Nurse (5e Background)

Nurse

Evidence based. You are not a simple healer, hedge doctor, or sage. With tired; but sure hands, you care for your patients. You recognize the holistic nature of the healing arts. And as a result of this, can identify the connection between the physical, metaphysical, and psychological better than most. Be it dressing a wound or listening to the regretful musings of the old town drunk, your presence is resonant, calming, and usually well received. Your life is one released to subservience and to the strength of your team. Or; have you become jaded by the hypocrisy found in helping those who refuse to accept it? Tired of helping the sick who foster their own despair, you revolt. Releasing yourself from the bonds of your trade you use your knowledge to hurt instead of heal. You recognize that death has the ultimate curative effect. What happened to drive you towards one of these paths; to leave the familiarity of your home; to become, an adventurer?

Skill Proficiencies: Medicine, Nature

Tool Proficiencies: Herbalism Kit

Languages: one of your choice

Equipment: a set of common clothes, a healers kit, a roll of bandages, two scalpels, and a pouch containing 10gp

Specialization

Although nursing skill sets transcend specialization, focus on a specific population increases your affinity to care for them.

d6	Specialization
1	Trauma
2	Pediatrics
3	Geriatrics
4	Operating Room
5	Critical Care
6	Administration

Feature: Breath of Life

Battle rages around you. Life, death, salvation, destruction, you close your eye. Breathe. You can't help them right now. Your eyes open as you crouch over the limp and bloodied person before you. You can feel a faint pulse in what appears to otherwise be a lifeless husk. And with that, the task is clear. Head tilted back, two hard and steady breathes to force out the demon who is stealing this persons life force. Pressure to the wound. A poultice. Two more breathes. A forceful gasp as life returns.

This is your charge. As a purveyor of life you are welcome in most places. And because of your inherent value most; but the most desperate, will leave you unmolested if you are directly observed practicing your trade.

Alternate Feature: Angel of Death

You are an expression of surrender's last embrace. Your distorted sense of compassion places extreme emphasis on the release found in death. You care about your fellow man. And, this palpable compassion, is evident by those who surround you. Because of this you are afforded access to places typically left blocked to other travelers.

Suggested Characteristics

d8	Personality Trait
1	I frequently make up what I can not remember.
2	I accept that this job is dirty, hard, and thankless.
3	I feel that the best practices are those which are tried and true.
4	I prefer the night shift. /wink
5	I think that doctors are only able to function because we let them.
6	I doubt my ability to keep doing this and maintain my sanity.
7	A personal loss drives me.
8	I hold my profession above all others.

d6	Ideal
1	aid. Every sick or wounded person deserves my help, regardless of the life they lead. (Good)
2	choice. Everyone should do what they love at some point in life. (Chaotic)
3	greed. Sure i will help you. If you pay. (evil)
4	Growth. I always try to improve. (any)
5	survival. We are all in this together, for better or for worse. (Neutral)
6	Empathy. I don’t want people to suffer. (Good)

d6	Bond
1	Many of my relatives were wanted criminals. I feel a duty to end this pattern.
2	The world wishes for me to save, so I will.
3	My job is my life.
4	I am empathetic towards those who have lost loved ones to death or disease and try to help them.
5	Family is everything to me.
6	I took up the profession because someone close to me died of something treatable.

d6	Flaw
1	The sight of blood makes me queasy, and I can only treat those who have no external wounds
2	I put others before myself too often, and as a result I don't take very good care of myself.
3	Why do adventurers never bathe? It's annoying and disguising.
4	The injuries I've seen have haunted me
5	I have a tell that reveals when I’m lying.
6	I have an obsession with death.

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