Overview of the professions in the Empire

Table of Contents

The most prestigious jobs in the empire are: powerful politicians, star duellists, and feared curser judges. Highly specialised workers that are driving the push towards progress are also highly respected: enchanters, healers, biomages, and rune masters.
Soldiers are nothing too fancy unless they belong to the an elite unit, and farmers also does not gather a lot of respect. However, the absolutely worst is to work as a worker in one of the new magitech manufactures and to become nothing more than a human clog in a machine.

Politicians

Social status: Politicians are at the top of society, whether it is warranted or not—and in most cases it clearly is not! Politicians are the individuals ruling the country and deciding what and how things are done, and so they are highly courted by everyone.
Selection:

Each region is ruled semi-independently by politicians who are selected through the local traditions: hereditary ruling, elections by a specific electorate, or career politicians slowly making their way up the administration and its hierarchy.

At the head of the empire is the emperor and his soulmates, with the emperor being selected through a tournament to ensure he is the most powerful and skilled mage in the country. He rules from the capital alongside a huge number of politicians hand-picked by the federal regions to represent them.

Examples: The emperor and his soulmates, especially Pernelle who is his political assistant. Hélène's family rules one of the oldest regions of the empire.

Duellists

Social status: Duellists are professional athletes who are extremely popular throughout the empire and avidly followed stars. Memories of their duels or even of someone meeting them randomly in the street are avidly exchanged in the communication hub. Powerful mages can continue their career into an old age, but the biggest star often choose to retire earlier and to use their politics to transition to a political career.
Training: To become a star duellist, someone of course needs to be good at fighting, and small local duelling club are great for training children and allowing to slowly make their way up through tournament ranking. Being magically powerful helps but is not entirely necessary, as skills are more important than power. However, to become a real star, what is truly needed is a high level of showmanship and cultivate a persona with the public.
Location: There are at least one duelling club and tournament per city, with local, regional, federal, and imperial level leagues.

Example: The most famous duellist right now if not necessarily the best is Octave, one of the emperor's soulmates.

Curser judges

What: Curser judges head local branches of the judiciary system and preside and pass judgment over the most important trials as representative of the emperor and the local elites ruling the semi-independent federal regions. But before all, they are the sentencer of the worst criminals, the ones who cast the actual curses on them that will make them pay for their crimes.
Social status: This has make judges as much respected as they are feared among their local society, letting them seat near the top of the hierarchy but with a wide circle left empty around them—just in case they would find you somewhat unworthy...
Training: To become a curser judge, someone needs to start a career in the judiciary system and become noticed by current curser judges and taken on as an apprentice. The requirements for the jobs are: a high devotion to the laws of the empire, a ruthfulness in handing out the warranted punishment, and a high level of magical power so as to make the curses stick.

Examples: The emperor is always the top curser judge, mostly taking care of high treason cases such as when he cursed Julie's family. One of his soulmates, Nadine, is also a professional curser judge.

Enchanters

What: People who enchant objects to create magical artefacts. Since the invention of mass production in the last century, enchanters only work on intricate artefacts that require lots of delicate and complex magic that still require a human touch. This means that nowadays they mostly handcraft tailored luxury artefacts.
Training: The knowledge necessary for this job is learned during a mastery.
Location: Enchanters can then choose to practise in different fields, either by setting their own business and fulfilling orders from private citizens, developing new enchantments, working as engineers for a mass production site, or even working as artists.
Social status: Whatever job they choose, enchanters are sure to be well respected and to make a good living.

Example: Hélène is a well respected enchantress in her local area.

Healers

Social status: Healers are always socially popular, but not all of them are incredibly wealthy. Healing specialities have their own hierarchy, and herbonumenology is at the top. Healers-researchers are especially admired as they continue to push the limits of what is magically possible and to bring humanity one step closer to immortality. Current speculations are that the barrier could be breach this generation.
Location: No healer has practised healing alone in a century since the revolution in organic magitech has changed the relationship of the empire with its land, resulting in the concentration of all its citizens in a few cities and the rewilding of the rest of the lands. Now, all healers practise together in a hospital tower located in the centre of each city.
Training: To become a healer, someone needs to study healing at university and to undergo an intense training alongside a healer of each speciality before choosing their own.

Example: Professor Ivain, one of the emperor's soulmates, is a leading herbonumenologist and is on the immortality case...

Biomages

What: Bioengineers and herbologists that either design or take care of magic-anchoring plants and fungi such as Domi moss. Since the organic magitech revolution, they have become essential for the creation and maintenance of most modern form of magic in the empire
Training: The basics of herbology are taught in schools to everyone in the empire, and so everyone has to know how to avoid killing the plants in their buildings at the very least. However, to become a professional herbologist, a rigorous apprenticeship is required. To become a bioengineer, someone has to both follow this apprenticeship and to study this specialty at university.
Social status: They are seen as the pinnacle of modernity and these are jobs that many aspire to do. Herbologists is simpler and perfectly respectable—more so than farming which has always kept some stigma. Bioengineering is seen as a dream field by many.

Rune masters

What: Runic work has always involved a lot of calculations to create the design of the runic diagrams that anchor enchantments, but there used to also be a huge handcrafting aspect to the field. With the organic magitech revolution and the mass production revolution, this work is now done by bioengineers or machines, and rune masters are left with a lot of maths.
Training: Long studies at university.
Social status: Rune masters are seen as clever people who like stable and reliable work—essential for modern magic but more than a bit boring. However, a rune mastery will guarantee anyone steady work and a high pay check.
Location: Rune masters mostly work for local or imperial governments or private companies that specialise in making new buildings or upgrading old ones. They can also work in the designing of machines for mass production. A very small number of them still handcraft runic diagrams for enchanters.

Example: Julie. Because of the social stigma around her family's curse, she cannot work traditionally as a rune master. Instead, she works as a glass blowing artist who makes artefacts for enchanters to use to anchor their magic.

Soldiers

What: Given its size and its endless hunger for conquests, the empire has an imposing army that is always extremely well trained and is always ready to put down rebellions or unveil foreign spy networks or coup attempts.
Location: Soldiers can simply work in the imperial army or work in a specialised unit like the imperial guard that protect the emperor or the guards that protect rulers of the federal regions.
Training: The armies is made of a mix of career soldiers and conscripted citizens. Career soldiers are trained on the job and encouraged to slowly progress through the officer ranks and lead the rest of the army. Imperial citizens from the oldest regions of the empire have to do a military service when they come of age. Afterwards, they have the obligation to keep up with their training in case a war starts and they need to be conscripted.
Social status: Soldiers are well respected in the oldest regions of the empire, but feelings can be mixed in regions that have been more recently conquered. In any case, everyone is assured of their might and nobody would dare disrespect them to their face.

Example: Marin, one of the emperor's soulmates is the head of the imperial guard.

Farmers

What: Farmers tend to the land owned by their city. They are assigned a parcel of lands for a decade and use it to cultivate food and herd animals. They are very knowledgeable about nature and have access to a lot of sophisticated tools.
Location: They live in the city and commute every day to the farmed patches or orchards in the surrounding areas. Because of the technological innovation, farms have become highly efficient and only small areas are needed to produce a high yield, allowing this concentration around cities.
Social status: Farmers have become fully integrated into city life now that they are not isolated far away. Thanks to the organic magitech revolution, working with plants as a biomage has become extremely trendy, and farmers have gotten a bit of reflected prestige. Farming is considered rewarding and a great way to gain some independence.
Training: An apprenticeship is necessary to learn all the magic and skills needed to use the latest farming magitech.

Workers in the magitech industry

Location: They work in manufactures that mass produce magical artefacts or they sell their magic to feed local magic reservoirs.
Training: This does not require any training and so this is the default job of anyone not able to secure a place at university or an apprenticeship. If the management team is good, dedicated workers are rewarded with promotions up the ranks of the company.
Social status: The jobs with the lowest status in the empire. Not terribly stimulating but it pays the bills and any overtime is paid extra.
What—Manufacture worker: They take care of the maintenance of the machine mass producing magical artefacts and do the few tasks that are too complex for them.
What—Magic fueller: If a worker has higher amount of magic, they will be assigned to feeding the plants and fungi that control the machine or to feed a magical reservoir directly. This allows for a very short work day of barely a few hours but this is very gruelling work.
The length of the shift assigned to every worker depends on their power level to ensure that they make full use of their magic without dying from it. There are only a few different types of shifts, so many workers have shifts that are slightly longer than they should and this further exhausts them. The only positive point is that their pay is commensurate with their shift.

Example: Gauthier, one of the emperor's soulmates is an industrial leaders that has come up with many mass production techniques and employs many workers in his magitech manufactures.

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The Empire of Arboise

Politics Politicians (The Emperor and his soulmates, The imperial guards) · Events (The Empire Renewal, The Twelfth Sannian War, The Sannian kidnapping announcement) · Institutions (The empire and its political system, The selection and coronation of a new emperor, Curses and the legal system, The imperial curse—the ultimate judgment on traitors) Culture Imperial citizens · Overview of the professions in the Empire · Soulmates · Courtship rituals · Languages of the empire and translation magic · Winners of the neighbourhood wall painting competition Locations Geography of the Empire of Arboise · Ilara—Hélène's home region · Quanahr—Hélène's town · Arboise—Capital of the Empire · The imperial palace · Regions outside of the empire