Professions

Professions

Simply put, professions are practical skills people possess and put to good use, and they usually involve physical work, creating an item, building stuff or working in general. Professions may be gathered in groups according to what they are. The basic types of professions may be briefly mentioned or omitted. Note: being a king is NOT a profession. It’s more of an occupation. Same goes for stuff such as soldier, or mage. While being a blacksmith is also an occupation, it is also a profession as a practical skill (blacksmithing, so metal working) is involved.

The most common type of employment, many people have some sort of physical skill they can use, either on their own, as a group or employed by somebody else. Anything that requires physical activity or work is considered a physical profession, but they’re usually simply called professions.

Gathering

Also called base skills, these provide the raw materials needed for other types of professions. Primary skills are not only the most widespread, they’re also the easiest to pick up and have a friendly learning curve. It is easy for an individual to own several base skills.

~ Mining is basically swinging a pickaxe at rocks and extracting ores or gemstones. Miners are usually quite strong, can recognise ore types easily, and can carry heavy weights. Some of them have an excellent orientation sense and a few can even predict where a vein will be – often successfully.

~ Woodcutters are very similar to miners, just with wood. Also, they swing axes at trees, not pickaxes. They have good orientation in forests and can recognise good wood sometimes just by looking at a tree.

~ Farming is planting seeds into the ground, take care of the little plants and let them grow only to harvest or collect them later on – cruel, isn’t it? It also includes raising animals in a similar manner for the same objective. Farming provides food and, rarely, ingredients for other professions. They also provide important materials to tailors, such as linen or wool. Farmers are usually “part time” – most of them may be called to arms or have other occupations, as farming is a relatively low and not-time-taking labour.

~ Skinning is taking away leather from a beast, preferably not a were-beast. Most hunters are skinners. Skinning requires a steady hand, a strong stomach and is a harder primary skill to learn compared to others. Usually, skinners and hunters are also skilled with bows and are excellent trackers. Note: Hunting is not a profession as it is simply shooting animals with arrows. It is considered as an occupation.

~ Scavenging is legal theft. No, jokes aside, it’s searching abandoned places (and sometimes corpses, though that is frowned upon) for items of value. Scavenging is different from treasure hunting in that a scavenger will usually grab common items, such as armour, weapons, utensils, any precious item, and scavenging is relatively safe as well. Scavengers are excellent observers. They also usually work in groups (amongst scavengers or with other people, such as guards and merchants) and are very good team workers. They are good at recognising what item is valuable and what isn’t. They tend to have a good orientation too and are very good at spotting traps.

~ Fishing. Do I really need to explain this? Fine, fishing is throwing stuff in water bodies (be it a fishing pole or explosives) to get fish and, ever so rarely, treasure. Fishers are extremely patient and are skilled at finding fish-rich places. Most fishers are also skilled sailors and navigators.

~ Gathering isn’t really a profession as many people, especially travellers, tend to grab exotic or particular herbs and plants. However some specialise in recognising these plants and can pick the best samples out of the whole lot, and if given the task to find some herbs or mushroom they can find them a lot more easily. Some of them even catch insects, flying or not. Gatherers have a keen eye and are good at spotting suspicious or poisonous stuff.

Crafting

Also called key or primary skills, they basically convert a material (raw, usually) into another, treated one. They are common professions and while they may be easy to pick up, they can get very hard later on. They are also far more popular than gathering professions. It isn’t very hard for a person to learn crafting skills, but it is hard to master more than one.

~ Blacksmithing is the art of refining ores and turning metals into useful items. This includes smelting (and refining), weaponsmithing, armoursmithing, toolsmithing, silversmithing (general term for anybody who produces rings, necklaces, trinkets, precious cutlery) and many others. Blacksmiths tend to specialise for metal and item type, but almost every blacksmith is able to craft nearly anything as long as it’s not higher quality metals. They sometimes work with leatherworkers and woodworkers when it comes to armours and weapons. Some blacksmiths are private, working for individual people or households. They are very common and any town with more than ten houses is likely to have a local blacksmith. Some cities have several.

~ Leatherworkers can fashion leather into armours and other utility items, such as horse seats or rugs. They usually work in conjunction with other professions, especially blacksmiths and tailors. Leatherworkers mostly divide themselves in armour crafters (cuirasses, leather shields, heavy mantles/cloaks) and utility crafters (reins, whips [oh yes!], hilt covers, backpacks...).

~ Tailors craft clothes and miscellaneous items out of textile materials, such as wool. Skilled tailors can recycle cloth from existing clothes, remove its dye and re-use it in their clothes, though this may lead to some degree of deterioration. Tailors tend to be quite versatile, but there is some degree of specialisation. Clothiers may pick between everyday civilian clothes, cloaks/mantles and robes designed for mages, priests and similar. Some of them dedicate themselves to create luxury clothes and ornaments. Others are masters at carpets and tapestry. Some other items that can be made by tailors are rucksacks and other utility items.

~ Stonemasons work stone. They’re essential in the construction of buildings, at least when it comes to providing ready materials or working stone or marble on the field. Some stonemasons focus on the arty side of things and work on statues or busts.

~ Woodworkers are similar to stonemasons but, guess what, with wood. A big part of them works in the construction area, providing planks and pillars needed for buildings. The rest mostly craft bows, shields and other wooden items (such as training dummies, icons, masks, frames, chests, sometimes busts).

~ Alchemists are rare, yet quite important, as they create potions, salves and poisons with their knowledge of natural ingredients and plants. Alchemists are some of the few crafters who can easily mass produce their products, as long as they have the ingredients and necessary equipment. Most alchemists work on beneficial/helpful potions, ointments and salves, which may be commonly found throughout the world. Their effect may vary from regeneration to temporary strength or even invisibility. Some alchemists make poisons as well, to fight infestations, to put on a weapon or in a person’s meal. While making potions is relatively easy with a recipe, its quality varies a lot according to the production, and only the best alchemists can make top-notch potions.

~ Cooking is probably the simplest of all key skills. Its function is to turn raw food into prepared food, or simply to mix food. While most cooks work at inns or private places and focus on serving their hosts the tastiest food they can make, others sell supplies to the public or armies and focus on making their provisions nutrient and energetic more than tasty. As such, some cooks work in conjunction with alchemists (and rarely mages) to provide soldiers and adventurers with a compact, cheap and nutrient meal. Cooks very often work with farmers (or actually are farmers) and gatherers to get the ingredients they need. Cooking also includes brewing, which is basically the art of drinks, alcoholic or not.

Economical professions usually do not rely on physical work, or at least not heavily. These professions tend to rely on other professions, but are vital to economy and trade at the same time. Note: these are extremely easily mistaken (or even considered) as occupations.

~ Appraising is the ability to be able to discern an item’s value. The most skilled appraiser can tell how much an item’s worth just by looking at it (or by tasting/smelling it if it’s food, drinks or potions). Appraisers may advise people and prevent them from making bad purchases, can inspect a crafter’s work to assess his skill and also check buildings. Appraisers are usually more valued for precious items, especially gemstones and tapestry, as only skilled appraisers can discover subtle faults and imperfections.

~ Trading is...... Guess what..... The art of trading! Ha-ha! Didn’t see that coming did you?!
Traders have a good sense of value and they’re excellent at bartering. Traders can either be merchants, which are usually “stationary” and have a shop or fixed occupation, or caravaneers, basically travelling merchants. Traders help to connect crafters and other traders and are usually well-connected. Caraveneers almost always have an escort and some other crafters or adventurers with them, and some caravans are also a chance for people to travel from one place to another more safely.

Magical

Magical skills differ in one main thing: they require the crafter to be able to wield and use magic. These are limited skills and even there, they’re very hard to learn. Once learned, however, they have a shallower learning curve than most other skills, unless the crafter’s grasp of magic is limited.

~ Enchanting is when an item is imbued with magical properties. Important thing there: living stuff, except for wood, can NOT be enchanted. Several items can be enchanted (in theory, an entire building could be enchanted!) but the most commonly enchanted items are trinkets (necklaces, rings, amulets), armours, shields and weapons. These items are bestowed a magical property according to the enchantment. Some of them are quite common and simple (for example they may simply increase the armour’s toughness or make a sword lighter) while others are both difficult to do and very powerful. Some enchantments are known to increase a person’s regeneration factor for both life force and magical power, muffle a person’s equipment to almost total silence, or even allow the wearer of a helmet to breathe underwater.
The power/effectiveness of an enchantment depends on the user’s total experience, his grasp on that specific aspect of magic and the material that is being enchanted. Gemstones have the highest benefit from enchanting, followed by “magical” materials such as some metals, wood and cloth types.
Enchantments on armour will slowly deteriorate – an average enchantment may last a few years but will slowly graduate, so it may be renewed after a few months. Enchantments on weapons (and some armour ones) will decay not only over time, but over usage as well. While most simple enchantments can be done on-the-go, they will still take some time. The more complex enchantments may require an enchanting table (a table-altar with enchanting-enhancing trinkets and spells. Yes, you have enchantments that improve enchanting. Enchantingception.) or even some materials.

~ Inscribing/Engraving are both similar to enchanting. Inscribing relies on effectively “writing” a spell on a scroll of paper that may be used even by people who can’t handle magic (at a lesser effectiveness, of course). It is also used between magicians to exchange, teach and learn spells. This differentiates the scrolls between spell scrolls (single-use scrolls that allow any person to cast the spell.... at their own risk and responsibility) and learning scrolls (single-use scrolls that can transfer its content, a spell, into the magician’s mind). Learning scrolls require the mage to be capable of learning and handling that spell, or else they won’t be able to visualise it and therefore not able to learn it. Engraving is doing the same, but on hard materials. It is a fundamental part of shrines and some ancient relics as they provide solid, large structures magical powers and the ability to enhance some aspects on magic. While runes (the written parts) are powerful, very long duration, very hard to destroy and relatively easy and fast to create, they are also one of the hardest things to make. While inscribing, or engraving, a mage visualises the spell itself – the rune – in his mind. This allows him to directly transfer his image into a solid or written format, and the better he is at it the better the rune will be drawn, therefore its effectiveness will be improved. Some skilled mages are able to remotely manipulate tools (quill and ink, or scalpel and hammer) and as such prevent human mistakes from affecting the runes. Another con is that engraved runes are very limited – the ones that will affect buildings such as shrines are very few and very complex. However, engraving allows stone slabs to host any kind of rune and these can be used as “perennial” learning scrolls. The stone’s rune still has to be recharged after every usage, but it won’t have to be re-drawn every time.

~ Magic forging is the magical counterpart of a blacksmith. This is a very wide profession and it ranges from simply magic-assisted blacksmithing to pure magical assembly. This has also the benefit, if needed, to imbue an item with an enchantment during its craft – this improves its strength and overall duration, however it limits the item to that enchantment only.
-The most basic form is magic-assisted blacksmithing. This is simply a blacksmith with a degree of magic affinity which can use magic to improve his craft – for example keeping the furnace hot with spells or even replacing coal with a fire spell, and improving the accuracy on the smithing itself.
-Spellsmithing is a more advanced level and in this case the blacksmith employs a Magic Forge, which is a complex, magical, fully-equipped forge (it includes a furnace, anvil, cooling sink and other magical mumbo jumbo), which also requires magical energy to work – therefore it is a greater effort for the smith to keep up, but it results in a far greater crafting efficiency. Also, spellsmithing allows for proper magical staffs and trinkets to be created at the magic forge. Spellsmithing still relies on some tools and items in order to craft items.
-(Magical) Assembly is the most powerful type of magic forging. It also employs a magic forge, but it doesn’t involve any outer items – all interactions with the crafted item are magical, performed by the assembler. This is also possible thanks to the runic workbench, one of the vital parts of a magic forge. This workbench enhances and allows this type of forging. Assembly relies on the link between a mage’s imagination and visualisation skills and the ability to transfer that thought into practise. A skilled assembler can have a sword design in his mind, for example, and via assembling can create that same, identical sword (this concept is similar to inscribing/engraving). Assemblers also create elaborate and powerful magical items and staffs. Assembly is also the second and last way artifacts can be created, the first one being created by the gods. How this can be done is known to nobody, and probably hidden as a secret somewhere.