Not quite fanfic

[DesertRose]

If you know about what you are scanning for. Know what it is and what it looks like magically, Than  yes, a Deryni can scan himself or his partner for vermin and then find magical ways of  de-lousing or de-fleeing oneself. If you don't know, you won't think about it.   So the first few merchants coming from Norway might pick up a few flees and take them home. Causing small pockets of outbreak of disease. Once the vector is figured out, which could take some time, then yes the Deryni would rid themselves of such things before and after each portal jump.  Just a little more expended energy, which might slow them down in their jump times, but in the long run, it would keep them and their families healthy.

Now there's a modern application of Deryni magic that would be useful to parents of school-aged children and school administrations!  A Deryni Healer for a school's nurse, who, upon discovering lice on a student, just magically delouses the student and the whole school.  No more nit combing and godawful lice shampoo! 

Useful. But not practical. It would take some time to conduct that delousing.

I would think that the practicality would depend upon the process itself.  Assuming that a 21st C. Deryni Healer has access to the same medical/scientific research as 21st C. medical professionals in the real world do, there might be a way to kill all the lice and eggs and banish them wholesale, sort of like the godawful delousing showers inflicted upon prisoners (for a visual depiction that isn't too graphic, see The Shawshank Redemption, when Andy is first brought to the prison) but more efficient and comfortable and far less embarrassing. 

It's a possibility, anyway, and as someone who has had to fight that battle with the Pod-Child's hair (quite a few times in early elementary and then once more in fifth grade because she was a member of the Safety Patrol for her school and caught them from a younger child whom she was helping) and with my own hair, I have to imagine some enterprising Deryni Healer parent has given it some thought. 

[Bynw]

@DesertRose yes but I was thinking about the logistics of delousing an entire school. Several hundred children. Especially if there is only 1 Healer available.

[DesertRose]

@DesertRose yes but I was thinking about the logistics of delousing an entire school. Several hundred children. Especially if there is only 1 Healer available.

That might actually make it easier, since the focus isn't tight but fairly broad.  Just sort of Ward the whole freaking campus, delouse the lot, let the Ward stand a bit, and when you release the Ward, no lice! 

(I'm delirious; ignore me.  )

[Evie]

@DesertRose yes but I was thinking about the logistics of delousing an entire school. Several hundred children. Especially if there is only 1 Healer available.

That might actually make it easier, since the focus isn't tight but fairly broad.  Just sort of Ward the whole freaking campus, delouse the lot, let the Ward stand a bit, and when you release the Ward, no lice! 

(I'm delirious; ignore me.  )

No need to even let the Ward stand a bit. We've seen in canon that Kelson has a ward specifically attuned to only let Haldanes and a few select individuals through, keeping anyone else inside. If you can attune a Ward in such a way that it only lets through life forms that meet specific criteria but not others, then it would be extremely easy to delouse an entire school. Set the wards to let the children pass through and keep the lice in! Then once all the humans are safely outside of the school, fumigate inside the ward and only disperse it once all the lice are dead. Or if it near a holiday season, just close the school for two weeks, since lice (and all newly hatched larva) die if they don't have a human host within that time. Therefore  you wouldn't have any messy poison residue to have to clean up.

Or you could set up the same ward, but let it delouse the children on their way into the school. That keeps the school itself louse-free, although there's the danger of the kids picking the lice back up again as soon as they leave school premises.

[MerchantDeryni]

Have a warded walkway outside. Children pass through the warded area into the school. They can walk in but the bugs are held back and blow away in the wind.

As knowledge increases you can ward for more and more things.

[Laurna]

Like flu and cold viruses.  To live cold free would be a blessing. Week five. My cough has finally abated with medical help.

[whitelaughter]

6 weeks of cough

but I can't help wondering - if the viruses cannot pass the ward, and you do, have you just created microbe sized bullets that have to punch through you to avoid entering the ward?

don't use this trick for tapeworms....

[Evie]

6 weeks of cough

but I can't help wondering - if the viruses cannot pass the ward, and you do, have you just created microbe sized bullets that have to punch through you to avoid entering the ward?

don't use this trick for tapeworms....

You might be able to fine-tune the ward just to kill the virus or parasitic life form instead, if it's internal rather than external like lice. If wards can be set to distinguish between life forms (or desired vs undesired), and if they can also be set to kill, both of which are canonical abilities, then a talented enough Deryni Healer should eventually be able to figure out how to combine the two skills to fine-tune the abilities of medical wards, at least in theory.

[whitelaughter]

That seems likely. Mind you, there'd be an ongoing arms race between the Healers and the viruses, as the viruses evolve to not trigger the wards.

[Bynw]

In an era of technology. There would be nanobots created to bypass words. Mother Necessity rules invention.

[whitelaughter]

In an era of technology. There would be nanobots created to bypass words. Mother Necessity rules invention.

If the wards are keyed to specific people, then a shapeshift would probably be sufficient - otherwise Deryni would be able to detect the shapeshifted by their 'feel'.

[Evie]

In an era of technology. There would be nanobots created to bypass words. Mother Necessity rules invention.

If the wards are keyed to specific people, then a shapeshift would probably be sufficient - otherwise Deryni would be able to detect the shapeshifted by their 'feel'.

I would hope that it takes more than a shapeshift, otherwise what happens if a person gains or loses weight? Or worse, loses a body part? Even changes a hairstyle?

I think wards are attuned to a person's specific psychic signature, which another Deryni might be able to detect, but only if they are specifically looking for it. Most Deryni seeing someone they believe they recognize wouldn't automatically go double-checking to see if they have the right psychic signature any more than we would normally go around fingerprinting or using retinal scans on people who otherwise look familiar, but a ward would pick up on differences not visible to the naked eye.

[Laurna]

In the case of the library annex the "veil" allowed Kelson's and his blood relatives to pass through it, along with other key people and their relatives. That tells me that the veil is keyed by DNA or some specific genetic indicator.  A physhic feeling could be genetic but I think in the case of the Veil even the non-Deryni members of Kelson's family, such as his cousins, Rory and Payne, could go through the veil, too.