, bringing hope in some of the darkest times the Republic has ever faced. This hope is not without cost, and efforts are driven by what amounts to slave labor, from both willing citizens, and penitent criminals forced into providing what the Republic needs to buy off their sentence. These camps experience horrific conditions, but nearly every worker performs their duties without complaint. Propaganda throughout the Republic sees such individuals as heroes, strong and resilient workers that any man or woman can aspire to be, and for the first time in a millennia, there is pride in taking Civis Vox under the foundry- joining the machine that has driven the steam and clockwork revolutions, aiming to to save mankind from sure destruction. Never mind that the machine requires blood, sweat and tears to turn its wheels- for in some regions with high Foundry presence, such a thing is now viewed as an honor on par with joining the Legion or becoming a Clergyman. This has come part and parcel with the technocratic revolution, and has given rise to a secular brand of Decusianism that is worrying to members of the Church, but is allowing access to the common citizen’s motivations and desires in ways they had previously not managed. Specifically – the poor and destitute; the Everyman. As war machines like flamethrowers, muskets and handheld piston saws move from the factory floor to Legion hands, so too does the heart of the Republic swell and grow- with more and more of mankind turning their eyes to ascension, taking pride in their church and way of life.

Hall of Wisdom