Caffeinated alien The World Below: Callings

Alchemist

Sobriquets: Transmuters (formal), Necromancers (derogatory, common), Necrologists (respectful, though sometimes inaccurate), Percies (derogatory)

Learned Alchemists will tell you that the study of life’s cycle, of breathing vitality into a corpse, of turning base metals into valued minerals, and of turning darkness to light are what define their Calling. While much research was lost in the Exodus, Alchemists hoarded theirs and descended with it in their arms at the expense of the injured, the dying, and pleading loved ones.

For an Alchemist, the ends always justify the means.

It takes a long time for anyone to trust an Alchemist when forbidden lore is so much more appealing to them than the survival of their fellow people. But throughout the World Below, exceptions exist. Where five Alchemists might sacrifice a traveling companion for a rare mineral, one more would see the benefit of keeping their companion alive, for at least a little longer.

MORE THAN SIMPLY TURNING LEAD TO GOLD

When children hear stories of alchemy, they believe these lofty scientists in their hidden laboratories are simply attempting to enrich themselves by turning coal into platinum. This is not the case. Though Alchemists often build labs in secret caves and rig them with traps and warden beasts, they travel the tunnels and explore new locales as enthusiastically as people of their fellow Callings. They want to change more than mere matter: they want to change the course of life. They believe their harnessing of Kaos is a route to doing so, and as time has gone on, they’ve given less attention to geological chemistry and more to affecting lives.

INTERACTIONS OF THE ELEMENTS

Alchemists can command the inanimate into life or into forms the world would have never intended — until the Alchemists experimented with them. They can rot meat on a living body, make toxic air breathable, poison water or cleanse it, and alter the rarity of a mineral through the practice of their transmutative arts. They can feel the way the World Below’s elements interact with each other, detect which parts can be manipulated, and then exert their will over the most volatile puzzle pieces to complete their vision. As ingredient seekers and Dialectic experts, few compare. Alchemists studied this world before the Great Descent, and many see nature as a magnificent, expansive laboratory.

GIVING LIFE WHERE LIFE WAS LACKING

For all the fears of Alchemists being unethical experimenters, they serve important purposes in the World Below. They can conjure light from nothing, craft minions from dirt and bone to ease a caravan’s load, or gift vitality to someone bleeding out in a beast’s jaws. Alchemists sense the flow of life and death more than any other Calling. Where the Farsighter sees futures and Kaosists interact with the World Below’s powerful energy at its most raw and untamed, Alchemists view it all as one grand experiment. If it’s in line with their experiments, they can be relied upon to help everyone from solo wanderers to thriving settlements. There are some who are content to sit back and watch the boulders fall, but that would hardly be a test of an Alchemist’s prowess when they could be turning those rocks into steam.

WHO WOULD WANT TO BE AN ALCHEMIST?

The field of alchemy appeals to anyone who wishes to exert real control over their world. They pick up new quests, seek out rare ingredients, and sample strange delicacies and dangers just to see how it all works as one cohesive whole. An Alchemist might be an aspiring scientist or philosopher, someone with a natural aptitude for Kaotic arts, or simply an individual willful enough to say, “This world will be beholden to me.” Alchemists receive great reverence in their settlements — providing they work to secure them. It’s a natural Calling for Adamas and Elementals in a geomorphic sense, though more Plutonics and Qeobaca gravitate toward the Calling, perhaps because their states make them feel persecuted in a dangerous world.

THE MANY ROADS OF ALCHEMY

Alchemists come in many stripes and creeds, with legends whispered of their hazardous trials.

THE CREATIVE WISDOM OF TRANSMUTATION

Alchemist characters hold the Wisdom of Transmutation as supreme among Kaotic arts. Through mastery, they can:

Skills: Enigmas, Science, Technology

Major Path Attributes: Mental 5, Physical 3, Social 2
Minor Path Attributes: Mental 3, Physical 1

Farsighter

Sobriquets: Diviners (formal), Empaths (common), Paladins (respectful, though sometimes inaccurate), World-Talkers (common, sometimes derogatory)

No Calling is more in harmony with the World Below than the Farsighter. Held up as settlement chiefs, champions of their people, cave druids, and the strongest diplomats in the World Below, the crown rests heavy on the heads of the many diviners littered throughout the Vast Underneath. While many undertake their Calling with vigor and sincerity, others become fearful and paranoid about the secrets their visions and empathic abilities convey. More than one Farsighter has lost their mind to truths they weren’t ready to witness, and the expectation of clear prophecies, profitable guidance, and a permanently honest life is often too much for Farsighters to take.

To be a Farsighter is to be honored and honorable with it, and in the eyes of many, the last connection to the grace of sunlight. Farsighters play several roles in communities throughout the World Below, but perhaps more than any other, they’re a spiritual beacon and source of morale for many. Farsighters can see the past and the future, and with such powers comes the obligation of leadership.

LISTENING TO THE WALLS

Farsighters interpret the word “Calling” literally. When young, a Farsighter hears something calling to them, and before long someone will witness the teenage Farsighter with her ear pressed to a craggy wall or body laid flat in an abandoned cave, taking in the ambient noises from their surroundings. What can they hear? According to most Farsighters, the World Below speaks to them. Most of the time it’s a whisper, but sometimes it’s an emphatic statement — and more rarely, a terrifying shriek. Whether Farsighters are speaking to the Vast Underneath or if they’re somehow able to pick up the words of people speaking many strata away, the voices of spirits and other denizens of the World Below, or perhaps memories of the World Above, is open to debate. While every wanderer eventually forms a Dialectic, attuning with the Vast Underneath, it’s only Farsighters who maintain an open dialogue with their surroundings.

THE SINS OF DECEPTION

Farsighters are unparalleled in their ability to discern lies, tells, and secrets just from watching someone’s body language or listening to the timbre of a speaker’s voice. When more powerful, they can break into their targets’ skulls and read their thoughts. Most of this comes through trained skill, but the Wisdom of Heliogy allows them to further these abilities to analyze a person’s relational bonds or even gauge a monster’s motivations. Farsighters call it “burning lies away from truths.” They can manipulate an individual’s emotional state, making them more subservient or fearful, through to completely eroding a foe’s confidence. To cross a Farsighter is to find yourself at risk of being stripped down to your emotional core. No interrogators are better than these.

LEADING THE OTHERS

It’s said that “the Farsighter whispers the weak spot, the Silhouette marks it, the Hunter strikes it.” While this combination of actions isn’t always guaranteed, the different Callings do complement each other in this way. Farsighters fit in naturally as the first line of defense, analysis, and politics, as their talents naturally lend themselves to leading in most spheres. Though conflict is common in the World Below, people from most other Callings still defer to Farsighter judgment simply because it’s reliable and people of this Calling have a reputation for truth. That’s not to say there aren’t dishonest Farsighters, but empaths tend to purge such peers if they’re bringing the Calling into disrepute.

THE WORLD BELOW SPEAKS

To be a Farsighter requires self-confidence and a belief in the world around you. You don’t need to believe that world is always benevolent — though Farsighter Templars certainly do — but do need to believe it will give you the answers you need if you can only figure out how to interpret them. This Calling draws the scientific and analytical as well as the superstitious and fatuous. Each of them hears the call, but each interprets it in a different way. What Farsighters hold in common is is the outcome: their prophecies, analyses, and simple guesses draw worshipers, followers, and companions from all quarters as the Farsighter plays a necessary role in the hostile subterranean world.

WHO HEARS THE WHISPERS?

Farsighters may be naturally inclined to lead and receive wisdom, but they’re a varied group.

THE ILLUMINATING WISDOM OF HELIOGY

There’s a contradiction to the idea that Farsighters revere sunlight and illuminated truths and yet are rulers of subterranean kingdoms. Nevertheless, Heliogy is their Wisdom, and they guard it fiercely. Through its use, they can:

Skills: Empathy, Leadership, Persuasion

Major Path Attributes: Mental 3, Physical 2, Social 5
Minor Path Attributes: Mental 1, Social 3

Holy

Sobriquets: Vessels (common), Faceless (Holy of Golthon), Hadean (Holy of the Hades Tract), Fortunate (Holy of Fortuna), Templar (Holy of the Temple of the Benevolent Earth), Well Keeper (Holy of the Well)

Holies are the workers of faith and miracles in the World Below, channeling their fierce belief into action. They give themselves to the following of a religion or philosophy and become the most ardent protectors of settlements that follow their credo and outraged besiegers of those who reject their ideology. Holies are practitioners of historic and traditional rituals, students of ancient medicine, and some of the most gifted speakers in the World Below. Divinity flows through their voices.

Holies court reputations that reinforce their faith, sublimating their selves, their gods, and beliefs. Whether a suffering Faceless of Golthon, a dour cultist of the Hades Tract, a luck-blessed Fortunate, righteous inquisitor of the Temple, a mysterious Well Keeper, or a putrid Vrot, all Holies eventually wish to become a vessel for their belief: body, mind, and soul.

THE TRUEST CALLING

While some believe their gods work through their actions, other Holies claim they’re working to further an ancient divine agenda while their deity sleeps in the heavens. Hadeans don’t even believe there’s a god influencing them, but a spiritual mandate. This kind of self-assuredness can grate against others, but it’s an effective means of maintaining optimism against adversity. It helps that their actions assist more than hinder, as few faiths truly believe that the best way to spread belief is to terrify and kill potential converts. The Temple of the Benevolent Earth pursues heretics with an inquisitorial fervor, but it’s foremost to spread enlightenment.

THE MISSION IS ETERNAL

Holies find great purpose in discovering unearthing lost lore and reconsecrating ruined temples. It’s a rare Holy who sees a church and thinks “burn it down,” when other beliefs can share knowledge and perhaps even merge. The Fortunate hold that every god is just another aspect of their own, while Golthon’s Faceless maintain that everyone will become like them; lacking in individual torment and personal struggle in the end, to become part of one great whole. When questing, Holies march ahead prepared to strike their foes for their faith. When in the relative relaxation of Kalm, they go about building altars, blessing their friends, and proselytizing or studying their philosophy.

HEALING AND SLAYING ARE EQUALLY RIGHTEOUS

Many of the World Below’s inhabitants make the error of assuming Holies are mere mouthpieces for belief. This mistake proves fatal, as one thing all divine vessels learn before embarking on a pilgrimage is how to swing a weapon. Holies each carry their faith’s favored means of destruction, either as laid down in religious text or decreed by a temple leader. The Fortunate favor chains and flails, while the Faceless and Vrot wield heavy maces and hammers. Hadeans wear a sickle on each sleeve, where the Templars come armed with mighty, blackened blades. Only the Well Keepers favor gauntleted strikes, as that’s how they channel Kaos via the Wisdom of Boh.

THE CHANT

Faiths fall away or spring up over time just as water might from a crack in the earth, leaving a cave barren or flooded before anyone knows what happened. Therefore, every major belief is on dangerous, temporary ground. For this reason, the Chant is the common language of the Holies, shared between each of the major belief systems in the World Below to maintain a sense of comradeship. In every temple and shrine throughout the Vast Underneath, a peace known as the Pact holds sway. In such places, it’s strictly forbidden to threaten or shed blood, and the main language spoken is the Chant, which emerges from each speaker as an echoing, unnatural melody, somehow more akin to wind whistling through caves than a normal spoken dialect. All Holies know the Chant; it’s the first thing a Holy learns upon being illumined.

THOSE WHO WOULD BRING ORDER TO KAOS

Holies all know they must be prepared to swing a weapon, speak with grace, or tend to the sick and injured if they’re to win a people’s favor.

THE BALANCED WISDOM OF BOH

Holies channel the Wisdom of Boh, the life giving (and life taking) art of divine energy. Many reject the idea that it’s an aspect of Kaos, and with some validity, as its effects are more controlled than others. Some Holies refuse to use the word “Boh” outside the Chant, instead replacing it with the name of their faith or deity, such as by saying “I wield Golthon’s blessings.” They use this Wisdom to:

Skills: Close Combat, Medicine, Persuasion

Major Path Attributes: Mental 3, Physical 3, Social 4
Minor Path Attributes: Mental 1, Physical 1, Social 2

Hunter

Sobriquets: Harvester (common), Slayer (respectful), Bloodlusts (derogatory)

Hunters are viewed throughout the World Below as death-dealing people barely on the right side of monstrosity. The question often asked is, “Who would dedicate their lives to hunting down and killing the world’s most dangerous monsters?” There are many good answers that don’t rely on the Hunter being a bloodlust-driven fanatic, but few want to hear them. Better to give the Hunters a wide berth when they’re passing through or stocking up in the settlement, and maybe celebrate their victories or mutter about their deathly wake once they’re out of earshot. Hunters intimidate. They attract followings of eager squires and young adventurers. Their abilities are primarily geared toward the task their name implies, and glory comes with it.

They’re content to court reputations that garner fear and awe — after all, it’s far easier to carry out your task when people do what you say or flee, clearing the path ahead.

EVERYTHING CAN BE TAMED

Hunters bear a feeling of superiority, in the sense that they know they’re capable of ending the existences of most living things. Hunters avoid murdering everyone who gets in their way, however; doing so would cut down on mercenary contracts, and bounties are harder to claim when you’re wanted for cleaving through a settlement that upset you. Hunters recognize the need to tame and mollify. It’s easy to do this with humanoids; you just show them your collection of severed heads. But they extend this talent to beasts as well, some of them mighty and eldritch in nature. Something about the forceful personalities most Hunters possess allows them to act as the head of the tribe or the food chain in every environment.

YOU’RE ONLY AS GOOD AS YOUR LAST KILL

Hunters don’t have the luxury of sitting back on a throne of skulls and retiring into a lifetime of drink and debauchery. To their minds, this is the role of the Farsighter who can lead a community from the comfort of his own habitat. No, Hunters stay still during the Kalm, but then they’re marching out once more. If they ever rest, they can be sure that younger, more agile Hunters will take their reputations and steadily erase them. The hunt only ends when the Hunter dies. Breaks during the hunt are temporary respites in which one can start a family, shore up a habitat, or tell tales of your last kill or the people who died at your side.

REAPING ONE’S HARVEST

Hunters are often referred to as “harvesters” because despite their reputations, they do more than kill. The World Below is a thriving ecosystem, but resources are invariably locked to certain strata or in the possession of malign entities. It’s easy for a settlement to go from abundance to starvation, or for air or water to turn toxic overnight. Hunters are the individuals settlements go to, to clear a contamination source, to collect a giant beetle’s scales for suits of armor, or to locate rare herbs growing in forbidding canyons. They know the territory and, for many Hunters, killing is just a means to harvest the resources a settlement requires. Trophies taken on top of those resources are just pleasant perks.

THE BLADE SONG

The Blade Song is a hymn every Hunter knows from the time another Hunter first awards them their weapon. This part-hum, part-throat song dirge isn’t tuneful, but it lets others know a Hunter is near, and to some souls it acts as inspiration. Others wish to join the chorus, take up a weapon and forge out to defend their people, slay a monster, or make a name for themselves. Despite the danger inherent in being a Hunter, it’s the most popular Calling, and it comprises people of all body shapes, abilities, and strength of will. The World Below is so hostile that it seems a natural course, even for those lacking in combative talent, to do their best and fight for their loved ones. The constant birth of new Hunters is a good thing, ultimately, as it’s also the Calling with the highest death rate.

WARRIORS, FARMERS, GEOLOGISTS, AND CHAMPIONS

Hunters live up to the stereotype of bloodied slayers prowling the World Below, but scratch the soft stone away and you’ll find a remarkably varied set of people in this Calling.

THE LETHAL WISDOM OF SHYKAR

A Hunter ought never kill unless a good reason stands. Ask yourself, “why am I hunting this creature?” and if you cannot answer, you have succumbed to bloodlust. Hunter characters study the arts of Shykar, which were developed and passed down from the first Slayers to chronicle their hunts in the World Below. They use this Wisdom to:

Skills: Close Combat, Pilot, Survival

Major Path Attributes: Mental 2, Physical 6, Social 2
Minor Path Attributes: Mental 1, Physical 3

Kaosist

Sobriquets: Sorcerers (respectful or derogatory), Wilders (common, used for spontaneous Kaosists), Violets (common, used for trained Kaosists), Lunatics (derogatory)

The World Below is a place where Kaos flourishes. Cultured loremasters among the Kaosists speak of a time when Kaos was the fuel of all sorcery and utterly controllable; that in the World Above, it was diffuse and easy to manipulate without fear of backlash. But now, in the World Below, the outcomes of using Kaos for any purpose are less predictable the closer one gets to the well. That doesn’t mean they won’t try, however. The closer to the source you are, the more addictive power becomes.

Kaosists are the people who feel more qualified than any other to manipulate, utilize, and wield Kaos. They use it as a weapon, a tool, a means of making sour air clean. They play with danger in efforts to improve the lot of the people around them. To be a Kaosist is not without risk. Everyone who follows a Calling uses Kaos in some way, but Kaosists are the people plunging their arms into the roaring machine.

Kaosists play with more than fire; they’re attempting to manipulate the levers of life and death, matter and nothingness.

WE ARE ONE WITH KAOS

Kaosists develop spontaneously and through training. The spontaneous Kaosists, known as Wilders, explode with Kaos at a single point in their lives, typically during adolescence. Such a spontaneous outburst often causes disaster in the form of a Kaotic Retaliation and leaves them immediately attuned to Kaos around them. Trained Kaosists, named Violets, spend increasing amounts of time in Kaos’s presence, studying Kaos rocks and veins of untapped Kaos, slowly channeling its power through their bodies. As their eyes glow violet and they give off a purplish hue, both Wilders and Violets feel life surrounding them, as if the world were a pulsing entity, and they have access to its veins.

THE RISKS ARE SEVERE

Where the other Callings snatch at Kaotic strands, Kaosists grab the whole bunch of disparate energies and try to wrestle it as a Hunter might do a dragon: that is to say, with mixed, and often disastrous results. Kaosists have access to powers that can create gates to other worlds, reverse injuries and even death, craft pure power into objects and weapons, and bypass entire layers of the Vast Underneath. When Kaos use goes wrong — called a Kaotic Retaliation — it can cause everything from earthquakes and infernos to the sudden appearance of monsters. The temptation always remains to try again, however.

THE GREATEST OF HOPES

Kaosists are the world’s most adventurous spirits. They must be, for if they possessed even a crumb of reserve, they would seal themselves away and try and ignore the steady hum of Kaos. These sorcerers know their access to raw Kaos is a gift. For all the dangers inherent in its use, every Kaotic experiment is an opportunity for grandeur. And they can never forget the existence of the Well and its accompanying Well Liches who have so mastered Kaos as to change the world around them and make themselves eternal. What if such a boon could extend beyond the source? That’s the question many Kaosists ask before deciding to go on.

THE CALL OF KAOS

Kaosists emerge from dozens, maybe hundreds of origin points, especially when considering Wilder Kaosists, who seemingly emerge randomly. The more studious and meditative Violets tend to be characters from scholarly or monastic backgrounds, though there are eccentric hermits who decide they’re more drawn to Kaos than the peoples of the World Below. Eventually, however, a Kaosist’s origins matter less than what they do with their newfound ability. Kaosists try to aid the helpless, use Kaos to impress people, or use Kaos to make themselves godlings of the World Below. It’s difficult to do any of that alone in a distant cave. Many join guilds to put their work to intellectual use, but others set themselves up as guardians of caravans, packs, and settlements, at least until a Kaotic Retaliation forces them to abandon the smoldering remains.

“WILD VIOLETS GROW, EVEN IN THE WORLD BELOW.”

The popular children’s rhyme about persistent violets somehow penetrates every strata of the World Below, perhaps because Wilders, Violets, and other kinds of Kaosists pop up with as much unpredictability as their Calling name implies.

THE TUMULTUOUS WISDOMS OF KAOS

Kaosists treat Kaos as its own Wisdom, though in truth, all other Wisdoms are probably segments of it. The Wisdom of Kaos allows them to:

Skills: Artistry, Culture, Esoterica

Major Path Attributes: Mental 5, Physical 2, Social 3
Minor Path Attributes: Mental 3, Social 1

Silhouette

Sobriquets: Crawlers (common), Thieves (derogatory, common), Assassins (respectful or derogatory), Umbrists (respectful)

The Kaosist may be a wielder of untamed energy, the Alchemist an experimenter in unknown sciences, and the Hunter a lethal killer no matter the weapon in hand, but it’s the Silhouette who inhabitants of the World Below learn to fear. The Silhouette goes unseen. They hear your every word. They strike from a distance and move on. They crawl into narrow cracks in your cave you didn’t know were there, and they watch. They watch, and they learn, and they plot against you. The Silhouette is the enemy you don’t notice until you realize your valuables have vanished, that your habitat’s collapsing, or your life abruptly ends.

Such are the tales affixed to this Calling, and many are earned. While there is a strain of nobility among the ranks of Silhouettes, their victims cry foul far more often than people praise their existence. They’re a necessary evil, though, as there are no better scouts, spies, and athletes in the World Below. Just as they’re able to disrupt an unsuspecting settlement, their abilities can be turned on the ranks of the haemexii, quaesitors, and other weirder and more dangerous creatures.

FRIENDS OF THE DARK

Silhouettes are just as likely to encounter terrible entities in the Dark as someone of any other Calling, but they possess a rare advantage in that disturbing environment. They wield the darkness like a weapon, they make it their cloak, and even if they can’t see beyond the hand in front of their face, they know the terrain and can feel quite at ease in its oppressive bleakness. Though Dialectics such as the Plutonics and the Myceli have inclinations toward shadows and darkness, Silhouettes are trained from a young age to grow accustomed to the gloom. Silhouettes embrace the darkness and call it home in a way no other Calling can.

THE CHANGING FORM

Silhouettes allow the underground dusk to affect them on physical, mental, and spiritual levels. They’re more accustomed to darkness than any other Calling, and resultantly, they allow it to slowly change them. Many a story has been told of a Silhouette somehow contorting to escape through a painfully narrow crevasse, while another speaks of a Silhouette who allowed the darkness to drain the warmth and light from her body, with her ultimately becoming a thing of shadow and ice. Silhouettes are static when they need to be, and they can hold their form steady for a long time, but as time takes its toll they endlessly shift and morph, losing their identities to become things of the Dark. Or at least, that’s what the taleweavers claim.

THE BALEFUL EYE

Silhouettes watch, they strike, and then they move on. Whether their target is a person, a beast, or a trove of hidden treasures, they master the arts of observation, subtlety, and speed to act without emotion or cruelty, finding the best ways to carry out their objectives for communities, settlements, and guilds. Many Silhouettes adhere to the Hades Tract and the idea that they’re already dead. This philosophy provides them with a sense of calm purpose and pragmatism when it comes to their umbral operations. Silhouettes aren’t all murderous orthsundruds, but plenty of them are — at least, when the price meets their tariff.

WHO BECOMES A SILHOUETTE?

It’s easy to dismiss a stalking thief or killer as only having loyalty to themselves, but Silhouettes learn early on that there are few causes more valuable than those of trusted companionship. Anyone with close bonds to a community but who perhaps lives on society’s fringe, who doesn’t fear the dark, who can tread lightly in a crumbling tunnel and isn’t afraid to take hostile, sometimes lethal action against an enemy might become a Silhouette. Among the young, the Silhouette isn’t a much-admired Calling because of its lack of glory compared to the Farsighters and Hunters of the World Below, but this easily sets apart those who do admire the Silhouettes, making them easier to recruit. Young survivors of decimated communities often gravitate toward this Calling.

THE SHADOWS MOVE, EACH WEARING A DIFFERENT FACE

Just like shadows on the wall, Silhouettes come in many forms.

THE SHIFTING WISDOM OF THE UMBRA

Silhouettes champion Umbral Wisdom ahead of all other Sorcery categories. Through communing with the Dark, they can:

Skills: Athletics, Larceny, Ranged Combat

Major Path Attributes: Mental 2, Physical 5, Social 3
Minor Path Attributes: Physical 3, Social 1