Elemental Piners

Those who use elemental magic for common labor.

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Amberbaler

Amberbalers are farmers who practice a form of farming that allows them to draw 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 exploited or exploiter farmers 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 an elemental 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 at Beltane or May Day. The three days before Beltane, all of the weeds, bad crops, and chaff are gathered from the fields and bundled together. On the day of Beltane, 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 the spirit 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 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 called Lammas. 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 Harvest Queen burns, a blood sacrifice to the goddess of 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 Beltane worked, the barn will be full of harvest magic, and anyone who is sick, injured, or tired may rest there and be restored. Within the barn, scales of elemental 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 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.
• 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 harvest magic-rich foods grow quicker and can build muscle easier. They often have higher than average STR.
• Foods with more 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 harvest magic they have consumed and allow faster growth, strengthening, and so on.

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

Harvest Queen: PRO -2 ATH +3 STR +3 AWA +3 WIL +3 PRS +3 STH -2

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Delver

A miner who is magically attuned to metals and knows how to find them.

Delvers learn how to sense metals in mines by mentors who keep the secret magic from the ruling classes. To be able to wield this magic, one must be a friend to nature and devoted to finding and wielding metals without destroying the environment.

Delvers are taught to meditate and perform ceremonies to commune with the metals they seek. Meditation and special ceremonies become part of their routine. Without a certain amount of inner strength, they are unable to sense certain metals properly. As well as attaining a certain inner strength, delvers must have the correct tools, which they must craft themselves. Their tools must be made from elemental metals without other energies and marked with special magical words taught to the delver by their mentors. If any other substance is used in the process of their work - wood, stone, water, etc. - it must also be purely elemental.

Their tools are always a lamp, pick, shovel, and hammer. They may also have a helmet, gloves, boots, and mask. If these are crafted correctly, the lamp will shine differently when the metal they seek is present. The pick, shovel, and hammer will more cleanly release it from the earth.

All delvers have five mundane and two magical metals they attune to. These are always raw metals, naturally occurring ones, not ones artificially created like steel. Mostly, the magical metals they attune to are elemental, though some non-infernal metals are allowed. Some examples include the following:

• Dalim: pure elemental metal from viridianites (living elementals).

• Ferrum: the least form of iron.

• Isern: extremely rare and powerful “true iron”.

• Quickvanadium: elemental liquid metal.

• Bailaohu: pure elemental metal that has black and white stripes through it.

• Hiriwa: silver full of elemental life energy.

• Suuri: silver that rejects heat, becoming super cold even in the hottest environments, with elemental ice magic within it.

• Cofgodas: cobalt ore rich with earth magic.

• Horse metal: soft iron that makes very good magical horseshoes, found in stream beds on the open plains.

• Viridium: wolfram imbued with elemental magic of natural law.

These are the magical metals most commonly mined in and around the colonies.

Most mines are owned by powerful companies, and delvers are either enslaved and exploited or keep their powers secret.

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

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Feastbringer

One who can cook a magical feast for the harvest celebrations.

Many cultures have a tradition of an autumn harvest feast. Feastbringers are ones who are attuned to autumnal magic and wield it to prepare a feast that keeps people warm, comfortable, and well fed through the harder months. They do this by honoring the seasonal festivals, especially the autumnal and harvest ones, and learning how to tap into the magic present in all foods.

Feastbringers must engage in multiple autumnal and harvest festivals each year to prepare for the big autumnal feast in the latter days of the season. The festivals vary by culture, but there are common themes:

• Harvest time festival: a smaller feast at the time of harvest.

• Equinox festival: the fall festival on the equinox is more focused on sweets and games

• First hunt: the first hunt of the autumn (not of the year) ends in a small feast.

• “Fear night”: a Halloween-esque feast sometime in mid-autumn that features candies, gourds and tubers carved into lanterns, and various costumery. Sometimes more actually frightening in some cultures than others.

• Feast of gratitude: a final, large feast in late autumn designed to prepare the community for winter. This is the one feastbringers make their largest and most potent feast for.

If they observe these properly, their feasts and foods will always be magical year-round, but will be most potent in autumn and least so in spring.

Foods they can prepare include the following:

• Warming soup: a rich soup that protects anyone who consumes it from dying from the cold. If eaten at the final feast of the season, it will last all winter. If eaten any other time, it lasts a week. This takes four hours to prepare.

• Turnip lantern: a carved turnip that glows brightly through the autumn. If made in other seasons, it lasts one to six nights. This takes half an hour to craft.

• Bread of community: bread that, if freshly broken and eaten with others, will share among them mutual protections. So long as anyone who ate this bread is alive, all others will be alive, if eaten at the final feast of the season. If eaten other times during the year, it lasts one day. This takes a day to prepare.

• Candy apple: anyone who eats these gains +1 PRS. This takes an hour to prepare.

• Healing cider: a special cider that, if prepared during the autumn, can be drunk year-round to reduce wounds by one level. This takes a month to prepare a barrel (288 pints).

• Harvest strength: a smaller meal eaten during harvest season to give STR bonuses for those working the harvest. If eaten for this purpose, gives +3 STR until the harvest is done or until the equinox. If eaten elsewise, it gives +1 STR for a day. This takes three hours to prepare.

• Hunter’s meal: a meal prepared by the animals taken during a hunt. If eaten by the hunter, the hunter gains +3 to their next hunt. If eaten by anyone else, it gives +1 STH for a day. This takes two hours to prepare.

• Elemental pie: a freshly baked pie that protects from infernal energies at a power of 10 for the winter if eaten at the final feast or for a day if eaten any other time. This takes four hours to prepare.

Other foods are possible. Consult the GM.

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