House Jorasco

House Jorasco bears the Mark of Healing and is known far and wide for their medical skill. During the Last War, Jorasco healers could be found on every front and working for every nation. More than perhaps any other house, their mark's power is in demand to literally save lives - and more than any other house, they are wary of being exploited and misused. To the Jorasco, they are ensuring they are paid fairly and can maintain their house's independance, but to their detractors, they are heartless profiteers making money from the desperate and dying.
House Jorasco is known through Khovaire because of its Healer's Guild. The leader of the guild, Baron Ulara d'Jorasco, is much beloved in northwestern Khorvaire for her instrumental role in combating an epidemic in that region a decade ago. She has maintained the Jorasco monopoly on healing and keeping religious organizations, especially the Church of the Silver Flame and Church of the Sovereign Host, mostly out of the healing industry. She is an intellectual and has little time for the day to day operations of the House, leaving them to the young members.
House Jorasco has been taking an increasingly expansive view of what constitutes healing, as House Jorasco runs more than just hospitals, but rehabilitation centers, pharmarcies, convalescent homes, and hospices. They also assist in broader ways than traditionally associated with the House, such as helping to maintain quarantines, locating rare healing herbs, and working on vaccines for the plagues that have begun to infect the people of Khovaire. The guild runs schools that teach medicine, as well as houses of healing that provide both conventional and magical training. The sale of healing and restorative potions, and providing conventional medical care are as much a part of the house's business as magical healing from a marked heir.

History

The Jorasco halflings were a nomadic tribe that wandered throughout the plains. With the appearance of the Mark of Healing across the many families of the tribe, they started to provide aid to those in need of help. One of the few tribes that did not thrive in combat, Jorasco halflings were still well respected as they offered a variety of healing services to the other tribes, including midwifery, acting as battlefield medics, and helping ease the suffering of those beyond their help. Tribute and gifts were given to the Jorasco tribe for such services, as was the custom among the tribes.
When Karrn the Conqueror pushed eastward in his neverending quest to expand his kingdom, he discovered the dragonmarked halflings of Jorasco. Karrn sent word back to the handful of already-formed Houses in Khorvaire, and their emissaries traveled to the Talenta Plains. They negotiated with the halflings, and after a lengthy process, House Jorasco became a full-fledged house. Eager to gain acceptance amongst the other Houses, the Jorasco halflings immediately started to integrate themselves in the ways of central Khovaire, adopting the customs of Khovaire as fast as they could. Casting aside their heritage, they expanded their reach from the Plains, creating hospitals throughout all of Khovaire and actively seeking to assist those in need of their healing services. As a result, the tribal history of the Jorasco halflings as been all but forgotten, only found in records kept by the other tribes.
Becoming a House was an expensive endeavor, especially with the halflings having no established capital and trying to establish hospitals through Khovaire. House Jorasco soon found itself owing large debts to both House Cannith and House Sivis, and this debt was expected to be paid back in gold, not in healing services. House Jorasco quickly developed a set schedule of fees based on the services provided and required payment in advance before rendering such services. These payments allowed the healers to have a living wage and also to pay off the debts they owed to the other houses. As the House became more successful, payment became less about survival and more about profit. Jorasco's mission of healing became intertwined with their passion for gold, which some seized upon when criticizing the House.
During the Last War, Jorasco healers provided their services far and wide. Their commitment to staying neutral allowed the House to serve all sides during the conflict. Many times one could find healers from House Jorasco on both sides of the battlefield. Each of the Five Nations sought their services, and the House quickly found itself with lucrative contracts with all of them. To this day, these contracts exist, having been extended and re-negotiated, with House Jorasco increasing prices every time.

Agriculture & Industry

The majority of Jorasco's income comes from the creation of medicine and the treatment of war veterans. If the marked Jorasco across the entire of Khorvaire were to work at peak efficiency and expend their mark's entire power base, they could collectively heal tens of thousands of wounds and poisonings, cure a thousand cases of critical disease or blindness, and the Greater-marked Jorasco together could restore the lost limbs to hundreds of crippled soldiers in the same period. The Healers Guild contributes still more to these totals, and yet with tens of millions of people in Khorvaire, disease and injury is still a reality. Jorasco must pay rents under the Korth Accords, buy herbs en masse for their medicines, keep their heirs housed and fed, and hire nurses and orderlies to tend to their patients. There is simply not enough money to help for free if the House wishes to survive.
As a result, Jorasco has a perhaps unfair reputation as being extremely mercenary in their services. No heir may offer free healing, even to another member of the House, on pain of punishment that can include excoriation. A potion of healing costs 50 gold, whether sold to a man in health or a man dying at your feet. If they cannot pay, or won't take out a loan from the house, they cannot be healed. To do otherwise undermines Jorasco and all future generations. It happens, of course - regardless of oaths, very few heirs are willing to let someone suffer, especially in the heat of the moment - but it's a very fast way to ruin one's advancement in the guild.
Of the marked members, most are found in Karrnath, Breland and Aundair. In Thrane, Jorasco's popularity is dampened by the Silver Flame's dubious view of for-profit healing, but the scale of services they can provide still eclipses the church. In the Five Nations, most modern Jorasco hospitals were originally field hospitals of the Last War and now stand within sight of national borders. In Gatherhold, Jorasco has moved away from their nomadic origins and maintains only a small, but politically significant healing house featuring a hundred marked members operating an "ambulant hospital" which rides healers out to tribes with sick or wounded. The remaining heirs tend to be scattered throughout hospitals and clinics on the frontiers of Khorvaire and beyond, with representatives in Pylas Talaer in Aerenal and Stormreach in Xen'drik.

Leader:
Baron Ulara d'Jorasco
Headquarters:
Resthold, Vedykar, Karrnath