Profession feedback thread [POLL]

The other benefit of less-entangled professions is they also give 10 echoes a week more than the corresponding tier of entangled professions.

Edith has always been in the author track. She was first a journalist, then an author, and now she’s trying to get her watchful high enough to try for her last 2 points of SotC to advance to Correspondent.

Jack is a new POSI, so he’s trying to get his first tier 1 profession started, which will be on the monster hunter track. His ambition is Bag a Legend, so this seems right for him.

Myrto is my oldest character. They started out in the watcher track, then switched to being a murderer. This didn’t feel quite right for their character, however, (though the diamonds were nice for when they got a zub), so they switched back to Agent. However, I personally am really interested in the glassman track, so Myrto may eventually switch again.

Edit: I voted with Myrto in the poll above, since they’re my main character.
edited by Myrto on 1/22/2016

I intend to try out most of the branches to get a feel of what they’re each like. But Crooked Cross has been the most appealing so far, for the same reason as Rupho Schartenhauer. All this trying out and the probable eventual settling on Crooked Cross is quite characteristic of my true neutral alignment.

the poll results are interesting so far. It looks like my suspicion about journalist being popular is confirmed. Perhaps that’s because it’s the closest the six branches come to being a “real” job. Whereas the others are more fantastical and/or criminal in nature. Enforcer is an assasin, watcher is a spy, monster hunter is pretty obvious, and i’m not even sure what crooked cross or glassman are, but their role in society is rather hard to determine. Journalist seems the most legitimate.

I kind of wish there was an engineering path, a parliamentarian branch, and a sort of legitimate military/navy career. I bet those would get a lot more love

Not many seem to like being enforcers

You know the highest-tier Journalist profession is also somewhat fantastical, right? The Correspondent. Lore-wise, the higher-end professions are institutionalized by the Bazaar for its own ends.

If you break the current poll down by which stat people are improving with their professional item:

Dangerous: 10
Shadowy: 10
watchful: 23
Persuasive: 19

This tilt makes sense if you look at the fact that there are very high-level Watchful and Persuasive challenges in the game (particularly Watchful) and that Persuasive is rather hard to get into a very high range.

[quote=Nanako]the poll results are interesting so far. It looks like my suspicion about journalist being popular is confirmed. Perhaps that’s because it’s the closest the six branches come to being a &quotreal&quot job. Whereas the others are more fantastical and/or criminal in nature. Enforcer is an assasin, watcher is a spy, monster hunter is pretty obvious, and i’m not even sure what crooked cross or glassman are, but their role in society is rather hard to determine. Journalist seems the most legitimate.

I kind of wish there was an engineering path, a parliamentarian branch, and a sort of legitimate military/navy career. I bet those would get a lot more love

Not many seem to like being enforcers[/quote]
another real reason is simpler- you can get a mid-teir profession before you become POSI, but only in journalist tree. Lots of people take this shortcut, and then others are deliberately staying author for the free night on the town, which, if you factor in the creation cost, makes it competitive with most top-teir professions.[i]

There are other equally useful professions at times, but author is generally useful if you’ll ever want notability >7, and always useful to have been if you want notability >10
[/i]
edited by Grenem on 1/22/2016

Certainly the correspondence is fantastical, but it has a concrete real-world analogue. Archaeology. Correspondant is really just that fused with journalism. Which is a very odd fusion to be sure, (and i’d personally rather see a whole seperate scholarly profession outside of journalism) but it’s still somewhat relateable

Meanwhile, what in the heck is a crooked cross, for example?

Not really a priest. Some sort of salesman, is the closest analogue i can think of ?
This sounds more like a wierd pseudo-anarchist hobby, than a profession. Who exactly is paying him, and for what?

I imagine Hell and the Bazaar are paying the Crooked-Cross for similar yet distinctly different reasons; upsetting the status quo of thought and belief can lead to useful results for both of them.

Certainly the correspondence is fantastical, but it has a concrete real-world analogue. Archaeology. Correspondant is really just that fused with journalism. Which is a very odd fusion to be sure, (and i’d personally rather see a whole seperate scholarly profession outside of journalism) but it’s still somewhat relateable

Meanwhile, what in the heck is a crooked cross, for example?

Not really a priest. Some sort of salesman, is the closest analogue i can think of ?
This sounds more like a wierd pseudo-anarchist hobby, than a profession. Who exactly is paying him, and for what?[/quote]

The correspondence is a weird, magic science. not language, or if it is language, it’s an unstoppable magical language that casts spells without warning even by writing and often casts them… explosively. Calling it journalism and archeology fused is like calling the profession of bomb defusers &quotgambling mixed with armed service.&quot

The crooked-cross might be a Secular Missionary (with normal missionary funding), an individual in revolutionairy employ, someone who thrives on tips alone, the bazaar, hell, or any number of others. Generally, they weild any of the trinity of logic, faith, and emotion against one another.

They thrive on conflict and explore and map the grey areas left by the surface religions and moralities. They probably were the reason for the loss of killing inhibitions, for the loss of most racism and sexuality discrimination. They don’t believe in simple black and white.

so they’re Agitprop?

[quote=Nanako]

As mentioned i’m on journalist. I originally started on ratcatcher though, being a monster hunter seemed like something i wanted to do. But honestly, and call me shallow if you wish, i was put off it by the artwork. The top tier item, a spear of bone, it looks shoddy and makeshift, and not-at-all suitable for someone of a high tier profession. and it certainly doesn’t look very respectable. I’d have much rather have gotten a finely crafted sword or a masterwork rifle or something.

I mean look at it. This kind of makeshift weapon might seem suitable for a low-class profession. But stepping up from a finely made gun, to that thing, is an insult. It definitely feels like a step down, in both looks and combat capability. How is someone supposed to hunt zee beasts with a weapon like that?
[…]
edited by Nanako on 1/21/2016
edited by Nanako on 1/21/2016[/quote]

I disagree with you that this is a low-class weapon. Monster-Hunters pried this still living appendage off a horrible zee monster. It’s not just a primitive spear, the thing is alive and is &quoteager&quot to get a taste of the action. Gameplay-wise I believe it isn’t supposed to be &quotrespectable&quot, I think it’s supposed to be &quotdreadful&quot.

Lore-wise, this weapon IS respectable or, more precisely, respectful.

The tradition of using parts of your prey to hunt monsters is an at least ~13800 year old practice. Here’s a link that gives some evidence that early humans killed mastodons with mastodon bone spears. The Makah tribe also known to hunt whales (closest IRL thing to zee-creatures aside from the giant squids) with bone harpoons and mussel shell blades. If that weapon doesn’t respect the Monster-Hunter’s spiritual ancestors’ traditions I don’t know what will.

It also works well as a leash for seals.

[quote=Nanako]
So i’m wondering about you guys.

  • Which of the profession branches have you chosen (or are planning to choose, if you’re still t0)?[/li][li]What made you choose that?[/li][li]What about the others? which other options did you consider,[/li][li]And why did you decide against them ?[/quote]
  1. Monster-Hunter (Rudolph might become a Doctor though since s/he’s a bit shy, repulsive and magnanimous)

  2. Because it’s awesome and goes well with the Nemesis Ambition both lore-wise and gameplay-wise. You have to be one if you want to hunt a monstrous nemesis.

  3. The Journalist Path due to its Gameplay perks.

  4. Because it doesn’t fit into my character’s narratives. Pyro’s only sociable if there’s violence or intellectual contests to be had while Rudolph is a repulsive, probably hybrid, person and having a group of fans conflicts with that role.

Hey, magic spells are language. They’re just, you know, magic language.

Or, I daresay a more accurate description would be… well, if a god says something, it comes true, yeah? So we can say something in the gods’ language and do the same thing. Except it’s so powerful that if we get it wrong, things explode… and even if we get it right, it’s a language devised so much higher on the chain than our mortal realm that things might explode anyway.

Correspondence-study and its relevant profession take on the trappings of science and academia in Fallen London, rather than those of science or religion, just 'cause, well, that’s Fallen London’s culture.

Anyhow, I figured that Crooked-Crosses were straight up employed by Hell as, indeed, agitprop - agents out to undermine Christian morality for the benefit of the devils.

(Oh, and in answer to the original question - Sir Fred’s a Correspondent, Hubris is a Crooked-Cross, Juniper’s a Stalker and Esther’s a Campaigner.)
edited by Sir Frederick Tanah-Chook on 1/22/2016

That concept is flawed as while we can make multiple accounts in Fallen London’s Page, we don’t (or many of us don’t) make multiple login accounts here in the forums for multiple characters in FL. Haven’t you wondered why we list multiple characters in our signatures?[/quote]
I also seem to remember that using multiple accounts was explicitly forbidden by the forum’s terms and conditions. But I can’t seem to find the T&C page anymore to confirm (for the forum, not for the game).

I decided my character would be an author from the very beginning - and later found out that it was an actual option within the game. So I rushed through Journalist->Author pretty quickly, then stayed as such for quite a long time. (The whole ‘invitation to a Salon’ thing didn’t hurt either.) Eventually my game experience inclined more towards the Correspondence, so it seemed appropriate for my character’s profession to follow suit.

Since then, the in-game stuff relating to the Correspondence has waned significantly, but I learnt more about Parabola and decided to become a Glassman instead - I had envisioned myself as going on safari before reading up on the job, though it seems the profession involves less exploring and more pen+paper research. (Although when I personally found out what the river was made of, that blew my mind. Great writing there! ^_^ )

But someday the option to set up a base camp will become available, and that’s my character’s future goal as far as his profession is concerned.

So I’m a little torn between answering with Journalist or Campaigner, as both have been relevant, but I’ll answer with Campaigner (because Glassman) here.

Everyone keeps siezing on that word, no that’s not what i meant.
I mean that a spear isn’t terrifying. Far less so than a really big gun.

I think the british empire’s history demonstrates this quite effectively: http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/media/images/75401000/jpg/_75401592_zulupics.jpg

[quote=Pyrodinium]
The tradition of using parts of your prey to hunt monsters is an at least ~13800 year old practice. [/quote]
EXACTLY!
Whereas, at the time of our setting, the tradition of using giant cannons to hunt your prey is only a couple centuries old, if even that. And vastly more effective.

You may be able to jump on a tyrant moth and stab it to death, but taking down something like a Lifeberg or Mt Nomad can only feasibly be done by smashing it into pieces with explosives and large-calibre projectiles. The latter isn’t even going to come anywhere near within &quotjump-on-it-and-stab&quot range, because it wrecks ships from afar with some kind of bizarre psychic powers.

I’d say the most appropriate monster hunter tool would be something akin to fallout 4’s broadsider

Or perhaps even an enhanced version of such.
As the Memento Mori proudly demonstrates, Mixing modern technology with wierd occult magic is perfectly possible. Embracing one doesn’t have to mean abandoning the other.

edited by Nanako on 1/22/2016

Hey, magic spells are language. They’re just, you know, magic language.

Or, I daresay a more accurate description would be… well, if a god says something, it comes true, yeah? So we can say something in the gods’ language and do the same thing. Except it’s so powerful that if we get it wrong, things explode… and even if we get it right, it’s a language devised so much higher on the chain than our mortal realm that things might explode anyway.

Correspondence-study and its relevant profession take on the trappings of science and academia in Fallen London, rather than those of science or religion, just 'cause, well, that’s Fallen London’s culture.

Anyhow, I figured that Crooked-Crosses were straight up employed by Hell as, indeed, agitprop - agents out to undermine Christian morality for the benefit of the devils.

(Oh, and in answer to the original question - Sir Fred’s a Correspondent, Hubris is a Crooked-Cross, Juniper’s a Stalker and Esther’s a Campaigner.)
edited by Sir Frederick Tanah-Chook on 1/22/2016[/quote]
Fair enough, but the point was that they’re oversimplifying the problem. A mere linguist would not be a suitable description of the correspondence profession, any more than calling an engineer someone who sticks peices of metal together.

It’s amazingly dangerous, all 6 professions are. not a small number of people have been killed by the correspondence.

As far as i can see, the correspondence is basically code.
To study and write it, is to be a programmer

If you’re a Monster-Hunter, there might be a big gun coming up later in your career, but you won’t be the one firing it. So hold on tight to that harpoon, you’re going to need it.
edited by Passionario on 1/22/2016

Things in some lack of order:

  • Monster-Hunters are the end of their profession chain; the beginning is the Rat-catcher.[/li][li]The less-entangled professions ARE the more realistic career options you ask for. Doctors and tutors and such are normal but also much more boring. The Bazaar prefers good stories so the unusual careers are more powerful and well-paid.[/li][li]Correspondents are more of magic theoretical physicists than anything else. I’d disagree about the code analogy since it’s both used for communication and has potent effects with just a single symbol.[/li][li]Monster-Hunters are pretty damn terrifying as-is. A big gun might be scary to a person but it’s at least understandable. Swimming miles and miles from shore, killing a horrible monster with your hands, and eating the entire thing for eldritch power is a lot more Weird as well as difficult. A sentient bone weapon and ancient ritual is also more effective against nightmarish beasts than conventional weaponry.[/li][li]The Memento Mori isn’t really at all modern besides being mounted on a ship. It’s an awakened seal of the red science shooting life-warping energy from a housing of emotion-proof metal. And actually, it’s not the best weapon against zee-beasts. The Icarus in Black is far more potent and two-shots Mount Nomad… by firing monster-hunters at it. Which have to be individually purchased at incredible price and do 500 damage each to zee-beasts and a still significant amount to ships. (Also Mount Nomad is considerably more eldritch and powerful than really any other Sunless Sea monster so explicitly just submerges when it takes enough damage to care.)

If you’re a Monster-Hunter, there might be a big gun coming up later in your career, but you won’t be the one firing it. So hold on tight to that harpoon, you’re going to need it.
edited by Passionario on 1/22/2016[/quote]
Ah yes i remember that.
But given the fact that they deal such an enormousa amount of damage instantly, and always inevitably die, i figured those particular monster hunters were strapping dynamite to themselves and suicide bombing, not attempting to stab a monster to death