Careers

A profession is the work a person does now. A career is the record of the work they have done, the ranks they have earned, and the skills they have registered along the way.

Townstead keeps that record when a player or villager changes work. A former Farmer does not lose their farming history when they become a Cook. They can return to farming later with the same Farmer rank and learned skills.

The Short Version

1. Do work that belongs to a career to earn XP in that career.
2. Reach new ranks to earn Insight and open new skill choices.
3. Visit the Archives to read your career record.
4. Press the stamp on a skill that is ready to register it.
5. Meet the evidence requirements for any gated careers a pack adds.
6. Take up one career as your primary vocation. Your other career records remain intact.

There is no generic character level. Cooking advances Cook. Farming advances Farmer. A task does not advance an unrelated career.

Opening Your Career Record

You can open the career record in either of these ways:

• Use an Order Sheet placed inside the village Archives. Anywhere else, the same sheet opens the local order list; see Orders.
• Speak to the Scribe and choose I’d like to discuss my career while the Scribe is working.

The Scribe follows their own shift schedule. An off-duty Scribe does not open the record. The Archives desk remains the reliable place to do the paperwork.

The record shows each career as its own section. Select a mark to see its description, state, requirements, effect, evidence, and Chronicle entries. Drag to pan the board. Scroll to move between rank bands. Hold Shift while scrolling to move sideways.

Ranks And Career XP

Each career has its own XP track. Successful work adds XP after the work is complete. Starting a task is not enough.

Every career can set a daily XP allowance. Work still happens after the allowance is used, but it does not add more career XP that day. The record shows today’s progress and the XP needed for the next rank.

The usual rank names are Novice, Apprentice, Journeyman, Expert, and Master. A career can provide different names or continue beyond five ranks.

Insight And Choices

A rank grants Insight. Insight is one budget shared by all of your careers: a Farmer rank can pay for a Cook skill. Insight is derived from your ranks and learned skills. It is not a separate item or hidden currency. Unspent Insight remains available.

A rank can offer several skills. Registering one does not close the others; each costs its own Insight. Some skills require an earlier skill, explicitly conflict with another skill, or ask for a number of recorded deeds, such as twenty-five cooked meals. The record shows each of these with its live count.

To register a skill:

1. Select a skill marked Within reach.
2. Check its rank, prerequisite, evidence, and Insight requirements.
3. Press the stamp on the record.

The mark records where you placed it, the date, and the village authority that registered it. The server checks the skill before it accepts the mark. A decorative stamp position cannot bypass a requirement.

Skills, Paths, And Titles

A skill can grant a passive effect or an active ability. The detail page shows the exact effect when the skill declares a machine-readable grant. Active abilities also show their slot, cooldown, resource cost, and key status.

A path groups related choices inside one career. For example, a Cook record can contain a Pizzaiolo path. Paths organise a build and help villagers choose skills that suit their workplace. A path is not a second career, and taking one path does not automatically erase another.

A completed set of skills can grant a title. The title changes how the career is written on the record, such as Pizzaiolo (Cook). It does not replace the underlying career.

Gated Careers

Some careers can be practised as soon as you take up the work. Other careers must be acquired first. Their record shows the evidence they require, such as:

• XP in another career;
• a number of recorded work events;
• another Pheno condition defined by the pack.

When a self-discovery career becomes eligible through completed work, Townstead adds it to your career history and tells you that you qualify. Other careers can name a mentor or institution route, but the pack must provide the interaction that uses that route.

Acquiring a career does not make it your primary vocation. It gives you the right to take up that work. Until then, the record lists the evidence the career still needs.

Primary Vocation

One career is your primary vocation. It is your current work identity, not the limit of your knowledge.

Use Take up this work on a career record while you are inside an Archives or near an on-duty Scribe. You can switch again without waiting for another day. The change enters the Chronicle, but it does not remove XP, skills, titles, or earlier career history.

Combo Skills

A Combo Skill joins two or more separate career histories. It unlocks automatically when every required career reaches its stated rank.

For example, Charcutier requires both Cook rank 2 and Butcher rank 2. The two careers remain separate. The Combo Skill is the craft that exists where those histories meet.

Combo Skills do not cost points and do not need a stamp. Their effects apply to players and villagers as soon as the rank requirements are met.

Players And Villagers

Players and villagers use the same career records, XP tracks, requirements, skills, and Combo Skills.

The choice process differs. Players choose their own skills. Villagers spend available Insight automatically. A villager gives more weight to a path when the matching equipment is present at their assigned workplace or the building favours that path, and they tend to continue a path they have already started.

For Pack Authors

This page describes play. To add or extend careers, start with How Careers Work, then use Profession Files, Skills And Paths, Work Tasks, and Combo Skills.