All Artificers specialise in what they craft; protective items or portation or offensive, and what they craft it into; shoes, wands, hats, armour or if you’re me, playing cards.

Peaches Able, Artificer

Alchemist

Matthias laid down his quill and beckoned his apprentice to mop his brow as he returned to the reducing liquids at his workbench. “It is important,” he raised the  index finger of his right hand to point at the bubbling metallic liquid in a glass vial, “to remember that Colverik is an extremely impure metal and that it must undergo Elaboration before it is mixed with Arramor.” The class followed his finger as it descended to rest on the surface of a reflective tin casket and began its usual, rhythmic tapping. “When added to the arramor, after its calcincation, the Incorporation should, with the correct addition of catalysts, provide us with an amount of Sheymar that we can then provide to an Engineer to core, say, a resonation calibration unit.” He smiled, reclining in his teaching chair: “Now turn to page 76 as we examine rectification!”

Too many people consider Alchemists to be basic potion peddlers and elixir sellers which is a view that has been grafted onto them by charlatans across the Basin and beyond. Alchemists are a vital branch of the sciences of the guilds and have mastered many amazing and wondrous arts. Brewing is certainly a part of their portfolio but they have also learned to transmute metals from one form to another turning the gentler purple of Sheymar into the purest green of Truvent. The merging of one liquid with another to create the appropriate reaction to melt locks or turn water to ice immediately. Concocting antidotes to poisons and making the same should the need arise: All of these are a part of the Alchemists skill.

Alchemical Expertise

The following specialist skills are available to an Alchemist:

  • Alchemise Potion: The speciality of brewing Potions where a Potion is quantified as a liquid, especially one that is medicinal, poisonous, or magical.
  • Alchemise Metal: The speciality of transmutation of metals into other metals for short term or long term periods dependent on metal.
  • Alchemise Chemical: The speciality of the mixing or alteration of the composition, structure, properties, and reactions of Chemical Substances.

Artificer

“In the darkened corridor a shadow slithered slowly from the darkness coalescing into a human form standing in the recesses of a weathered alcove. As the process ran its course a hand reached to the neckline and plucked from the darkness a silvered pin, glowing with a covetous light. Almost instantly the effect ended and a woman, garbed in close fitting trews and shirt appeared plucking a slender wand from a tooled leather belt pouch at her hip. With a casual flick of her long Emerald hair she glided to a sturdy door at the end of the walkway and with a flick of the wand unlocked the tumblers that bared her way. A smile graced her lips as she remembered the meticulous planning that this undertaking had demanded. She had chosen Emison to craft the wand and it had been a wise choice, their skill and dedication, as ever, spoke volumes in these situations. Despite their direct absence from the mission it was as if her old friend was with her now using skills from afar to ensure her success and more importantly her safety.”  – From the novelisation of the life of the Starling by Lizzy Nuance.

Artificers are a rare breed of crafter who have learnt to work the rarer and more powerful commodities that Daer Akmir and the continents beyond have to offer. Their talents allow them to create all manner of miraculous inventions that contain fragments of the divine or the Wyld that can be unleashed at a moment’s notice. The role of an artificer in society is an unusual one; they are highly sought after for their wares but equally the supply that they require is hard to come by. Often an artificer will be rich for months but lacking appropriate materials have to fall back onto secondary roles to pay the bills. They are, almost innately, incapable of working together for long periods of time and usually they pass on their skills via the traditional format of Apprentice and Master. However their collective techniques are shared under the common concept of a “guild” based out of Shriekspire in a huge building, once a postal sorting office, called The Speaking House and it is there that most of our journeys begin.

Artificing Expertise

The following specialist skills are available to an Artificer:

  • Craft and Repair Artifice: The speciality of crafting a variety of magical artifice through the channelling of speciality materials and skill.
    • This speciality can be broken down into precise fields that can be further specialised in as follows:
      • Weapon
      • Armour
      • Trinket
      • Clothing or Accessory
      • Wand
      • Banner
      • Apparatus
      • Portation

Artisan

An artisan is a craftsman, a skilled manual worker whose area of expertise lies in the crafting of items that may be of great functionality or simply for decorative purposes. The wares that an artisan can produce range from furniture, sculpture, clothing, jewellery, household items and tools all the way to potions, poisons, bandages and exotic items. They are the dominant producers for most of the mercantile factors in the Royal Basin and throughout any of the civilised lands and often take on highly lucrative contracts to provide their service directly to one faction.

The guilds of the lands of the Royal Basin represent the individuals that have been taught from an early age the skills and powers that will see them through life. It is here that many artisans begin their lives, they are not the unskilled labourers that are found throughout the peasantry of Basanic cities, instead they command skills that bring influence and prestige from all quarters. They often rise meteorically through the ranks of merchant families to rule the roost over their own selection of workshops and ensuring that their names are remembered for generations via the makers mark that sits on their greatest creations. 

Artisan Expertise

The following specialist skills are available to an Artisan:

  • Craft and Repair Weapons: The speciality of crafting and repairing weapons that lack moving parts
  • Craft and Repair Armour: The speciality of crafting and repairing physical Armour and shields.

Engineering

The fizz and whistle of the ailing engines made Tess flinch, the noise momentarily drowning out the howl of claxons and the clutter of voices that intruded on her thoughts. The Grey Keep shook herself slightly as she dusted off another volley of cannon fire that sought to tear her from the skies. It had been a difficult morning, she reflected: The Keep had lurched from one battle with Ministerial forces straight into a rescue effort to bring more refugees from the ground below. Control station seven had been hammered last night and they needed it up and running now! Tess unrolled her tools and ran a critical eye over the unnatural mesh of the fire burned cogs and levers. “I need a second set of hands over here, a Mayhem Spanner and a nice cup of tea,” she smiled at a startled deckhand, “and do be a dear and shut off that bloody alarm.” The deckhand saluted the Chief Engineer and scurried away.

Engineers deal with the world of moving parts and machinery; they are designers and tinkerers who have natural aptitude and excellent training, usually from the Universities of Great Strabain in Basanic terms. Engineers have been responsible for some of the greatest advances in the Sciences” and are behind the Dirigibles and Submersibles that are seen in today’s Modern Vaklam. They arm our military, they enhance our mines and production, they ensure that our dreams are matched by the endeavour of invention rather than the power of magic and they legitimise the passion that their scholars have in them through the advancement of the culture and society of the various nations of our glorious coalition.

Engineering Expertise

The following specialist skills are available to an Artisan:

  • Craft and Repair Vehicles and Engines: The speciality of crafting and repairing Vehicles and Engines
  • Craft and Repair Structures and Machinery: The speciality of crafting and repairing buildings and Machinery.
  • Craft and Mechanical Automata and Weapons: The speciality of crafting and repairing Mechanical Automata
  • Craft and Mechanical Paraphernalia and Equipment: The speciality of crafting and repairing Mechanical Paraphernalia

Last updated byHolly Goodall