New professions

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Slimcreeper
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New professions

Post by Slimcreeper » Wed Sep 20, 2017 6:14 pm

What professions would you add or like to see someone else doing the work of adding to 1879?

My vote is for Artist. A talented artist, musician or actor might have a hold on the popular imagination, and would have access to all levels of society, without all of the obligations of the Aristocrat. Artists are also often amateur scientists or historians. The Impressionists were just ramping up in painting, and you had the Arts & Crafts movement in England, which was very skeptical of the rising influence of machine production.

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Andrew1879
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Re: New professions

Post by Andrew1879 » Fri Sep 22, 2017 12:36 am

The new Professions we're adding in the Players Companion are Engineer, Gambler, Mystic Warrior (hate the name, working on it), Nurse, Police Officer, and Spy. We're introducing the idea of Variant Professions, modifications of Profession templates, with examples including the Dilettante (an Aristocrat Variant who's an adrenaline junkie), the Lovelace (the white hat version of the Byron), and the Outlaw (a Cowboy Variant), along with customized templates for the Mage (Galvanic, Mumper, and OBV versions), Military Officer (Cavalry, Infantry, and Navy versions), Soldier (Cavalry, Infantry, and Marine versions), and Weird Scientist (Newtonian and Promethean versions). You're certainly welcome to develop your own Professions. I'd like, somewhere along the line, to do a book like the ED Arcane Mysteries one, of fan contributions that have been made canon, but that's going to be well down the road.

In regard to the Artist, you also have the Pre-Raphaelite movement starting up in 1848, with important painters like Waterhouse not getting involved until the mid 1880s. Sure, the Artist would be possible. What would get an Artist out of their studio and going on adventures? I've got an upcoming blog post that will talk about how people get their feet set on the path. What's your take on the adventuring potential of a painter?

Slimcreeper
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Re: New professions

Post by Slimcreeper » Fri Sep 22, 2017 2:58 am

To be one of the first artists working in the Gruv? Glorious! Idealistic, driven by political passions? Subject to the whims and privy to the secrets of the aristocracy? Bear witness to fierce battles! Document the natural wonders for books and papers for the enrichment of the noble and the titillation of the low.

The artist professional skill would be artisan (visual), but would be driven by a passion, which would grant a knowledge skill and a related general skill (non-combat) chosen by the player. For example, kn: Sailing craft and Sailing (wind) or kn: Anatomy and Physician. The artist would be constantly sketching, noticing details, curious about the world.

Purplefixer
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Re: New professions

Post by Purplefixer » Mon Nov 20, 2017 8:16 am

I'd love to see a Galatean or Promethean; a profession that acts as a disenfranchised person who is actually an escapee of artificial creation animated by the promethean spark. IE Frankenstein's Monster. A Reanimator type scientist seems to fit the bill beautifully as well, with a single, detailed companion as their feature of choice for abilities, plus some science hoo-hah or a magical spin of the same (galatean being a kind of construct made of inanimate material as opposed to the science of energy style magic applied to inert flesh).

A jeckle/hyde self-ramping mauler would be of great interest. How would you catch that serial killer, again, when he's a different man by day than by night?

Safari-ist explorers into the new world?

A proper Holmes-ian investigator?

You already have lamp-rattling psychics, how about a proper medium with a real connection to the spirit? IE Nethermancer?

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Andrew1879
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Re: New professions

Post by Andrew1879 » Mon Nov 20, 2017 12:18 pm

The Promethean School splatbook will deal with much of this, delving into the Weird Scientists who work with the basic structures of life and their creations. Rather than a Profession, there will be rules for creating one-off characters who are revivified or constructed, allowing for both the inanimate and the reanimate.

We're still debating whether or not to allow lycanthropy into the game world. Once the concept is loose, it tends to run, ahem, wild, and we're not looking to create Werewolf: The Victorian. There's already a moratorium on vampires.

Putting together a party led by a Big Game Hunter should address the safari concept. From there, all that's additionally required is to send them out past the railhead. We've got plans for doing a few pregenerated character parties, possibly as ashcans like the Living Earthdawn booklets.

If you added a narcotics addiction to the Investigator Profession, you'd pretty much have Holmes. If there are other adaptations you'd like to see, just apply the Variant rules in the forthcoming Players Companion to adjust the Profession.

We're not going to be introducing Earthdawn-level magic any time soon. 1879's world will be a few generations working out the schools of magic. However, you might keep an eye on the Theosophists. Mr. Fairchild is, as they've already grasped the idea of True Patterns. If you're looking for a Profession that's focused on spirit work, the Shaman is already set up as such.

Slimcreeper
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Re: New professions

Post by Slimcreeper » Mon Nov 20, 2017 8:49 pm

Could you have a Shaman re-skinned as a Medium, so as to have the actual connection with the atmosphere of the Victorian psychic?

What about a Fraud (not the name I am thinking of), someone who is all flim-flammery and slight-of-hand, except for being possessed by a spirit - one that has its own agenda but can offer great insight and power in exchange for Major Favors that serve the Spirit's own interests. In order to access the power, the Fraud (again not the right name) has to agree to perform the Favors and give at least some control temporarily to a terrible, alien intelligence of inscrutable motives.

I don't love the idea of PC werewolves - or vampires! If they do show up, they should be monstrous and terrible.

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Andrew1879
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Re: New professions

Post by Andrew1879 » Tue Nov 21, 2017 11:44 am

Once the Players Companion comes out, you'll be able to produce whatever Variant Professions you like. If you want to rebuilt the Medium to make them primarily a spirit worker, with Summon as their Profession Skill, that's readily done.

The confidence trickster sounds like something like a Fiddler or a Gambler. To do the spirit, I would build the spirit as an NPC, give it the Possession power, and give it a collection of goals to achieve and goodies to hand out, then play out the relationship in character. You might have a look at the Prodigals of Nlalg, in the forthcoming GM's Companion. They made a sort of bargain with just such an entity...

Yeah, my idea for any sort of Promethean creation is that it should align with Mary Shelley's work - an act of monstrous arrogance that brings sorrow and destruction to its maker. And like I said, there will be no VITAS plague and no vampires. Undead in general we're hesitant about. The closest we have are the Samsut skeletons and zombies, and those aren't classic undead. They're effectively drones being piloted by a rigger.

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