The Callings

The oldest calling is the simplest: to stand between the ones you love and the thing that wants to eat them, holding something sharp. The warriors of AetheriaAetheriaThe Ember of the Aether: the world. learned it in the Tusk WarsTusk WarsThree wars between the Crown and the orc clans and their troll allies, won by nobody. and on the RavenholdRavenholdThe keep on the Whisperwood March where every guild learns to raid. March, and the schools of the HighcrestHighcrestThe city on the crest above Greenmeadow, seat of the Crown and of a thousand guild halls. drill-yards still bear the names of those days. The Vanguards hold the line and take the blows, and their cry, Hold the Line, has stopped more routs than any order from a throne. The Weaponmasters study the blade as a scholar studies a text. The Berserkers do not study anything, and are the reason the drill-yards have such high walls.

The Order of the Dawn LampOrder of the Dawn LampThe Crown’s holy knights, the paladins, who carry Seren’s light in the oath. was founded at HighcrestHighcrestThe city on the crest above Greenmeadow, seat of the Crown and of a thousand guild halls. in the Crown’s second century by knights who held that the Light of SerenSerenThe Watcher. She set the stars as watchfires on the walls of the world, and alone stayed in the sky.’s lamps was not only in the sky but in the oath, and that a knight who kept faith could carry it into the dark. They are the Crown’s holy knights, and the Light answers them. The Bastions bear it as a shield. The Dawnmenders lay hands on the wounded with a Divine Touch that the Church has never been able to explain to its own satisfaction. The Zealots carry it as a sword, and should be pointed carefully.

The druids learned their craft from the trees of WhisperwoodWhisperwoodThe first forest, where the elves woke and the trees gossip. in the morning of the world, and kept the groves for LysaLysaKindler of growing things, gone down into the roots of Whisperwood. through every age since. They lost much on the Night of the Missing MoonNight of the Missing MoonThe night Nhal took Morrow, about 290 YC, and a piece of it fell on Starfall., when the moonshadow failed and the sanctuary in the AshfenAshfenOnce the orcs’ grassland, now marsh, since the moonwell soured. went to rot, and they have never quite recovered their confidence. The Bearwardens take the shape of the great bear and stand in the way of things. The Grovetenders heal with green growth and the patience of roots. The Wildclaws take the shape of the hunting cat and do not take it off again until something has stopped moving. All of them, at need, will pause in the middle of a battle to wake a fallen comrade with a sharp word and a handful of leaves; they call it Rise and Shine.

The Church of the LampsChurch of the LampsThe faith of the Kindlers in Highcrest, whose priests pray to Seren and Maelis. keeps the faith of the KindlersKindlersThe singers who made Aetheria, then went down into it and sleep there, holding it together. in HighcrestHighcrestThe city on the crest above Greenmeadow, seat of the Crown and of a thousand guild halls., and its priests are its hands. They pray to SerenSerenThe Watcher. She set the stars as watchfires on the walls of the world, and alone stayed in the sky. in her sky and MaelisMaelisThe Mender, in every hand that binds a wound. What is broken can be made whole. in every healing hand, and for the most part their prayers are answered. The Cantors sing the old hymns, and wounds close at the sound. The Penitents heal by shielding, and take a little of each wound upon themselves, as a penance for sins the Church declines to specify. The Umbral priests are another matter. They pray in the dark, to the dark parts of the Lamps’ teaching, and the Church does not like them and cannot do without them; and it is whispered that some of them learned their prayers from the Shadowmoon TempleShadowmoon TempleThe temple of Morrow’s priests, who refuse to believe their moon is gone., in the years before the Temple stopped answering letters. Every priest, of whatever school, can cast the Guiding Tether: a cord of light that pulls a friend bodily out of harm’s way, and which the friend is not always grateful for.

Before the ConcordConcord of HighcrestThe pact of 412 YC that made every people who signed it free folk of the realm. the shamans were the priests of the orc clans and the storm-callers of the minotaur heaths, and the wise ones of the troll isles. They speak to the elements as one speaks to elders: politely, and expecting to be ignored half the time. The Tidecallers heal with water and with patience. The Stormcallers call lightning, and the greatest of them, under High Stormcaller VeyraVeyraHigh Stormcaller of the Stormspire, who raised the veil of storms over the Stormreach., have held the veil of storms over the StormreachStormreachThe highlands under a veil of storms that has not lifted in nine hundred years. for nine hundred years. The Earthwardens take the strength of the stone into their own bodies and stand like a mountain, and beat the War Drums so that the whole guild fights to the rhythm of the earth.

The magisters of the HighcrestHighcrestThe city on the crest above Greenmeadow, seat of the Crown and of a thousand guild halls. AthenaeumAthenaeumHighcrest’s house of scholars and magisters, where the Annals are kept. keep the arcane arts that Vel'ThuranVel'ThuranThe greatest magister of his age, who raised the Wyrmspire to bind Ignaroth, and was bound to him instead. codified in the first volume of his great treatise, and they are very careful never to read the second. The Pyromancers call fire, and are watched closely by the city watch. The Cryomancers call frost, and their halls in the Athenaeum are the only ones that are pleasant in summer. The Chronomancers bend time itself, rewinding a wound before it lands, and are the only mages who heal; it is said that every Chronomancer has, at least once, lived through a day twice by accident, and that most of them did not enjoy it the second time. Every magister knows the old jest of the Athenaeum, Sheepify, and has used it on an enemy, and almost certainly on a colleague.

There is no guild of thieves in HighcrestHighcrestThe city on the crest above Greenmeadow, seat of the Crown and of a thousand guild halls., and you will be told so firmly by anyone who belongs to it. The rogues of AetheriaAetheriaThe Ember of the Aether: the world. are its knives in the dark, its scouts and its poisoners, and since the Charter of BannersCharter of BannersQueen Elspeth’s decree of 1102 YC that handed the realm’s old wars to the guilds. they have found that the old enemies pay better than the city’s purses, and complain less. The Poisoners know every herb in the AshfenAshfenOnce the orcs’ grassland, now marsh, since the moonwell soured.. The Nightblades step out of shadows that should not be large enough to hold them. The Swashbucklers learned their trade on the decks of the SaltwindSaltwindThe coast where the Hundred Keels came ashore: wrecks, smugglers and crabs the size of carts. smugglers and fight in the front rank, laughing, and are almost impossible to hit, which they find very funny and everyone else less so. All rogues are masters of Borrowed Blame: of passing the anger of a great beast on to somebody else.

The rangers kept the RavenholdRavenholdThe keep on the Whisperwood March where every guild learns to raid. March alongside Lord VarricVarricLord of Ravenhold, who bargained to hold the wood until it was quiet, and holds it still, a century dead., in the years when he was still alive, and walked the borders of WhisperwoodWhisperwoodThe first forest, where the elves woke and the trees gossip. when the wood was at its worst. They are hunters and trackers and keepers of beasts, and every one of them has, somewhere, a companion who is better company than most people. The Sharpshooters can put an arrow through a raven’s eye at two hundred paces. The Houndmasters hunt with a great hound at their side. The Beastwardens fight in the front rank with their beasts beside them, and when the need is great they give the Pack Call, and every beast in earshot answers.

Necromancy was a curse until the UnquietUnquietThe dead of the Grey Tithe who woke with their own minds and broke the Lich-Captain at the Leechwater. made it a craft. In the years after the Grey TitheGrey TitheThe plague of 389 YC that took one in five, and raised many of them again. their scholars learned how the Lich-Captain raised the dead, and then learned how to raise bone without enslaving the soul that had worn it: an empty skeleton, they say, is no more a person than an empty coat. The Bonewardens wrap themselves in armour of bone and stand in the way of things, as the Unquiet stood at the LeechwaterLeechwaterThe ford where the Unquiet broke the Lich-Captain’s army in 391 YC.. The Gravetenders heal by draining the life of enemies into friends. The Swarmcallers raise a small army of the willing dead at a word. The elves will not have them in WhisperwoodWhisperwoodThe first forest, where the elves woke and the trees gossip., and the Church watches them closely, and the guilds recruit them as fast as they can. Every necromancer knows the art the Unquiet call Borrowed Time: to hold a dying friend on this side of the door a little longer, as they themselves were held.

The bards say that the world was made by a song, and that there is a little of the KindlersKindlersThe singers who made Aetheria, then went down into it and sleep there, holding it together.’ Song still in every true note: and since the world was in fact made by a song, the scholars of the AthenaeumAthenaeumHighcrest’s house of scholars and magisters, where the Annals are kept. have never been able to tell them they are wrong. The Balladeers sing the wounded whole. The Skalds beat the drum in the front rank and sing the battle-chants of the minotaur heaths. The Hecklers stand at the back and insult the enemy so precisely and so personally that it lowers its guard out of sheer offence. Every bard knows the Encore, the art of playing again what has just been played, so that a great deed may be done twice.

The tinkers are the gnomes’ gift to the guilds, and also the gnomes’ warning to them. They build what they need on the field: suits of walking iron, turrets on tripods, drones that fly about patching people up. The Mechanauts fight inside their machines. The Turretsmiths set up their guns and stand behind them. The Sparkmedics send out little mender drones on whirring wings. Every tinker carries a Mana Battery for the guild’s spellcasters, and every tinker will tell you it is perfectly safe, and every tinker stands a little further back when it is used.

Hexcraft came out of the troll isles and the bog-villages of the AshfenAshfenOnce the orcs’ grassland, now marsh, since the moonwell soured., where it was the art of the wise-woman and the witch-doctor: of the doll and the pin, the bad eye and the knotted string. The Malisons lay curses that rot an enemy from within. The Poppetwrights heal by voodoo, with a little doll of each friend kept in the pocket, and woe to the friend whose doll is dropped. The Hexblades curse their own blades and finish what others start. All hexers know how to lay a Jinx, and all hexers will tell you that they do not believe in luck, while knocking on wood.

The corsairs are the fighting crews of the Corsair ReachesCorsair ReachesThe sea beyond the sea, on no mainland chart, reached only by a guild’s own ship., pirate and privateer and Navy alike, and they do not sign on with a guild that has never put to sea. Once a guild has sailed, they come. The Quartermasters keep the deck and stand in the front of a boarding fight with a cutlass and a ledger. The Surgeons patch the crew up between broadsides with needle, rum and an absolute lack of sentiment. The Gunslingers carry pistols, a great many of them, and are the reason the elves of WhisperwoodWhisperwoodThe first forest, where the elves woke and the trees gossip. have begun to write to the Crown about the noise.