#it's something im planning to edit (along with alchemy as well but i mentioned that a few times before already)

[northern-passage]

oh hey that ask kind of tangentially reminded me! if you’ve given it any thought, i was wondering what prosthetics and other mobility aids look like in the world of the game! are there any magically powered ones, and things like that? thanks, hope you’re having a good day!

hi :-)

i've thought about it a bit; funnily enough the lift in blackwater wasn't actually something i had originally planned for the city, until i started writing the first route in ch1 with Merry, going down to the docks, and realized that... it was all completely inaccessible. and now that's like a staple feature of the city, and i can't imagine the setting without that lift.

i do have a character that we'll meet in ch4 that has a prosthetic arm, and i'm still figuring out how i want it to work. i've talked a bit about how a lot of the medicine in tnp is a mix of magic, alchemy, and science, and i imagine mobility aids would be the same.

enchantments haven't been brought up in the game yet but we'll see our first one in the next update (and it's something i need to edit into the prologue....lol) but because of the flexibility with magic and alchemy, i think prosthetics would be super customizable and vary a lot depending on the person. i could see wood, bone, and metal all being used, with more practical or more aesthetic options available. the man we'll meet in ch4 is a fighter, so his actually works a lot like the bracer an alchemist hunter would have, and is made of leather and metal. he has functioning joints that are both mechanical and magical. with prosthetics (or any aid really that relies on magic) there would be some kind of enchanted "core" somewhere so that the user wouldn't have to drain their own magic to power it, and they would just have to go in to get it reinforced every now and then. typically enchantments are tied to runes or precious stones (like the stone Noel has in xir staff, Lea's tattooed runes or the hunter's runes on their bracers)

runes are the "weaker" option, though, and usually mean the enchantment is also tied to the person that set it (we'll see this in the next update) so for prosthetics it would definitely require a core, where the magic can be "stored", to avoid hurting the enchanter or the user. also the type of magic used in the core can affect the aid - air magic for wheelchairs that will allow them to hover and move around, earth magic in a cane to give it a "plant-like" look and also the ability to grow and adjust to the user, water and fire magic for cooling or heating braces to help with pain, etc.

i'm very against the idea of "magic'ing" disabilities away as i mentioned before, but the magic in tnp is definitely used to make life easier for those with disabilities, and provides more options and more accessibility than we have in real life.

like with HRT being available in the alchemist shop, i think enchanted cores would be something sold pretty much in every city all over the world; i think the trouble would come in the first hurdle of purchasing a core, and then the upkeep of the core. trained magic users could do it themselves, but most people are not trained or comfortable performing enchantments, and others don't have the money to pay for someone else to do it. in which case there are more mechanical options available, that rely more on alchemy to create the mechanism than magic. these would be less "aesthetically" pleasing aids and they would probably be slightly weaker, and it would limit what materials could be used, but would still give the user a lot of function without having to worry about a core.

otherwise, i think a lot of it would look like how it is in real life. there are glasses, and they would use little ear trumpets for hearing aids (and sign language is widely taught), there would be manual wheelchairs as well as non-magic canes/walkers/crutches etc.

i think overall people would get very creative with this kind of thing if they had access to magic and alchemy, and i think we would see very inventive and interesting looking aids and prosthetics all around the world.