Field Surgeon Demo

Kessendorf is at war, one patient at a time. The Watch marches out to hold the timber roads, the Ostrau company's hired pikes march east to the Vennmark, and plague smoulders in the Tanners' Rows. The old Hospice of Saint Ildra is the Watch's field hospital now, and you are Kreuzer, its new field surgeon: in the ward, in the muster camp, in the tents behind the battle line. The table is never empty. Surgery the way it was done as a Sawdoctor.

Eight period instruments, each with its own motion: lancet, tongs, leech-pipe, gut thread, Saint's salve, tincture, cautery brand and scrying lens, and the bone saw when a limb is past saving. Ease an arrow through the muscle that grips it, rock a head loose from the bone, close a sabre cut muscle first and skin second, soften boiling pitch before you lift it, wind a tourniquet before you look for the bleeding vessel, and seal a sucking chest wound as the patient breathes out.

Some soldiers are carried in still in their harness: cut the straps, soak the padding out of the wound, and lift the plate away before the real work starts. Every action is graded, and clean chains raise your rank. Six peoples, six bodies to learn. Humans, dwarves, elves, orcs, hornfolk and giants all come to your table, and no two cut, bleed or heal alike.…