An archetype in conflict.

Attributes: Blacksmiths used to be considered among the ranks of magic users, melding the four elements into weapons that a tribe, then a clan, then a city, then a nation could use to defend itself or to wage war upon others. The Greeks had Hephestus who became Vulcan making the armaments of the gods. Every legitimate sword smith in Japan to this day has a Shinto shrine in their forge. There is still a draw to this incarnation of the archetype reflected in film genre, a harkening back to an authentic and hence more dangerous time when violence was a personal test of skill. Some would say this view is only a vicarious waking dream of the modern world and that is where the new incarnation of this archetype appears.
In the stead of the swordsmith came first the skilled individual craftsman of the gunsmith which was replaced in turn by the industrial assembly line of firearms production. It is still possible today to find skilled machinists who will create custom, hand made fire arms and a very few of them have stumbled onto the weakening path of the weaponsmith and are changing the world-view of the archetype (knowingly or not)into the gunsmith.
These bastard children of the archetype walk a new road in the modern era carrying the importance of skilled craftsmanship in the face of novel labor saving technology while using their skill to create something undeniably modern. While the acsended archetype is none to please to see swordsmithing falling out of the mainstream public consciousness at least the new incarnation keeps to the old work ethic of investing themselves into their creation.
The weaponsmith is at odds in the statosphere with such modern and anonymous crafters as the working man or the necessary servant. Avatars of the true king, the masterless man and the executioner are rumored to seek avatars of the weaponsmith in hopes of strengthening connection with their own. This has lead to some interesting secondary conflicts of modernity and antiquity, does the true king still seek to rule wielding a magic sword or is humanity beyond such anachronisms?

Taboo: Weaponsmiths may never handle weapons they did not create without weakening their link to the archetype. Their weapons carry part of their soul with them and are not to be handled lightly.

Symbols: Anvils, the bellows, and the hammer are the traditional symbols of the weaponsmith but in modernity the archetype faces recognition in polished crome, blued steel, sparks from the grinding wheel and the sound of the machine.

Channels:
1%-50%: With a successful check the weapon created by the smith is not subject to sour cherries while in use during combat. All failures save the dreaded 00 are treated as simple failures for the purpose of game play.
51%-70%: With a successful check the weapon created cannot harm the creating smith. Swords will miss, firearms will jam or on a matched success the weapon will come to a halt a negligable distance from the smith possibly forcing unnatural and helplessness checks. This is not a broad channel. While I would be unable to strike the smith with the butt of a handgun he created I could use the same weapon to destroy an urn setting free the trapped and vengeful soul of the smith’s arch nemisis.
71%-90%: With a successful check the weapon created always confers the sum of dice of the check to the users weapon skill. So if in forging a sword Miyaguchi rolled a 45 on his Avatar: Weaponsmith skill of 75, anyone who uses the weapon receives a +9% bonus to their skill. This channel may never be used more than three times on the same weapon but the effects stack.
91%+: So much of the smith’s spirit has been invested in the weapon at this point that it may function autonomously as if wielded by the smith regardless of where the smith and weapon are in relation to one another. In terms of combat rules this breaks down to a free action on behalf of the weapon each round so long as it is not restrained from movement. For example a .357 has been enchanted with this channel and is in the shoulder holster of a hitter named Moe. Moe uses the weapon’s extra action to draw it to his hand and uses his own action to start plugging the opposition all in the same round. Alternatively Moe could use the extra action to have the weapon draw itself and hang in mid air while he pulls out another piece and then the next round tell the .357 to start shooting on its own accord while he does the same. In any case of attack or other conflicted roles the weapon has stats equal to that of the smith who created it at the time it was created. In the smith’s presence all weapons enchanted with this channel defer to the smith’s will. In any other situation the weapon uses its action at the behest of its current owner.

It’s rumored that the weapons created by the currect godwalker deal damage to the spirit as well as the body in some cases leaving breathing corpses.