Mythmaker

The ever-wandering minstrels whose stories, retold tales, and myths spread and become the basis for faith across Numiastra

You'll walk these lands, as every Mythmaker has before you. Visit every campfire, and feel the legends woven into the soil of this land - the stories of its people, good and bad.
Those stories and tales are our currency, us Mythmakers. Know why? It's simple - stories have power. They gain a little something, become a little more real, with each new person they pass through - each person who adds to them, and spreads them.
Real, true power in this land of dead gods and broken magic - a story gives a people hope. An ideal to strive towards. Something to believe in, something grounded.
You'll understand, in time. Carry the stories of this land, seeped into its bones - spread them far, change them as you carry them. Your burden to bear. Our burden.

— The Initiation Parable of the Mythmakers

Career

Qualifications

Though many assume and believe that there are a variety of qualifications needed to become a Mythmaker such as the ability to sing, perform, use some instrument, or do some other entertainment activity, the truth is much more simple - all that one needs to take up the mantle of a Mythmaker is a burning desire to explore, and a passion for stories and the collecting and telling of them.
The specifics of how one wishes to Myth-Make, as it were, are entirely up to them - to sing, to laugh and play an instrument, or to simply speak and tell stories; all are valid paths and qualifications of the position where the only goal is protecting the tales of a people or region, and preserving its histories and the ideals of its people.

Career Progression

The level of organization in the profession of the Mythmakers varies wildly from region to region - while in some areas large colleges may be constructed to train new Mythmakers and catalog the vast numbers of stories and tales they collect over the decades and centuries, the only "progression" in the life of a Mythmaker is one's length of service to the profession, and more importantly the number of tales told, stories heard and collected, and songs shared across the land.

Payment & Reimbursement

While the profession does not have any unified pay structure, it is incredibly common for Mythmakers to be central figures in a given area that hold positions similar to sages, shamans, honored elders or the like who are treated with respect and paid in food, lodging, and similar reimbursements in exchange for a story, a song, or entertainment for the evening. For wandering and particularly money-concerned Mythmakers, they survive off the grace of the towns and population centers they pass through on their journies, collecting tips in the form of coinage and surviving off bartered gifts of food or lodging in exchange for plying their trade in a given area.
Oftentimes, it is considered an ill-omen to refuse such pay to a Mythmaker - for the power they wield over the bones of a region's mythos and ideals they cherish means that it would be simplicity itself for a Mythmaker to change his tales to fundamentally alter ideals the divinely empowered clerics and paladins who arise in their wake would strive to follow.

Other Benefits

Last and perhaps most crucially, the greatest benefit of becoming a Mythmaker is the fame and notoreity one recieves from serving in such a position - each Mythmaker treated like a folk hero in areas sympathetic to their origins, while even other more neutral areas are typically hesitant to bar or interfere with a Mythmaker's journey or duties overmuch out of respect for the stories they carry. A great of travelers, as well, share an uncommon rule to avoid attacking a Mythmaker in transit - partly out of a vested interest in being unsure of the loyalties of a given Mythmaker but also out of fear for the power they wield, wholly unlike any other power in the world.
The downside, however, is that same fame - enemies of the area in which a Mythmaker is known to operate are likely to target them first in the hopes of erasing the stories and myths they share, to better and more permanently "kill" a way of life they seek to eliminate.

Perception

Purpose

The purpose of the Mythmakers is the critical role of preserving history, and upholding oral tradition - as the people and land of Numiastra places little faith in written mediums and so greatly treasure oral history and tradition, the purpose of the Mythmaker is to spread the ever-changing ideals of the people who dwell on the land they hold dear and keep their stories and myths alive, for those very stories and myths serve a vital role in not only preseving the culture of a people, but in inspiring future generations of clerics and paladins and other divine servants to draw power from those tales and the ideals they teach as they spread from person to person and truly pass into myth.

Social Status

The Social Status of the Mythmakers is equal parts Hero and Pariah - the most revered of a given area and the first to be cherished, but also the first to be targeted by that area's enemies, or the enemies of the cultures that a given Mythmaker has collected the stories or myths of. Treated like honored guests and respected where possible, Mythmakers are widely seen as an honored and respected profession that are often known by name by the general populace, or at least by title or epithet if nothing else.
Even the notoriously brutal lands of Tavross, The Iron Emperor are slow to strike down a Mythmaker without good and just cause - for while they would like nothing more than to suppress the empower myths they spread, they have learned full well the power of the Mythmakers when they unite to weave tales for a specific purpose: especially when that purpose involves teaching an entire generation of tales that tell of revolution against the Iron Emperor himself.

Demographics

The way of the Mythmaker is incredibly deeply-rooted into the bones of the land of Numiastra - every town will typically have at least ONE Mythmaker(Even if they are a novice or mundane Mythmaker who cannot draw spellcasting power from the myths they carry), while larger areas tend to have several operating within their borders at any given time.

History

The history of the Mythmakers is one that stretches back thousands of years, into the long-forgotten days of Antiquity before the Starfall Calamity which shattered the continent of Numiastra and nearly destroyed the world many thousands of years ago - into an age whose history has been completely wiped from the face of the land by that very calamity. Said to have been a profession brought to the shores of ancient Numiastra by ancient spellcasters who drew power from a strange and feared source, the way of the Mythmakers endured the Starfall Calamity and thrived in the shattered lands that endured its aftermath, as the Mythmaker took on the vital role of linking the newly forming disparate communities together in the decades of Ashfall that followed the world-rattling detonation of the newly-created Black Desert, made entirely of blackpowder.

Operations

Tools

The tools of the Mythmakers vary wildly from person to person, but typically involve some kind of instrument as well as thick travelling clothes and burlap bags to both protect them on the roads and help them carry their belongings. Aside from their instrument of choice, many Mythmakers carry a compendium or booklet that contains written records of the stories they've heard and myths and tales they both told and heard and told again - though these books see varying use among the Mythmakers, where some use them only as training tools until their minds can memorize them while others believe in cataloguing all regardless of memorization or not, though most all Mythmakers would rather die than let these books fall into the wrong hands.

Materials

A Mythmaker's only materials are people - the ideals they treasure, the tales they tell, the myths they believe in, the laughs they share and the stories they write of and shout around campfires.

Workplace

A Mythmaker's workplace is out in the world at large - in taverns, around campfires, beneath tents under a starry sky, or countless other places; anywhere that people gather to speak of the goings-on of the world at large, one can be sure a Mythmaker will soon be plying his or her trade there.

Provided Services

Often consulted for a plethora of specialty services, a Mythmaker is often a great point of reference to acquire a great many services ranging from information about a given area, ancient myths or tales of specific places or items, information on a given area or person, or, most importantly, to spread the tales of modern-day heroes that often purchase their services to record their deeds for future generations, that their deeds might inspire tales that will one day give rise to new clerics and paladins and divine casters who draw power from those very tales.

Dangers & Hazards

While the perks are many and the dangers few, the one danger that does exist as an omnipresent threat to all Mythmakers is that of notoriety - they make for easy and obvious targets for those who would seek to eliminate the myths and legends and culture of a people that the Mythmaker has been known to pass through or frequent, or to simply silence them from spread tales of a given atrocity or deed that they would see committed in the area.

Alternative Names

Bards, Story Shamans, Couriers

Demand

Mythmakers can be found all across Numiastra and beyond - both mundane Mythmakers and those who are able to draw spellcasting power from the stories they carry.

Legality

Unfortunately for many, it is almost impossible to enforce laws regarding Mythmakers - in an ironic twist of fate, the more a given area attempts to outlaw the telling of tales and the spreading of stories and myths, the more those very things seem to take on a life of their own and spread them across the land like wildfire...making Mythmakers a very clear and potent sign of impending revolution in a given area if they begin appearing in great enough numbers and are spoken of in specific lights, taking on the role of organizer and information-spreader.

The Power of a Story

Perhaps the most important cultural touchstone of Numiastra as a whole, the Mythmakers are the beating heart and soul of lands both near and fear - whether they are known as Mythmakers, Bards, Weavers, or otherwise, this fact remains the same for one simple reason: through the stories they collect, spread, and create, not only do they keep the oral history of a place alive, but they serve to spread the largest system of divine power in the known world of Numiastra.
For while in far-off lands faith may commonly be found in towering temples and resplendent cathedrals of marble and stained glass, Numiastra is a land whose power lays slumbering within its soil - whose mythology is heard in the laughter of its people around a fire, whose legends are told from the mouths of those who live, work, and die upon it carrying the ideals of the land in their hearts. All of this and more gives legends, stories, and tales their divine power - drawn not from a massive and omnipresent deity who dwells in a land beyond mortal comprehension, but from a tiny place; a distinctly mortal place that gives a story power as it spreads from person to person, drawing a bit more power from each who hears and tells it as it passes across civilizations, changing and adapting until what was once fact soon becomes myth and legend.
These stories, burgeoning with power, are the main source of divine spellcasting on the continent of Numiastra - where Druids draw power from Nature and Arcane Casters such as Wizards draw it from what ruined leylines they can attach to and scrounge power from, Mythmakers draw their power from people - from the stories they hear and the tales they tell on their travels across the land: the main directive of any Mythmaker. Likewise, though exceptions exist in rare places, most divine spellcasting on Numiastra draws power from stories, and tales, and myths. Clerics and Paladins, rather than following the tenets of some mighty god like Tavross, The Iron Emperor or Kali, The Broodqueen, often instead dedicate themselves to a particular story or parable or myth whose moral or meaning or ideal they ascribe themselves to: an ideal they believe in upholding, some esoteric "concept" they ascribe themselves to more than the tenets of any god, major or minor.
Though this means of drawing divine power is not exclusive to Numiastra and can be found elsewhere in the world, nowhere does it have the same cultural omnipresence and significance as in these broken lands - where the power of a Mythmaker lies in the stories they hear and catalog; histories of an entire people whose myths and legends literally represent the ideals they held dear. Especially so, as most of Numiastra tends to eschew physical information mediums due to the instability of the land and its power, instead preferring oral traditions of their local Bards or Mythmakers - who are also often the first targets to be slain by opposing forces. For, if an area's myths are slain and forgotten, so too are its ideals and the divine power of its people, passed on for centuries or millennia.