Difference between revisions of "Class and Profession"

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Orcish tribes are considered barbaric but when Zul Kiras marches as a single nation, it looks more like a coherent army than a furious horde. Of course, the war kings of Zul Kiras do employ furious hordes as part of their forces, to demoralize the enemy.
Orcish tribes are considered barbaric but when Zul Kiras marches as a single nation, it looks more like a coherent army than a furious horde. Of course, the war kings of Zul Kiras do employ furious hordes as part of their forces, to demoralize the enemy.


The [[Provakh]] clans of Ruthmarna are seen as barbaric, though they are a fiercely honest and loyal society where strength and integrity matter above all else. They also are the main herders of dire yaks.
The [[Provakh]] clans of [[Ruthmarna]] are seen as barbaric, though they are a fiercely honest and loyal society where strength and integrity matter above all else. They also are the main herders of dire yaks.


==Forest cultures==
==Forest cultures==

Revision as of 17:18, 27 August 2019


The following is intended to be a guide for people who have a character’s class or profession in mind but don’t know the setting. Suggestions on character origin are organized by job type. Simply skip to the heading you want and click on the links if you're interested. This list is not meant to be exhaustive. Contributions are welcome.

If you’d like a list of all the races in the world instead, see Races.

Warriors

Every culture has some kind of warriors to fend off the threats of the world. Their preferred fighting style depends on their civilization, climate and attitude towards combat and bloodshed.

Martial Cultures

Some of the world’s cultures are intensely militaristic and devote a lot of resources towards perfecting their fighting ability as individuals or as a nation.

  • The Alesian Imperium is a human empire that took over most of the south pole continent. They’re known mostly for their martial skill and their dreaded legions, known as the falvarniosok.
  • Zul Kiras is the epitome of orcish militarism in middle Veth. The united clans all pledge fealty to one leader called the War King, who periodically marches the entire Orcish juggernaut to war.
  • Pentland is rapacious and expansionist, with a martial focus. Though most of the armed training goes into naval combat and ship operation, Pentland produced some striking drake-riding cavalry.

Knightly Orders

Knights are ennobled warriors of some skill, who usually own decent armor and weapons. Most knights in the setting are likely to be humans from Arangoth and Myst or elves from Elvendeep. Holy warriors and religious knights often fight for Menxvan as Templars.

The most infamous knightly order in Arangoth is called The Beady Eye. It was formerly the The Watchful Eye, made up of strong and glorious lords and knights. At their height, they conquered a substantial swathe of the cursed Elgar Forest and converted it to habitable land (it later reverted to its regular cursed state.) Eventually, the knights rebelled against their princes and assassinated the monarch, causing fifty years of internecine strife. The order is publicly banned but endures in secret, waiting to rise again.

The land of Orjana in the cold north, is filled with lodges of warrior-heroes analogous to the knights of the south. These brotherhoods are called Druzhinas and Hosts (if they’re large).

Arangothian Armed Forces

  • Drache's Civic Guard employs fighting people of various races to police the city, bust criminals and resolve disputes among citizens on the street.
  • Arangoth's Border Watch is a collection of skilled archers, trackers and skirmishers hired to serve as the first line of defense along the realm's outer edges.
  • Arangoth operates on a bannerman system, with a garrison that is augmented by contributions from the various dukes and barons across the realm. There are light skirmishers, heavy knights, light and heavy cavalry, dragoons, engineers and specialists.

Mercenaries and adventurers

Mercenary is an extremely common profession for most races and species. Mercenary companies can be homogenous or multiracial and can serve any number of interests besides the need to get paid. Lone swords for hire and adventurers are common in Drache, the default setting port-city known for attracting people and events of global significance.

The best-known mercenary company in South Arangoth was the Crimson Shield, for a while, when its leader served as Lord Protector.

Mages

There's so many different types of magic, it's impossible to keep track of it all, so belonging to schools of magic is not enforced. The following are suggestions. Drache's Civic Guard sometimes hires mages to augment their forces.

Formally Educated Wizards

  • Drache has a renowned Royal University with a substantial school of magic, taking students from all over the continent and beyond.
  • Qarsythe is a territory in Najjir, ruled by an arcanist guild and has definitive treatises on almost all schools of magic.
  • Berjeron ley savants from Mwayambi are skilled geomancers, known for their ability to manipulate currents and places of power.
  • Alesian battle-sorcerers are barracks-trained, rather than taught, to use combat magic integrated into general Alesian strategy.
  • Among the orcs of Zul Kiras, Firestorm Clan maintains a tradition of formally training war and blight wizards and is one of the most feared of the clans.

Intuitive Sorcerers

People with innate magical power can come from anywhere, from a variety of sources. Drache saw a good number pass through, with more ever coming, so none of the locals are surprised at displays of magic anymore. Different nations treat them differently, depending on the extent to which magic is nurtured there.

Witches, Druids, Shamans

  • The most famous witches come from Lonrath, where they preside over tribes that live in the shattered ruins of a dead magical empire.
  • In Orjana, a conclave of witches presides over the mystical grove, where seasons are kept.
  • Assi shamans have powerful elemental magic tied to the seasons.
  • The witch doctors of the orcs are known for augmenting their allies and slowing down their enemies as well as assembling hideous constructs out of bone and scraps of other creatures.
  • Druidism is a central fixture of high griffon mysticism in Griffon's Aerie: each griffon is linked to a magic tree and its attendant dryad.
  • In the local setting of Arangoth, druids are big in Sresar Vale, where they’re often community elders.
  • In Nipangu, Gardeners are a celibate order of druids who tame nature and make it orderly, useful and pleasing to the eye.
  • In the Elgarian town of Mazewood, druids help keep the village safe by warping the surrounding wilderness into an ominous labyrinth.

Clerics and healers

The biggest human religion on the southern continent is Menxism, followed by the Southlands Religion and then by the various pantheons. Divine power is real but its origin is uncertain and requires faith, not mathematical certainty.

Priests of formal religions

  • Clerics of Menxvan and his evil antithesis Menxruk are by far the most common in Arangoth. The same is true of Najjir, the equatorial desert north of Arangoth.
  • People from the Southlands Peninsula as well as Bahija have a trio of major gods and a supporting cast of deities, each of which has a different type of cleric.
  • Pentland and its colony Arrantiada also have three: for land, sky and sea.
  • Holy people are commonly nobility in Taj Jahan. They tend to be philosophers for a living.
  • Alesian battle-priests are called Hevarnin and they're often officers supporting 100-man warrior companies.
  • The sea-faring Korthai people worship the mythical Sea Serpent, and their priests take part in an annual ritual to bestow a powerful artifact to an outstanding member of their society.

Informal holy people, Healers

Wandering saints, people imbued with divine charismata, churchless magical healers and other kind souls that don’t operate within a bureaucracy usually fall under this category. They can come from just about anywhere — many such characters tend to have a limited range of innate abilities they could summon at will or a certain number of times per day. They can come from any background, mortal or beyond.

The Drachean Civic Guard tries to employ healers in its healer corps whenever possible.

Holy warriors

Templars of Menxvan are a holy order of warriors, some with special powers, devoted to promoting Menxvan’s cause and defeating his enemies, the Guardians of Menxruk, who seek to undermine the former and cry havoc as anarchy spreads. Najjir also has Menxvanite holy warriors but they are different from Templars.

The Berjeron have the Saints of Jomeil, paladins, wearing mail hauberks and leafy wreaths beneath their cylinder helms and often riding imported horses.

Mundane/secular healers

Many skilled physicians and apothecaries do a lot of work to put people back together, in Drache and elsewhere. The Royal University has healer training courses. Renowned doctors from Xiunhai-la, Najjir and Taj Jahan have been noted. Elves often turn to magic but if they don’t, their longevity and attention to detail makes them expert physicians.

Rogues

Thieves and Highwaymen

Thieves are everywhere and require no special background except greed or poverty. Bandit gangs have caused significant damage to the unity of Arangoth. Riders of the Horn in Ruthmarna and Howling Dogs in Sresar Vale have been especially notorious but had been put down in the past decade.

Organized Crime

For a long time, the underworld of Drache was ruled by a “King Nobody” — a rotating title that eventually was eclipsed by a “Correspondence of Thieves.” This, too, was wiped out by the incoming Talamar Guild. At the moment, there’s no major power controlling the Drachean underworld. Ethnic crime tends to cluster together around ethnic communities. For example, the Xiunlans have a Tong in Drache, engaged in racketeering.

Sonmor is a noteworthy city because that’s where many thieves’ guilds get their start before exporting themselves elsewhere and merging with the homegrown criminal element.

Assassins

Assassins and their guilds are poorly known because ones that get too famous get extinguished. Assassins tend to be popular in highly civilized areas, with well-developed political systems.

  • An assassin slew the previous king of Arangoth, ushering in 50 years of strife until King Blkdragon and Queen AngelSin righted the course of the realm.
  • The independent city of Antara is known for using spies and assassins as ambassadors to manipulate its neighbors and keep them from banding together to overcome the city's impressive natural obstacles.
  • A group of assassins from Najjir with political goals recently became active in the area, on behalf of some shadowy “heresiarch.”

Naturalists

Rangers, hunters

The best elvish rangers are said to be found in Elvendeep, among the Wild Elf peoples and the Order Emissariat, and in Mazewood. Arangothian rangers, native or newcomer, may find a home for their skills in the Border Watch. Humans can also come from Pentland, where the dangerous flora and fauna of the exotic interior requires special attention.

Barbarian tribes

Humans considered “barbaric” include the Assi and the Thons, mostly because they live primarily in tents, move around a lot and get into confrontations with more “civilized” travelers. That said, their fighting style can be described as barbarian as well, relying on quick, furious, unarmored attacks. The warriors of Nahuatl are the same way.

Orcish tribes are considered barbaric but when Zul Kiras marches as a single nation, it looks more like a coherent army than a furious horde. Of course, the war kings of Zul Kiras do employ furious hordes as part of their forces, to demoralize the enemy.

The Provakh clans of Ruthmarna are seen as barbaric, though they are a fiercely honest and loyal society where strength and integrity matter above all else. They also are the main herders of dire yaks.

Forest cultures

The Sorani elves are from Elvendeep but they choose to live in the woods instead of the central arboreal Elfspire. They’re more rustic than their city cousins, with much more game in their diet. J’lontz Giants are a race of giants that live in the Southlands and can blend with the tall canopy.

Equestrians

Khalars produce world-class horses and equestrians to ride them. The Thons are nomadic and use stocky, sturdy draft horses and ponies to get around. The Assi also ride a lot throughout Nie River Valley.

Shapeshifters

Many of the darker shapeshifters can be found in the cursed Elgar Forest: werewolves, wererats, werespiders, etc. Friendlier polymorphs can be from a variety of places. The magical, ambulatory Aran Forest might be one place or if the shapeshifter is a type of fey, Tor Anan. The High Griffons of Griffon’s Aerie can transform into human and semi-human shape and the highborn Oneidhae merfolk can transform to walk on land temporarily.

Seafarers

Sailors and Navy officers

  • Arangoth has its own navy now and it has even defeated some pirates in its first military campaign. Besides that, there’s a flotilla of merchant vessels coming and going daily.
  • Pentland is a naval power, strong due to its drake-rider carrier ships, its enchanted, self-regenerating wood construction and its employment of a water-breathing race as marines.
  • Bahija is a big deal in the trade lanes, having fast ships and an expansionist, moneymaking zeal about the people who run it. The same can be said for Secca, an old city-state in the west of the continent.
  • The Berjeron are a maritime power from Mwayambi and have enormous black ships often filled with slaves of all shapes and colors.

Pirates

Pirates can be divided by where they operate: The South Sea, the Road of the World and the Long Sea being the most frequently targeted water-bodies. Drache is most familiar with South Seas pirates, who are usually from Arangoth, Pentland, Bahija, Secca, Elluria or Bahr.

The most infamous pirates are Korthai or “Wolves of the Sea”, a society of raiders that live mostly on their ships. They are known for absorbing captured prisoners into their society and witty sayings like "may the wind break from your prow and not your behind." The Korthai have many fast attack ships that can overcome heavier ships. They also have heavy ships of their own.

A naval attack recently forced a group of pirates from the Equine Islands south of Arangoth, leaving them with no place to go and their leader dead.

Entertainers

Bards, musicians, actors

Arangoth has a tradition of watching plays, musical shows, oratory and other spectacles. Several well-known establishments where characters may be employed to perform.

The Drache Municipal Theatre is the setting's common man's troupe, performing many cultural classics as well as penny dreadfuls about overbearingly angsty vampire lords and such. They draw a substantial crowd from the performance lover on a budget.

Plays and music can also be seen at The House of the Silver Swan and The Cat's Pajamas, which have built in performing spaces. But the Silver Swan also doubles as an expensive inn for persons of quality and both the Swan and the Pajamas double as bordellos.

Artists, writers

Crowned Swan Publishing is the preeminent company for putting out printed works. The Rumormill is a primitive newspaper that supplies news to Drache and needs many reporters and runners. As for paintings and sculptures, they are often done for the sake of a paying patron or in a rare gallery showing, usually at the estate of someone wealthy, paintings may be sold to visitors.

Companions, prostitutes

  • The House of the Silver Swan caters to nobility and employs nubile females to provide conversation, provocative dancing and sometimes, for an informal arrangement, companionship in bed. Courtesans employed by the Swan are all high-class and taught to be selective.
  • The Cat's Pajamas is a theater, inn and bordello, which is more explicitly dedicated to the latter function. Nonetheless, it regularly exhibits plays and other spectacles.
  • The Indecent Nymph is a fixture in the Red Lantern District: a straight up bordello and dance parlor, run by a fence for various thieves operating in the area.

Nobility

Arangothian Nobility

Other nobility

Common Professions

Merchants

Scribes, scholars

Artisans, smiths, engineers

Farmers, herders, fishers

Miners, Underground

Slavery

Where it's legal

Where it's not