The Ghost:NPCCreationGuidelines/Abilities/Craft:Elemental

Craft: Elemental is a variant rule under which all of the elemental crafts are combine into one ability to save on space on character sheets and to make playing a craft's person a more attractive choice of character path. It is not for everyone but is included on my list of crafts for completeness sake.

Summary

A person with Craft: Elemental will be equally adept at cooking, forging a sword, building a house, weaving cloth, and gem cutting. In short this craft is even more cinematic than normal exalted. They also can meet the minimums for lots of esoteric crafts with far fewer EXP or BP invested than normal, as ranks in 'Craft: Elemental' count as ranks in all five of the normal elemental crafts.

Ratings

What follows is a description of what the seven possible levels of skill in this craft mean thematically and mechanically.

Zero

You are incompetent at normal craft related tasks. You cannot cook, spin, carve, shape, or create: anything. You may have the ability to fight or be social but in the arena of most professional skills you are laughable and fail at almost anything you try.

One

You have achieved basic understanding of how to craft things. You can probably cook your own food, though it will be bland and uninteresting, Sew simple clothes, dig a ditch, and pitch a tent. Almost everyone in creation has at least this level of this craft. (If you are using this rule variant.)

Two

You have the level of skill in professional pursuits that shows you are interested in more than basic understanding but not enough to work at it independently. You can forge a knife, spoon, or fork, cook satisfying food, distill basic scents from flowers, write in a hand that is not considered crude, but neither is it 'fair', and dig a burrow dwelling into the side of a hill or shore up a mine. You this is the level of competence achieved by most people in creation when they are in that awkward stage between childhood and adulthood.

Three

Here we encounter the level of competence that is actually considered the 'baseline' by the majority of creation's people. At this level of skill you can accomplish the following readily: Forge an axe, hatchet, or farming implement such as a rake, trowel, or pick, hew, dress, and lay a stone block, plant and tend a garden, cook food that is appropriately sweet or savory and would make the average person wish to eat it frequently, throw a pot, spin smooth thread suitable for weaving and sewing, cobble a shoe, tan a hide, cast a tub or hammer, or cut a small gemstone so that it will sparkle and shine.

Four

Now we get into the province of those who have achieved more than what the people of creation consider 'Professional' skill. At this level the following are within your abilities: Forge swords and arrowheads from steel, design and erect a civic building such as a library or town hall from rich stones such as colored marble and granite, Carve and fit an ornate rocking chair, Cook food which would please the pallet of a 'foodie', Create personalized scents for women of the lower nobility, cut precious gemstones up to the size of a fingernail, and Weave pictures into fabric with different colors of thread.

Five

Here we approach the limits of human competence, this is the province of those trained from a young age and mustering great natural talents. People with skills at this level could achieve any of the following feats (With other relevant skills at the same level.): Design and raise a simple manse, Cook food which would make kings and princes hungry for more, Illuminate books of spells and the occult, Lay out the street plan of a major city, Forge a Daiklave, Cut diamonds the size of a man's thumb, Brew bear which could coast for 50 years on the strength of it's first showing, Create perfumes which would not be called to task for the slogan that it is loved by 'Every Girl Alive', painting portraits which are seen as national treasures, or weave cloths which would be the envy of guild factors who are in the cloth business. People outside the exalted who reach this level of artistry come along once in a generation in any given nation or geographic region.

Six

And at this level we come to the stuff of legends. People with this level of skill are seen once a century in any given cardinal direction. They are known for accomplishments such as the following: Raising manses of level 3 or 4, Cooking food which draws the gods to dine, designing and crafting the crowns of major nations, forging several daiklaves which work as a set, Creating traps to ward the tombs of Anathema, weaving cloth from which the robes of office for religious leaders are made, and Casting statues of bronze 5 stories high to be the epicenter of a major temple complex. At this level of ability the very exalted grow jealous of your skills, and your life may become far more 'interesting' than you would like.