Darkhive Worldbuilding (Part 18) - Professional Widow

From the original stream of consciousness brain dump, there are a few occupational ideas, but now there's a few factional paths to help sort them out and integrate them more fully into the world. 
  
Occupations - Spore Farmer, Scavenger, Defender, Crystal Mystic, Skirmisher, Shellbrood Hunter, Bonemender, Fleshsculpter, Rust Engineer, Hooded Mystic, Astral Avenger, Fury, Shroudwarden, Warpshifter, Tunnelrat, Beastmaster, 

Seventeen professions can be spread across the factions. If I apply a specific profession to each power type, and another profession to each viable power pairing. that will give a starting point and I'll know what gaps need to be filled in.

Air: (Nothing directly fits)
Earth: (Defender, Spore Farmer)
Fire: (Fury, Shellbrood Hunter)
Water: (Rust Engineer, Scavenger)
Void: (Crystal Mystic, Warpshifter)
Air-Water: focus on traditional mundane politics, diplomacy and trade. (Bonemender)
Air-Fire: focus on rallying groups of people to wage war and conflict. (Beastmaster)
Earth-Water: focus on improving the people and their wellbeing through farming and growth. (Tunnelrat)
Earth-Fire: focus on defending their community through strategic use of fungus and firepower. (Skirmisher)
Air-Void: focus on mystical methods to control people. (Fleshsculpter)
Earth-Void: focus on attaining the most power from fungal symbiotes. (Shroudwarden)
Fire-Void: focus on developing martial prowess to superhuman levels through magic. (Astral Avenger)
Water-Void: focus on the arcane relics of the past and mastering their powers. (Hooded Mystic)

Some of these don't seem like great fits, but we can always create some new professions to more accurately fill various niches when the project gets revisited, or if expansions are desired. With what we expect the characters to be doing in this game (trading, exploring, gathering power and revealing hidden arcane secrets), we have a distinct gap when it comes to professions focused on trade or dealing with people (both of which come under the auspices of "air", which is the social side of things and thus rounds out things well). So I'll create "Merchant" and "Diplomat" roles (but maybe give them more flavoursome titles).

We might allow factions to easily access professions sharing their elements, then make professions harder to access if they only share one element with the faction, and make professions inaccessible in they don't share elements with the faction at all. 

Example 1: The Earth-Water Faction
Common professions in this faction: Defender, Spore Farmer (Straight Earth), Rust Engineer, Scavenger (Straight Water), Tunnelrat (Earth/Water) 
Uncommon professions in this faction: Bonemender (Air/Water), Skirmisher (Earth/Fire), Shroudwarden (Earth/Void), Hooded Mystic (Water/Void)

Example 2: The Fire/Void Faction
Common professions in this faction: Fury, Shellbrood Hunter (Straight Fire), Crystal Mystic, Warpshifter (Straight Void), Astral Avenger (Fire/Void)
Uncommon professions in this faction: Beastmaster (Air/Fire), Skirmisher (Earth/Fire), Fleshsculpter (Air/Void), Shroudwarden (Earth/Void), Hooded Mystic (Water/Void)

Next, I'll create a specific profession for each of the cultures in the game. These aren't professions that must be followed by members of the culture (like the Elf race/class in the earliest incarnations of D&D), instead they are simply an added option based on the possession of racial genetic heritage of the individual (more like a prestige class in D&D 3/3.5/Pathfinder). 

Khar Tui - Investigator
Riven - Valkyrie
Kithling - Doppelganger
Ichthyan - Diver
Panaho - Mycologist
Xelani - Theocrat
Endoss - Wanderer

(I might even throw together a few crude professions for males to engage in)

Looking back on previous posts, I seem to be heading in all sorts of different directions with this, and there seems to be a lack of focus, but these are basically the different elements that will be used to define individuals in the setting. Characters will be defined by a heritage (defining their fundamental racial genetics), a culture (defining their outlook on the world), and a profession (defining the possible factions and progression of future professions they might pick up in their travels). Some of the professions are linked to certain races, some of the cultures are linked to certain races, some of the professions are links to certain cultures. There's a bit of overlap but it's not overly restrictive.

Since this is being used for System 4, now I just need to give each occupation a couple of advantages, a range of action verbs, and some other quirks and that side of things is complete. But we'll detour a bit to explain how localised settings are developed in the Darkhive, because this is a series about worldbuilding primarily.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A Guide to Geomorphs (Part 7)

A Guide to Geomorphs (Part 1)