: When you live for a few thousand years, you *can* have it
: both ways. The surviving post-Journeyman Heron Guards
: presumably have all the arcane knowledge they amassed
: during their years of penance--they just didn't have
: much opportunity to show it off while being led by
: Alric or the Deceiver. And actually, all Heron Guards
: are quite intelligent and learn a great deal about
: healing magics, theology, and politics during training
: as well as the tactical stuff. Future Herons, being
: younger, will be less knowledgeable than the veterans
: of Soulblighter, of course.
Adressing the magic question: The Journeymen would not have used magic because the whole point of their penance was to use a really bad weapon (without healing, a single trhall can usually take a Jman down), wear a big uncofortable fur coat (that happens to protect against explosives, but that wasn't the point in wearing it), and spend their lives healing other people (there was also something about golden tiles, but I forget what it was). In other words, the tried to take away as much of thier power as possible to punish themselves. They limited themselves to the role of a medic when once they were great warriors.
As Heron guards and magic goes, there are archmages who will be better than anybody at magic. So the founders of the guard had two options: Practive magic skillz, thereby duplicating an already existing body of troops' funtion, or spent thier lifetimes (if that's applicable) practiceing swordsman ship and healing arts. It's pretty obvious which choice they went with. In addition, the Heron do have some magic to charge the mandrake roots with.
Also about the 6 heals versus the 1 heal: The journeymen's penance is to heal others, hence the many mandrake roots. The heron guard are trained for battle, so they only need one root, for themselves. They wouldn't have time to heal thier friends if they're being assaulted by krids. Also, there's the speed factor. Mandrake roots are pretty large, so having one instead of six would make a difference.
-Disc
