Elemental Workers

Those who use elemental magic for common labor.

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Amberbaler

Type: Farmer

Amberbalers are farmers who practice a form of farming that allows them to draw elemental harvest magic from the tilled earth and imbue either sown seeds, livestock, or people with the elemental energy as an act of fortifying, healing, or protecting the food. They use a cyclical set of rituals and festivals that create their powers anew every year.

Amberbalers who work the land are often early adopters of agriculture, using it in a more egalitarian manner than later societies would.

First, one finds the land. Any land upon which crops may be planted can be used; it must contain some nourishment and water. An empty wasteland can be restored later, but to start, one needs fertile soil. At the vernal equinox, a festival is held, before the land is prepared. The amberbaler and their family or community gather, chant and sing, dance across the land, and each participant will cut their palm to drop blood upon the soil under the moonlight. To prepare the land, one needs a season. One needs to plough the land first, using a stone plough, one made of heavy, ancient stone dug from the land itself. Then, till the land with a bronze or wheat bronze tiller to enrich it. Then, planting begins. Seeds are best as heirloom seeds, given to a new amberbaler from an old one. However, mundane, normal seeds may be used as well, so long as they are good seeds. The seeds will soak up the powers imbued into the soil by the tiller and transfer them to the crops grown.

The next festival is in early summer or late spring. The three days before the festival, all of the weeds, bad crops, and chaff are gathered from the fields and bundled together. On the day of the festival, they are piled high amidst the growing crops and set aflame. Everyone who is of age dances into the night and makes love in the fields to call up fertility. If they have none to make love with, they spill their own seed. Children are allowed to stay up in their homes and play late, but not allowed out to the bonfire. A temporary barn is built where the bonfire was.

The third festival comes at the summer solstice, midsummer, and offerings are made to the spirits of summer. These offerings are usually foods made from the early harvested grains. A sweat offering is made as well in the form of a dance in the heat. At this time a harvest queen is chosen. The harvest queen designs a cornucopia out of the horn of a bull, goat, or other beast, or from wood or a gourd if need be. She begins to fill it with cakes and breads.

The fourth festival is in late summer or early autumn. At this festival, the community sings ancient songs of harvest and good weather, and as night falls, they tie the harvest queen to a bale of hay and throw it into the temporary, rickety barn, which is filled with offerings of moldy hay and a live animal. This is all set on fire. The harvedst queen burns, a blood sacrifice to the harvest. Her ashes mix with the soil. If she was a worthy sacrifice, the live animal will live through the fire. If she was unworthy, she and the animal will be ash in the morning and the fields will die. The only way she could be an unworthy sacrifice is if she has despoiled the land or committed some heinous act against her people.

Upon the site where she died, a new barn is raised. This one is sturdy, made of strong apple wood or good oak or maple, some wood full of life. It is filled with hay, crops, livestock, and food stuffs, stored in the cornucopia. During this time, if the spell at the early summer festival worked, the barn will be full of elemental harvest magic, and anyone who is sick, injured, or tired may rest there and be restored.

Within the barn, scales of bronze rich with elemental harvest magic (wheat bronze) are hung high. Food is placed upon these scales before it is fed into the cornucopia. If it is worthy, it will weigh as much as a single stalk of hay no matter its actual weight. And then, harvest comes. The community brings in the harvest, cooks a massive feast, and celebrates. For each course, more food is also stuffed in the cornucopia in the barn. That night, at midnight, the barn doors will fly open and the harvest queen will re-emerge, alive and hale, carrying the cornucopia, which will not run out of food until winter is over.

The harvest queen then shares her bounty, giving special apples to the amberbalers who lead each ceremony. These apples give them the powers to nourish the ground anew the next spring (with the apple seeds) and to heal, strengthen, and grow the people in their community with their touch. The queen herself has such powers and more. The barn continues to be a place of healing as well. The queen will retain her powers until spring.

On the farm, the livestock or other animals who eat the nourishing foods grown there become bigger, stronger, and more nourished and nourishing themselves. Cows and goats give better milk, sheep give better mutton, chickens lay better eggs, etc. Bees make better honey, too. Throughout the entire process, the amberbaler may only skip meals if it means someone else will not eat if they do. Otherwise, they must eat regularly to maintain their own energies, such that when the time comes, they are strong enough to become bearers of the power for the community. Tools kept in the new barn will be imbued with elemental harvest magic for the next harvest.

Whether they prepare the food or grow it, the results of their rituals are foods that are more nourishing. They result in these specific effects:

• Food prepared or grown by an amberbaler will provide thrice normal nutrition, without negative side effects.
• Elemental harvest magic-rich foods will make it easier for the eater to heal from illness, to mend bones, or to resist infection. Wounds will not heal quicker, however.
• Those who eat elemental harvest magic-rich foods grow quicker and can build muscle easier. They often have higher than average STR.
• Foods with more elemental harvest magic in them, whether prepared or grown, resist spoiling longer than other foods, up to three times as long, without any sapping of its nutrients or altering of its flavor.
• If the amberbalers exercise or lead others in exercises, they can invoke the elemental harvest magic they have consumed and allow faster growth, strengthening, and so on.

Amberbalers are the core of many elemental communities in the rural areas. They never work for industrial powers and rarely work for imperials.

PRO +1 ATH +1 STR +2 AWA +1 WIL +1 PRS / STH -2

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Birzucca

Type: Brewer

Birzucci are brewers who use elemental gourds to make robust and potent beers, ales, and other brewed beverages. They are part of elemental communities who developed the magical ability to create these beverages thousands of years ago. They connect with and learn to use various gourd plants in their processes, usually in ways that do not harm the plants. Primarily, they use cucuzzi, a type of calabash, a gourd squash common to the area.

Birzucci bond with the plants, which they cultivate and grow in their gardens, and prove themselves plant friends and protectors of nature. They learn about brewing, gardening, and selling as part of their training from other birzucci. They grow the grains needed for brewing as well, but these are mundane. The gourds are used as vessels during the brewing process and to serve the drinks. Depending on what they do to the gourds they use, they may apply different effects to what they brew.

• Rapid brew: any beer made in the cucuzza will brew quicker than average.
• Birra di calore: if the temperature of the brewing is increased just slightly, it can make an ale that provides warmth in the coldest times.
• Birra verde: beer made with green magicks will make anyone who drinks it capable of speaking to plants.
• Birra robusta: the stout stout makes anyone who drinks it harder to knock over or knock out.
• SInging brew: a beer made to improve the singing of anyone who drinks it.
• Healthy brew: a nourishing brew, equivlent of one balanced meal.
• Divisory draught: a cup of beer that causes those who drink it to become angry drunk.
• Unending vessel: a spoon, bowl, or tureen made from the cucuzza that has ten times the depth it should have.
• Bevanda energetica: beer turned into an energy drink.
• Seed enricher: a cucuzza used to store seeds that makes them richer and more potent.

Birzucci often buy and sell to anyone, including imperials, but not industrial powers or owners. They are very careful with their gardens and breweries, and they use their wealth to help the elemental communities they are from.

PRO / ATH / STR +1 AWA +1 WIL / PRS +1 STH -1

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Lagogan

Type: Fisher

Lagogani are fishers who have elemental water magic connected to the lakes they fish in. They come from elemental communities focused on the lakes.

Lagogani learn to commune with the lake from a young age, even as they are simply playing or fishing with the adults in their communities. Eventually, it becomes integrated into their way of life, and some find a calling to become lagogani. They are taken under the wing of other lagogani, taught the ways of nature, elemental magic, the lakes, and protecting it against industrial poisons. This culminates in their diving deep into the lake, meeting the lake elemental, and rising up with abilities granted by it:

• Lake sounding: if they place anything into the lake, they know its dimensions and where the living things are within it.
• Waterwalking: they can walk on freshwater.
• Deep breath: they can take one deep breath and hold it for hours if they go swimming in the lake.
• Line bearing: they can throw a line into the lake, then influence the waters to carry the line where they wish it to go.
• Blue form: they can transform themselves into a figure of water and the lake, once per week, amplifying their magic.

Lagogani wield their magic most powerfully at their home lake, taking the high die. At other lakes, they still have their abilities, but do not take the high die. At other bodies of freshwater, if the water is clean enough, they can use their abilities with penalites. In fresh-but toxic waters, they take greater penalties. Otherwise, their magic does not apply. If they carry water from their home lake with them, they may use it as a source of magic anywhere.

PRO +1 ATH / Swimming +1 STR +1 AWA +1 WIL +1 PRS -1 STH -1

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Ploutoner

Type: Servant

Ploutoners are servants who work within various communities who gain different abilities by attuning to the local system's mesoplanets. They are usually amateur astrologers and scholars of the planets and solar system who use that knowledge to serve others in their communities. Some are hired by imperials to use their powers in service to them.

To become a ploutoner, one must be trained and guided by an elder, teacher, or mentor who knows the ways of the cosmos. They must study the movements of orbital bodies around the sun, especially the mesoplanets, and they must spend long periods of time observing. Once they understand them, and if they prove to be a friend to the cosmos, the mesoplanets, and nature, they will be tested by their teachers and the spirits of the mesoplanets. If worthy, they will perform a dance that replicates the orbits of the 16 mesoplanets, and the one they end with is the one they attune to. They gain different abilities depending on which one they are attuned to. If they wish to switch to another one, they must perform their dance after studying its movements for a full revolution of that mesoplanet around the sun or for a full revolution of their moon around the sun, whichever comes first (some mesoplanets have orbits that are hundreds of years long).

Name	Title	Location	Description	Orbit	Initial Ability	Notes
Elam	Son of Shem, Eternal	Beyond Ane	A blue and white icy dodecahedral mesoplanet	1,204 Shem-years	Mathematical insight	Used to teach or for when mathematics are needed.
Q'kzaaha	The City-State	Asteroid belt	A perfectly smooth mesoplanet on which asterians have built a massive megacity	4.5 Shem-years	Astral projection	Used to examine distant cosmic bodies.
Hijai	The Golden Child	Asteroid belt	A rocky mesoplanet rich with precious metal	5.75 Shem-years	Trading	Used to help trade with other communities.
Hieghedon	Child of Shem, Unknown	Asteroid belt	A small mesoplanet, almost an asteroid, unnoticed by most in the midst of many other asteroids, where secrets are kept	6 Shem-years	Listening skills	Used to help the community in general as a confidant.
Venok	Poison Pool	Asteroid belt	A rocky mesoplanet with pools of green, liquid poison	8.25 Shem-years	Absorbing disease	Used to heal people; it does, however, mean the ploutoner has the disease.
Nechozach	The High Priest	Just past Daialoth and Parsadus	A reddish, icy mesoplanet where an ancient, unexplained temple has been carved into the face of the planet	13.25 Shem-years	Spiritual guidance	Used to help spiritual leaders in the community.
Kena-Kunara	The Hunter	Just past Daialoth and Parsadus	A greenish, rocky mesoplanet with strange vegetation and animals on it, in spite of its lack of atmosphere	15.75 Shem-years	Hunting skills	Used to help hunters.
Eltevra	The Warrior	Near to Thurudrill, but out of his orbit	A black, rocky mesoplanet full of heavy metals, very dense	20.25 Shem-years	Enhanced STR	Used for anything requiring greater STR.
Arphaxad	Son of Shem, Judicious	Near to Weptaram, but out of his orbit	A red desert mesoplanet full of craters and jagged mountains	82.5 Shem-years	Mediation	Used to help settle disputes.
Bossetta	The Cruel Tyrant	Near to Mytoth, but out of her orbit	A white, rocky mesoplanet kept as a slave-pit by various interplanetary groups	100.5 Shem-years	Commanding presence	This is almost never used and is seen as a sign of the ploutoner being an enemy of the community.
Lud	Son of Shem, Strife	Close to Jahur	A red rocky mesoplanet with lakes of molten metal	212 Shem-days	Enhanced PRO	Used to help warriors.
Xaucha	The Spy	Beyond Ane	A mesoplanet near the edge of the solar system that has so little light that beings of darkness dwell there safely	256 Shem-years	Enhanced STH	Used to help hunters.
Asshur	Son of Shem, Dragonborn	Just beyond Salit	A rocky, volcanic mesplanet with great pools of lava	404 Shem-days	Gathering instinct	Used to find resources to gather.
Aram	Son of Shem, Exalted	Just beyond Salit	Large, colorful, rocky mesoplanet with deposits of crystal that capture light and make it celestial	514 Shem-days	Artistic inspiration	Often used to help creators and children.
Yeltara	The Wraith	Beyond Ane	A grey, misty mesoplanet at the edge of the solar system filled with ghosts that got lost in space	810 Shem-years	Long memory	Used to help connect to lost ancestors.
Ziezi	Son of Shem, Seafarer	Roves through the solar system with no regular orbit	A mesoplanet full of blue ice that was once vast lakes	Varies	Direction sense	Usually used for long journeys.

As they use their abilities in support of others, they gain new ones along the theme of their mesoplanetary guide.

Rarely do they work within colonial or imperial settings, and never within industrial ones. They are servants to smaller communities, operating in support roles, helping with various domestic and community tasks. They are jacks of many trades within the community, but always in a secondary role. They are vital to keeping the community running and always honored among the lunar and cosmic faiths.

PRO -1 ATH / STR +1 AWA +1 WIL +2 PRS +1 STH /

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Pompiere

Type: Firefighter

As civilizations evolved to be more city-based, fires became more and more common and more and more dangerous. Though elemental communities always worked together to prevent or fight disastrous fires, in current times, the work has become more and more the responsibility of those who wield the magic of water, if for no other reason than the fires have become that much more difficult to fight. Thus, the pompieri have evolved as an occupation. Even imperials and some industrial powers recognize the need for them.

Pompieri gain the power to control elemental water by communing with it. They submerge themselves in large bodies of water, tying an iron jug to their bodies to weigh them down, letting the waters fill their lungs, and release themselves to it. Members of the pompieri are there to help them if they fail, but if they succeed, engaging in a deep trance while drowning, they become one with the waters. They are trained for years to learn how to do this, and many are severely injured in the process. Only the most devoted choose this path.

The pompieri have a special place in any society they are present in. They use their magic to put out fires large and small, and they train physically to rescue people in collapsing buildings and answer other emergencies. Because their magic requires constant access to water, they carry with them a broccaferro, or iron jug, full of magical elemental water. They can cast water from this and not run out so long as they are fighting a fire. They must be very strong to wield it, however.

Pompieri also carry other tools, including armor made to defend against heat, masks to filter out smoke, and blades to break down barriers. All of these made of magical water.

PRO +2 ATH +2 STR +2 AWA +1 WIL +1 PRS / STH -2

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Salettore

Type: Cook

Salettori are cooks who use elemental salt in their food, heightening it and drawing special power from it.

Salettori wield elemental earth magic in the form of salt. They find it either from the mines, the sea, or even the air. They commune with the salt the same way any earth magic user would - burying themselves in it, living amongst it, using it repeatedly. They spend years learning cooking, seasoning, and even mining and salt-collecting. When they are ready, the engage in salt baths and salt burials, eventually engaging with powerful earth elementals embedded in them, proving themselves friends of nature and skilled in wielding the magic.

In the ancient elemental communities, salettori were the ones who preserved food for the winter, made it palatable, and kept the community together with meals. In current times, they are often exploited by imperials and others in power. But they still remain loyal to nature above all, refusing to work for industrial powers.

The abilities they gain are about wielding magical salt:

• Prolonged preservation: a salettore can take salt in their hand, press it, and make it a more potent preservative.
• Salt spray: they can spew their own sweat out as a powerful, blinding spray.
• Salefuoco: they can make salt hot enough to cook food without a fire.
• Unmeasured flavoring: they can use a little salt in something and make it taste as if it were as much or as little as they want.
• Scouring touch: they can rub salt on their hands and scour anything with it to clean it.

Salettori are still revered in the elemental communities.

PRO / ATH / STR +1 AWA +1 Taste +2 WIL / PRS / STH /