Unaligned Workers

Those who use unaligned magic for common labor.

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Coinsmaester

Type: Banker

Coinsmaester is a banker who has the magical ability to appraise anything they see. They are low-ranking bank workers, usually tellers, who do a lot of work in money changing, accounts, and deposits, and they make sure the value of every coin given them or given out is recorded.

To get this magical ability, they are trained, usually by the banks, for years. Only the most trustworthy and dedicated workers are chosen for this - sometimes they are low-ranking upper class folk - and only after much testing. They must know their numbers, be good with math, and have some skill at reading people. They are then trained in the understanding of value, its fluctuations, its sources, and the various markets and political, social, and natural forces of the world that affect them.

Then they are given a contract. This contract is an unaligned, magical contract designed by a mercator or someone using similar magic. It always exchanges one of the coinsmaester's inherent magical powers (see their species) for the magical ability to appraise. Once this is signed, the coinsmaester gains more magical power every time they make an exchange or count money accurately. This slowly builds up and they gain other related abilities:

• Appraisal sight (or other relevant sense): they can look at something and know its value.
• Weighing touch: just touching something can tell them its weight.
• Fluctual instinct: they instinctively know how the various markets that affect their work have fluctuated.
• Compositional flavor: they can taste which metals are in a coin and at what percentages.
• Value absorption: any coin they touch, they can absorb its value into raw magic.
• Aurifying touch: if they absorb enough value, they can turn other things to gold by touching them.

They are not legally allowed to absorb value from the coins they work with, though many do so secretly. If they own the coins themselves, they can devalue them by absorbing their power, but they cannot pass them off as being worth more than they are thereafter.

PRO -1 ATH -1 STR -1 AWA +3 WIL +2 PRS +1 STH +1

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Nullbright

Type: Lampliter

A nullbright is a lampliter who uses special equipment that derives power from the void, the vast emptiness of existence, and the negative power of it. They learn to use it from mentors and teachers who have studied it for many years, as it is a precise and strange science.

As workers (or serfs, slaves, or peasants), they do not go to school for this. They learn from a mentor, sometimes in a guild, and they have a poorer grasp of the science of irritology (the science of the void) than one who learned it in academia. But they know enough to wield the technology that comes with their job, repair what needs repairing (usually), and sometimes to use a little bit of the magic.

To wield the power of the void, the nullbright must replace part of their body with a piece of void technology. Most do this to a hand or an arm, though some do this with their eyes. This is always done by their mentor or teacher, and it is very dangerous. Many do not survive. The technology is very rudimentary in this era - a void-wick on a stick, usually crude metal or wood. Essentially, the equivalent of a hook hand or some kind of mechanical brace. This becomes part of them, however, and the void energy negates the pain. This gives them the following abilities:

• Nullbrighting: the nullbright can ignite void-lamps or simply create a small "flame" of void energy from their device.
• Dull aura: the nullbright can emit a suffusion of void energy from their wick that uses up a lot of fuel but dulls any and all magic around them.
• Nullflash: the nullbright can cause a flash of void energy that de-shadows an area and gives them a moment of greyscale vision.
• Negative stream: the nullbright can turn off their wick and emit a stream of pellucid oil that damages any aligned-magick object it hits.

Depending on which body part they replace, they have one other ability based on it. All of their abilites require fuel in the form of liquid void, called pellucid oil.

Nullbrights specifically work in the city of Barbantica, which uses void-lamps for light. The void-lamps emit a light that negates darkness rather than creates light. It allows for vision, but it also makes everything within its range colorless and dull.

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

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Piantatore

Type: Farmer

The piantatori are a kind of farmworker who have been common in the area for centuries. They know the basics of farming, but they have never been taught the complexities. They are slaves, serfs, peasants, and workers with no access to education and alienated from family or community in a way that means oral tradition is limited. What little they can pass down is taken on faith, and the profundity of that faith is the source of their magic.

As time has gone on, the lords have noticed the potency of this kind of farmwork and have sought to shape the conditions around it to their advantage. Farmworkers left in ignorance but given small resources for their work sometimes plant in conditions that should not work, but on the power of faith alone, the plants grow. This magic is rare, but the piantatori are capable to wielding it. Their faith is in the seed. They know it will grow when they plant it. They have an innate sense of which seeds will grow. They believe in the soil. They believe the rain will come. And so it does.

There is no Divine as the source of their power. It is raw belief, faith in what has happened before, shaped not by ignorance but what has come before.

Piantatori are usually raised in the belief, though some take it on when hired or conscripted into a group that has the belief. Their beliefs must be sincere (though backed by having seen it work), and they must act without doubt or agenda. Plant the seed, bury the seed, move on. Plough the field, plant the seed, bury the seed, move on. Plant the seed, bury the seed, wait for the rain, move on. Harvest the seed, plant the seed, bury the seed, move on. Repetition is a major part of the process.

These are their beliefs:

• The soil is good.
• The rains will come.
• The seeds will grow.
• The harvest will yield.
• The work must be done.

If they live by these tenets, the soil will be good, the rains will come, the seeds will grow, the harvest will yield, and the work will be done. This translates into these abilities:

• Enriched soil: where they plant, the soil become enriched with faith.
• Regular rain: when they plant, the rains come on winds of faith.
• Unseen germination: after planted, the seeds germinate and grow, nurtured by faith.
• Ripened vine: that which they plant ripens to harvestability in due time, nurtured by faith.
• Untiring toil: their faith enables them to do the work, no matter their bodily condition.

This makes them very exploitable. Some have rebelled against that, but it is very difficult, as indoctrination in their faith often comes with other indoctrinations as well.

PRO +1 ATH +2 STR +1 AWA / WIL +3 PRS -2 STH -1

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Ruddy

Type: Miner

Miners who gather materials in special sacks that help draw out the menab'e, the raw energy of resource, within them, which they then convert to special objects that allow them to draw on the esoteric resource in different ways.

In imperial lands, ruddies are miners or prospectors who gather menab’e from minerals and metals. They must find it, mine it, and refine it to use it. They sense the menab’e with a special machine that resembles a samovar - they call it the resonator, but its original anime was a dìzhèn yí. It often takes multiple ruddies to operate the machine and use special flat stone clubs to strike ore veins or other targets. The resonator reacts to the vibrations on the club, showing the direction and strength of the menab’e. All tools used to find, mine, and work must be made with unaligned materials, and the primary tool of mining (usually a pick or sifting pan) must be washed in “red water”, which is water with menab’e dust in it.

Their most important tools are their ruddysacks, which are used to smelt the ore as well as carry it. If someone else tries to carry it or use the menab’e they mined before they smelt and mold it, it will lose its power. They add dust from the mines or water from the stream to the fire to make it capable of melting the ore or dividing the minerals, then pour the results into the ruddysack. They then carry it to a special location, pour it into a receptacle with mine or stream water, let it separate and cool, forming cool liquid metal or a mineral solution and a separate muddy mixture. The mixture is removed, the metal or solution is taken to a specially designed mold - in the region, the molds are always shaped like the owner’s logo or mark. In the mold, it hardens, creating a tool that can be used by anyone.

It can at this point be wielded by anyone who has been taught the method to tap into it - literally a tapping pattern that is determined by the shape of the mold and the ruddy who made it. No more than seven taps, no less than three, it is always in an arrhythmic pattern designed to be hard to guess. Once tapped, the mold will flash red and the user will have esoteric resources to draw upon. Tapped molds can do one of the following:

• Improve base stats temporarily

• Improve skills temporarily

• Improve powers temporarily

• Fuel unaligned powers or magic

• Fuel a battery or other power source

• Give temporary abilities

• Stave off death or unconsciousness for a round

• Remove penalties for a brief period, or some penalties

• Improve weapons, armor, or items temporarily

• Convert into aligned energies at the cost of the entire mold

Other uses are possible. Tapped molds get used up when the menab'e is gone. How much menab'e is in them depends on the original ore and the skill of the ruddy who made it.

In a typical mine in imperial colonies, bosses take about 80% of the ores that are mined. Some are smart enough to wait until after it has been molded so that they can access the menab'e, but most take the raw ore and sell it as a raw material to others. This stolen menab'e is a point of contention when the miners are organized. Because so many of the tools needed for this are expensive or difficult to build, ruddies often need sponsors, patrons, or investors. Hence, they become exploited by the ruling classes often.

Ruddies will start with two molded objects with 10 points each, 25 points of unrefined menab’e, and a handful of tools.

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