The Master Craftsman. The Maker of Wonders.

Cannabimancy may be offshoot of Narcoalchemy or Dipsomancy, or both, or it may have just started independently and grown to resemble those schools through convergent evolution. None of the pertinent parties remember very well. Whatever, if you want street cred, just say something spooky about the Hashishim.

The Artisan makes something that people want or need, and he makes it better than anyone around. He is the Butcher, the Baker, the Candlestick Maker, the Tailor, the Blacksmith, the Cobbler, the Brewer, the Architect, the Fashion Designer, and the Computer Programmer. He is no mere hobbyist, nor is he a faceless worker; his work is his livelihood, and his clients personally appreciate him for it.

The Artisan has been around in various forms since humans first developed complex divisions of labor. Recent centuries, however, have proven especially difficult for this Cleric. Although it’s been having skirmishes with the Scholar for millennia, no one has stolen more of its elbow room than the Loyal Laborer (avatars of the Artisan and Avatars of the Loyal Laborer don’t get along. They usually don’t know why. This becomes especially inconvenient when an Artisan has a Laborer working for him). The industrial revolution and the rise of the assembly line and automation lessened the importance of unique products and the human face of production. The rise of communism marked a peak in these difficulties, but the Artisan has always been able to take refuge in alcohol; expensive wine and microbrew has yet to be superseded by mass-produced booze. Recently, however, this archetype has been making a comeback, aided by the mystique of computer experts, along with reality shows about fashion designers, home decorators, and chefs.

Possible Masks: Hephaestus (Greek), Daedalus (Greek), Dionysus (Greek) Wayland Smith (Germanic), St. Clement (patron of blacksmiths), Q (James Bond), Willy Wonka (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory).

Suspected Avatars in History: Antonio Stradivari, Daniel Wesson, John Pemberton, Frank Lloyd Wright.

The Artisan’s Craft: An Artisan’s Craft is the skill that defines his personal connection to the archetype. A Craft must be a skill related to making a certain type of physical product, either directly or through less-skilled workers. It would be simple to say that a Craft must be practical and not merely for entertainment, but that would overlook certain wrinkles in the archetype. The product of a Craft need not be useful, so long as it is to be physically used and not just seen or heard. The Artisan also has a long-standing treaty with the Messenger that the product of a Craft cannot be used solely for information (if Arkane ascends, this may reopen for negotiation). Thus, an Artisan cannot make paintings, music, novels, or textbooks, but can make musical instruments, beer, or candy, even though these things are purely for entertainment and have no practical value. An artisan could design movie sets, but could not direct movies. He could draw blueprints for buildings, because that’s just a way of delegating the actual creation of the building, but he could not write movie scripts, because the task being delegated (making the movie) would still only result in a product to be watched. He could do web design, but not magazine layout.

Taboos: The Artisan is good at what he does; his Avatar: Artisan skill can never rise above his Craft skill.

An Artisan must leave a distinctive, personal mark on everything he makes. This can be a signature, a label, or a more cryptic insignia, but it must be prominent enough to be found by anyone looking for such a logo. The Artisan must also make sure no one else uses his sign.

The Artisan’s primary source of income must always be his Craft. He can never take a job doing anything else. An Artisan can sporadically sell his belongings for quick cash or keep windfalls like inheritances, rewards, or gifts, but these can never comprise more than 25% percent of what he spends in a year. An Artisan can save such wealth or donate it to charity, but he weakens his connection to the archetype if what he uses of it in a year totals more than a third of what he earned plying his trade that year.

Most importantly, although an Artisan can work blindingly fast, this is due to mastery, not haste. An Artisan can never cut corners or engage in jury-rigging within his Craft. He can never use, sell, or give away excessively cheap, shoddy, error-ridden, or haphazard goods that fall within his Craft, nor can he acquire them without the intention of fixing them. Yes, this means that the interior designer cannot enter your room if it is not clean (although he can stave off breaking taboo by cleaning it until he leaves or it’s up to his standard).

Channels:
1-50%: The Artisan automatically succeeds on all rolls to examine the condition or quality of something that falls within his Craft, or identify its model, place of origin or creator if he has any conceivable way of being familiar with it. If, however, the potter could not possibly know the name of the Cretan woman who made the pot of which a seventh-century B. C. E. sherd was once a part, he can still find out with a roll of his Craft skill. A Craft skill roll can also reveal a useful bit of information about an object that falls under the avatar’s Craft, pertaining to how it’s commonly used, the purpose for which it was made, where certain marks or scratches came from, or the personality of its owner or maker. (“You can tell a lot about a man from his shoes.”)

51-70%: Once per day, the Artisan can work superhumanly fast at his Craft while working alone. The Artisan’s player makes an Avatar: Artisan roll. For the rest of the day, whenever the Artisan is plying his trade alone, all tasks are cut to a fraction of the time they would normally take whose numerator is one and whose denominator is equal to the ten’s place of the roll. For instance, if he rolled a 53, all tasks would take one fifth the normal time. A roll whose ten’s place is zero cuts the time to 3/4 while a roll whose ten’s place is one cuts it to 2/3. For crafts that absolutely require delegation or teamwork, this cuts time spent in planning, paperwork and anything else the Artisan can do alone.

71-90%: Once a month at most, the Artisan can make something of exceptional quality that grants some special benefit to its user. The Artisan must make whatever extended roll would be required to create a normal such object, followed by a final Avatar: Artisan roll. If the Avatar: Artisan roll fails, he can try making that final touch again after another month. This takes either 80 total hours of work or twice as long as it would normally take to make such an object, whichever is longer (if this seems implausibly long, say that it’s spent experimenting or tracking down exotic parts). The Artisan’s second channel cannot be used to reduce this time. Such a creation either allows its user to flip-flop all rolls when performing a specific task (not all rolls involving the item), or flip-flops all rolls for the worse when used to perform that task (a “cursed” object). Some effects may fall to GM fiat if they affect tasks that don’t normally require rolls. These items cannot be mass-produced or made by others, no matter how closely the Artisan’s formula is imitated. For Crafts that create batches rather than single items, or where copying is inevitable and perfect (such as computer programming) only a number of creations equal to the Avatar: Artisan roll are enchanted. Some examples:

–An award-winning brewer makes a special beer that makes its drinker more attractive and seductive.
–A feng shui artist arranges a room to make people ill at ease (negatively flip-flop stress checks).
–A carpenter carves a baseball bat especially for smashing skulls.
–A computer programmer creates the most addictive game ever.
–A cobbler makes Boots of Escaping.

91%+: Once per year at most, the Artisan may create a Significant magickal artifact. This takes 500 hours of work or twice as long as it would normally take, whichever is longer. The particulars of the third channel stand with respect to rolls, imitation, etc. As Significant artifacts, such items should have either permanent effects balanced like Minor adept spells or limited-use effects balanced like Significant spells (with a number of uses equal to the sum of the dice on the Avatar: Artisan roll). Note that alcohol made with channel would easily be enough to give a Dipsomancer a major charge.