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Career-based Characters

Note: This is still a work in progress, and should not be considered complete! Any comments and feedback would be appreciated.

This is an alternative method for generating a character's skills using the Fudge system. It uses a 'life-path' style in which a character advances through various careers, picking up skills and other benefits along the way. Fans of Classic Traveller (need url!) will recognise the general idea.

Attributes

Attributes are generated as as described in the Fudge rules for kalyr.

Childhood and Adolescence

This represents the skills learned during a character's early years. Choose the background the character was born into (this is restricted by the character's Status and Rank), and determines which skills were learned during this period of the character's life. Take twelve levels in any combination of skills listed for the chosen background, with not more than two levels for any one skill. You must take at least one level in any skill in bold.

Outlander

You grew up in one of the 'free human' tribes founded by runaway slaves. You lived a primitive existance, learning to live off the land. This is an unlikely background for a kandar character.

Requires Status of Poor or worse.

Rural

You grew up in the rural area near a kandar city; your parents were most likely either plantation workers or poor tenant farmers, growing food to feed the population the nearby city.

Requires Status of Poor or worse.

Urban Poor

You grew up in a kandar city, but you certainly didn't grow up in the lap of luxury; your only education was the school of hard knocks.

Requires both Status and Rank of Poor or worse.

Urban Professional

You parents were in the successul professional classes, below the nobility in status, but above the street scum.

Requires either Status or Rank of Fair or better.

Noble

You were born or adopted into one of the 14 kandar clans that sit on the top of the social pile.

Requires Status of Great or better.

Adult Careers

Adult careers work in a similar way to childhood experience. You must take two career terms (which represent an indeterminate number of years). Each term gives twelve skill levels, which may be spend on the skills available to the career, with a maximum of two levels per term. In addition, you must spend levels on any skills in bold before any others, unless that skill is already at Good or better.

You may take the same career twice, to give a character highly skilled in a specific area, or take two quite different careers to give a broader range of skills.

Assassin or Spy

There is much political intrigue in kandar cities, especially in Ravenah or parts of the Great Empire. Wherever you find intrigue you will find spies. And sometimes rivalries and feuds get out of hand and become murderous, providing employment for professional assassins. Many spies or assassins are agents working for their nation or guild. Others might be are members of powerful crime syndicates, or fanatical members of obscure religious cults. There are also freelancers working solely for financial gain. Assassins tend to come from either a military or criminal background. Any assassin PC should either be an ex-assassin, or under "deep cover".

Bodyguard

Kandar cities can at times be dangerous places with all those assassins about. The likes of wealthy merchants, nobles and important guild figures can have many enemies, and need protection. Many bodyguards are members of the Union of Guards.

Caravan Guard

The roads linking kandar cities cross miles of poorly-controlled wilderness areas populated by bandits or other worse things, requiring all caravans to travel armed. Such caravan guards often have other duties, such as looking after the pack animals. Many human caravan guards are members of the Union of Guards.

City Guard

The city guard are the police force within the walls of kandar cities, and are trained both in combat and detective skills. In recent years some cities have started to recruit humans into the guard, and humans now form almost half the guard in Calbeyn. In many cities the guard also doubles up as the fire brigade, and must fight fires as well as crime.

Criminal

The rougher end of kandar cities are full of criminal types, ranging from petty thieves and pickpockets and muggers, through housebreakers and smugglers, to more serious organised crime. Some rougher parts of kandar cities, such as Calbeyn's notorious Anthill, are effectively run by crime lords.

Entertainer

There are a great many wandering singers, musicians and jugglers who provide entertainment in the cities, often working in inns and taverns. Few if any manage to make much money, and the kandar elite tend to look down upon them and their 'art', but one or two manage to establish some sort of reputation.

Gladiator

The city of Filgeth still has a gladiatorial arena, where people fight, sometimes to the death, for the entertainment of others. Most gladiators are either slaves or condemned criminals, although there are always a few desperate free men who seek fame and fortune in the arena. The career of a gladiator is often quite short, but those who survive may manage to win their freedom.

Kandar Noble

A kandar noble belongs to one of the fourteen ancient kandar Clans. The archetypal noble is arrogant and cruel, enjoying a life of idle luxury, waited on by hordes of human slaves. Of course, there are nobles who don't conform to this stereotype, and do a real job, often in the high levels of city government. Being a noble can be a dangerous "occupation", and assassination is a constant risk to members of more than one clan.

Karazthani

The Karazthan, or Academy of Knowledge is the guild which makes mechanisms. They are the only people who can make or repair their strange magical machinery. To be member of the Karazthan you have to first have served an apprenticeship in the guild, and nearly all apprentices are children of members. The Karazthan jealously guard their monopoly, and employ "operatives", who are not afraid to use force to shut down anyone who challenges it.

Knight

Knights are the ancient kandar warrior orders, who have existed from long-forgotten ancient times. There are two types of knightly orders; secular orders, who pledge allegiance to the city-lord, and religious knights, who are attached to a temple. Most knights have a high opinion of themselves, and look down on the soldiers of the legions. Most religious knights follow Kardak, Ulseth or Karlandra, but knights following other guardians are not unknown.

Merchant

Many kandar cities are dependant on trade, and a rich and powerful merchant class has arisen. The Merchant's guild now has considerable economic and political power. Until recently, most successful merchants were kandar, who controlled the guild, but now a number of human merchants have become successful enough to challenge their dominance.

Outlander

This is someone from the wilderness area who has come to a kandar city. There are many reasons to leave the wilds. Maybe the village was destroyed by monsters, bandits or kandar knights. Maybe he or she was accused of a crime and ran. Maybe he or she just got bored and head for the "fabulous city" told about in stories.

Physician

While there are healers that rely on psionic healing powers, there are many more that rely on more mundane medical arts. Quite a few might be quacks and charlatans, but there are plenty of people with real skill and knowledge.

Priest

Priests, almost exclusively kandar, are servants of the Guardians, and serve as the spiritual leaders of the kandar people. They have some divination abilities, using artefacts called "oracles" to communicate with the Guardians. Most gain no other magical powers from being a priest, but a few priests have psionic abilities that some consider a divine gift. As messengers of the Will of the Guardians, they do have considerable political influence, and move in the highest circles of kandar society.

Sailor or Riverboat Crewman

The great seaport of Ravenah sends ships to many places, and the broad Fil and Cal rivers are both major trade arteries. Unfortunately, piracy is commonplace, even on rivers.

Soldier of the Legions

The kandar cities maintain significant standing armies, since wars are rather more common than people would like. The elite soldiers are the eight Legions, which date from the second empire, a thousand years ago. The Eight Legion, based in Ravenah, and the half of the Fifth Legion based in Calbeyn now accept humans into their ranks, but all other legions are kandar only. The legions take people from any background, and promotion tends to be on merit rather than social rank, at least most of the time.

Wizard

These people are practitioners of The Ways of Wizardry. The powers manifested today are but a pale shadow of the powers of the great wizards of old. These powers are psionic in origin, and occur naturally in a minority of the population. In all but a few cases, the powers of the mind cannot be controlled properly without training from an early age. The main organisation for training wizards is the long-established Academy of the Mind, an order of wizards which has a chapter in almost every city. There are a few smaller local associations of wizards which remain outside the Academy, and there are a few independent lone wizards, who occasionally take apprentices.