Artistry

Introduction

This is a list of suggested Artistries. Artistries will depend on your setting, representing fields of art and craft available to study in that setting. For example, characters in a setting which hasn't invented metalworking won't be able to learn Smithing.

Advice

Artistries most straightforwardly give your character things to do during downtime, but you should consider how your skills might be applied to unusual situations. Some examples of unusual uses for each Artistry have been provided, but these are only guidelines — you can propose using an Artistry in any situation you think it applies, and your Arbiter can decline to use any of my suggestions if they wish.

Rolling Skills

When you try to do something covered by an Artistry you're proficient with, most of the time there's no need to roll. If you've gone through culinary school, or spent years training as a painter, you're going to succeed almost all of the time when you attempt things you've practiced. Producing something of unusual quality is generally going to require more time, rather than more dice luck.

When you're applying your Artistry to new situations, however, skill rolls will generally be called for. Do not feel limited to using only Expression for these. Your Artistry proficiency allows you to try, but your scores in skills relevant to how you're trying are important for success.

Summary

• Doing normal things with your Artistry doesn't require a roll.
• Applying your Artistry to unusual situations allows you to roll for better outcomes.

As Arbiter, if you think a character's Artistry proficiency is helpful to something they're doing, you should either reduce the roll's difficulty or provide some other benefit to using the Artistry (e.g. more information than they could have gotten with the skill roll alone).

For example, a character with proficiency in Jewellery examining a lump of amber would trivially notice details in its appearance that an untrained character may only see with a very high Precision roll; instead, you might ask for an Arcane roll for them to notice signs of a hidden magical trace. A character using their Leatherworking proficiency to improvise restraints for an apprehended suspect may only have to roll World vs. 9, rather than World vs. 15.

Artistries List

Each Artistry in this list includes both a list of normal things that could be done with it (i.e. without rolling), and some suggestions for unusual situations to apply the proficiency to.

Calligraphy

From the Greek kalligraphía, meaning "beautiful writing". This Artistry stretches to include the study of handwriting in general as well as traditional calligraphy.

Basic:

• Writing beautifully.
• Writing quickly (and legibly).

Advanced:

• Copying handwriting, or forging signatures.

Carpentry

This Artistry is fundamentally about working wood into whatever shapes you like, but stretches to include assessing wooden structures for weak points and directing others to build more efficiently.

Basic:

• Make a chair, or a table.
• Produce wood carvings.

Advanced:

• Direct your allies to build a makeshift bridge as fast as possible.
• Barricade windows to keep the zombies out.

Cartography

Basic:

• Map your travels.
• Find your way with a map and compass.

Advanced:

• Jot down an accurate summary of data gained from Information spells as an action.

Cooking

Basic:

• Make a good meal out of common ingredients.
• Taste and talk about food like a professional.

Advanced:

• Make a strange meal out of strange ingredients.

Cryptography

Basic:

• Create ciphered messages, only decipherable with a key that you share.
• Recall information about cryptographic techniques, and recognise them.

Advanced:

• Invent new methods of secure communication.
• Break ciphers created by other people.

Creative Writing

Put pen to paper and come up with something new. Or just recycle things you like from books you've read; I won't judge.

Basic:

• Novelise your adventures.
• Write a children's book.

Advanced:

• Fabricate a believable fake identity.
• Recognise a particularly cliché murder method.

Forensics

Basic:

• Know what information to look for at a crime scene.
• Take and compare fingerprints.

Advanced:

• Notice deliberately concealed clues.
• Spot tiny details on people that you are interacting with (e.g. mud on their shoes, or a grass seed stuck to their sleeve).

Gardening

Basic:

• Growing any kind of plant.
• Groundskeeping.

Advanced:

• Foraging for edible plants in Hell.
• Raising the plant from Little Shop of Horrors.

Glassblowing

Basic:

• Create glass objects, or glass details for other creations.

Advanced:

• Invent the microscope.

Herbalism

Basic:

• Creating effective natural remedies for common diseases.
• Diagnosing and treating common diseases.

Advanced:

• Knowing about rare and powerful plants.
• Formulating cures for more esoteric diseases.

Jewellery

Jewellery includes the creation and appraisal of jewellery of all kinds (e.g. precious metals, gemstones, carved bone).

Basic:

• Appraise the value of gems or precious metals.
• Forge bespoke wedding rings.

Advanced:

• Recognise a specific gem with political importance.
• Notice magically traced jet or amber hidden in an item of jewellery.

Leatherworking

Leatherworking concerns the production and work of animal hides (and synthetic analogues, depending on your setting). This field also includes knowledge of shoemaking, even from non-leather materials.

Basic:

• Repair damage to a leather cloak or pair of boots.
• Create a stylish leather satchel.

Advanced:

• Identify the origin of a leather object.

Makeup

Basic:

• Making people look more (or less) beautiful.
• Dying hair.

Advanced:

• Disguising yourself as someone else.
• Creating convincing fake wounds.

Masonry

Basic:

• Carve stone.
• Build, or direct the construction of a stone building.

Advanced:

• Determine the origin and age of an ancient ruin.

Painting

Basic:

• Creating your own paintings.
• Applying body paint.
• Tattooing.

Advanced:

• Telling if a painting you examine is a forgery.
• Making your own forgeries.

Pottery

Basic:

• Create pretty pots.
• Create useful pots.

Advanced:

• Reconstruct a broken pot.

Smithing

Basic:

• Make normal weapons or armour.
• Make bespoke equipment from any metal for your allies.

Advanced:

• Invent a gun that shoots swords, or armour with built-in grappling hooks.
• Spot structural weaknesses in a large metal structure.

Textiles

Textiles includes the creation and repair of clothing, as well household fabrics such as bedsheets and tablecloths.

Basic:

• Repair everyday damage to an item of clothing.
• Create a beautiful ballgown.

Advanced:

• Sew six bedsheets together into a parachute.