EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
And even that physicality is not so strictly bound as some want it to be. Someone can recover from shock (which is usually what actually kills people in a number of violent-injury situations), or at least hold at bay the dangers of shock, due to external stimuli--like someone shouting at you. A rush of hormones, a delayed stress-response or (more likely) stress-relief response, a conscious effort to stay focused on breathing...these things can LITERALLY save lives, because the injuries can be more reparable than the breakdown of circulatory function.Almost the entirety of all hit points are strictly nonphysical. It is actually the absence of hit points - 0 hp - that becomes physical.
All this to say: it isn't actually unphysical to 'heal' someone by shouting at them. It sure as hell isn't something one can easily control, but that's already true of half or more of the amazing things D&D characters do on a daily basis that don't have a lick of magic in them at all. Motivation alone literally can keep someone going long enough for "real" medical treatment (as though treating shock were somehow virtual medical treatment?) to arrive.
"Perhaps it is magic: the magic of the human heart, focused and made manifest by technology. Every day, you here create greater miracles than the burning bush."The Warlord is a powerful healer, a healer of the soul, galvanizing resolve, energy, determination, alertness, responsiveness, hope, and ingeniously and reliably discovering a way forward.
None of this is magic.
Normal humans do this every day.
"Maybe. But God was there first, and He didn't need solar batteries and a fusion reactor to do it."
"Perhaps; perhaps not. It is within that ambiguity that my brothers and I exist. We are dreamers, shapers, singers, and makers. We study the mysteries of laser and circuit, crystal and scanner. Holographic demons and invocations of equations. These are the tools we employ, and we know...many things."
"Such as...?"
"The true secrets. The important things. Fourteen words to make someone fall in love with you forever. Seven words to make them go without pain. How to say goodbye to a friend who is dying. How to be poor. How to be rich. How to...rediscover dreams when the world has stolen them from you. That is why we are going away, to preserve that knowledge."
I cannot overstate how much Babylon 5 shaped my understanding of fiction, both science and fantasy. Possibly the only thing that can equal it is Myst, and in particular, not the game (which was good, but not that impactful), but the novel, Myst: The Book of Atrus.