Eight fantasy character class ideas, written as verbs
Most class lists are eight stat spreads with different hats on. These are eight things a person does when the room goes wrong: hold the door, take the credit, calm everybody down, lift the room, price the unknown, try again, come at it another way, take the wound for somebody else. Read the eight of those in order and you have read the whole design.
Each one also names the thing it is no use against, which is the part worth stealing if you take nothing else. A weakness that hurts you is a tax. A weakness that makes you irrelevant is a scene. None of these Failings names a monster: they name a crowd with no doorway in it, a ledger that will not balance, a fire no dog will walk towards.
WARDEN
Get behind me and stop arguing about it.
The Warden is what a party has instead of a plan. You go first into the stairwell and last out of the burning room, and once a night you can simply refuse to let everybody else pay for something. Brawn and Grit means you are rarely the clever answer, and the table will notice how often the clever answer needed somebody holding a door.
Trained in
Brawn and Grit, worth +2 on a roll
Once a night
Behind Me
No use against
too many bodies in too small a space. A doorway is a thing one person can hold. A press of bodies goes round you, and there is nothing left to stand in front of.
KNIFE
I was never in the room, and you will not remember me leaving.
The Knife works alone, in a game about a party, which is the point. Deft and Nerve carry you through locks, ledges and the half second after somebody looks up, and your Signature takes the credit for a Deed that was never yours, in public, with nothing anyone can do about it. You will not be the best liked character at the table. You may well be the richest.
Trained in
Deft and Nerve, worth +2 on a roll
Once a night
Whose Idea It Was
No use against
people with authority and a reason to ask questions. Everything you do looks worse by lantern light, and they always want to see hands.
HEDGE-WITCH
I know what the marks on that lintel are for. You do not.
The Hedge-Witch knows the small practical things. Which leaf stops a bleed, why that door is nailed shut from the outside, what the chalk under the step was put there to keep out. Wits and Grit make you the one who understands the room and then outlasts it, and once a night you take the fear out of the whole party's night with salt, a word, and a very steady hand.
Trained in
Wits and Grit, worth +2 on a roll
Once a night
Salt The Threshold
No use against
a temple, a rite, somebody certain they are right. They have a word for what you do and a set of written instructions for what to do about it.
CHANTER
Give me a bar and a half and the whole room is mine.
The Chanter turns a room. Charm and Nerve are the two abilities that work on people rather than on objects, and your Signature is the moment the whole taproom comes in on the chorus and a roll that was going to fail quietly does not. You are the reason the party talks its way out of trouble, and usually the reason it was in it.
Trained in
Charm and Nerve, worth +2 on a roll
Once a night
Everyone Joins In
No use against
a body, and the question of what to do about it. You cannot work a room that has stopped listening, and a body on the floor stops a room dead.
RECKONER
Everything has a price. I have written most of them down.
The Reckoner counts. Debts, exits, odds, the number of guards on a wall and what each of them is paid to be there. Wits and Charm make you the only Calling that can work out the answer and then get it believed, and your Signature buys the one thing this game keeps behind glass, which is the number on the Reckless line before anybody has to commit to it.
Trained in
Wits and Charm, worth +2 on a roll
Once a night
Price The Door
No use against
the unexplained, and it has noticed you. It does not balance. Nothing you know how to count applies to it, and you can hear yourself still trying.
HOUNDMASTER
She has the scent. Try to keep up.
The Houndmaster is never quite alone. Brawn and Wits are the leash and the trail, holding something that badly wants to be let go while reading ground nobody else has bothered to look at. Once a night the dogs cast again over lost ground and you throw the die a second time, which is the only honest second chance in the run.
Trained in
Brawn and Wits, worth +2 on a roll
Once a night
Cast Again
No use against
something burning that should not be. Smoke takes the scent, and no dog worth having will go towards a burning door for you.
SAPPER
Doors are a suggestion. Walls are a schedule.
The Sapper does not open doors. Brawn and Deft, a short bar, and firm opinions about which walls are load-bearing. Your Signature is the whole trade in one action: the first way in was wrong, so take a different one, in the same breath, before the scene has finished with you.
Trained in
Deft and Brawn, worth +2 on a roll
Once a night
The Other Way In
No use against
a river, a flooded cellar, rain that will not stop. Everything you dig fills up, and nothing you prop stays where you put it.
OATHBOUND
I said I would. That is the end of it.
The Oathbound gave their word to something, and the game never tells you what. Grit and Nerve are the two abilities for staying put long after staying put stopped being sensible, and your Signature takes another player's Scar onto your own body. It is the only genuinely selfless act in a game that pays exactly one person, which makes it either the noblest Calling here or the best disguised long game.
Trained in
Grit and Nerve, worth +2 on a roll
Once a night
On My Word
No use against
a bargain, a market, a price being named. A bargain assumes you will move on your terms, and you said out loud what your terms were.
How to pick one, if you are picking
Only one player at a table can be each of these, so the choice is made against everybody else at once and being denied the one you wanted is the point rather than the bug. If you are going to lose that argument, lose it towards the Calling whose Failing you can live with. Being hurt is recoverable. Being irrelevant for a whole scene, in front of four people who can all see it, is the thing you will remember.