Weirdness Forager Profession in When the Curtain has fallen | World Anvil

Weirdness Forager

Traveling outside of the cities is rough. Since almost no one perfectly remembers the roads leading outside and even less all the things that lie between them, the levels of Familiarity quickly drop there. As a result, the land soon becomes Weird, warped, or simply breaks the normal understanding of the world. Any places that aren't a part of one's older memories change as soon as they leave them, making returning to the city way harder. Maps are useless and compasses often don't work at all.   And yet, there are some that decide to go out there in the hope of some profit. Turns out that things there lose their properties and sometimes gain new, unusual ones. And some of those properties are very useful and valuable to others.  

Possible treasures

One of the most well-known things found outside the city are various Weird fruits. When consumed, those never-seen-before plants can provide one with various strange abilities. Some of them can also be deadly, and that's why knowing which ones to pick and which to ignore is an important skill to learn for those who want to earn money by selling them.
Another common treasure is anything that resembles mechanisms and electronic devices. While some of them might just be normal objects, which still may prove useful (like when one finds a mountain of perfectly working generators), it's those that only resemble normal things that might be really interesting. What do they do? How do they work? Is it possible to replicate them?  

Requirements

The most important thing one needs to become a weirdness forager is bravery and a natural sense of direction. The greatest loot won't matter anything if one can't even return to their home, lost forever in the wilderness. Additionally, they should be careful, talkative, and have at least ok memory. The first one is to not walk into an obvious trap, lair, or open mouth of a spirit. Second, to both learn from other foragers about their encounters with spirits and to talk oneself out of a bad situation when dealing with a spirit that wants to talk. And a third one so one doesn't forget the advice they have heard. Obviously, fast legs and somewhat good stamina tend to work if one is still alive when the previous three have failed.  

Gear

When it comes to gear, nothing is required, but some things are nice to have. For example, one could always use some armor for their arm or a long stick for when they decide to check a long dark hole for treasures. Something to carry stuff would be also excellent. And while cars might be fast, they are also loud, so a lot of foragers opt-out for quieter things such as carts and bicycles. And lastly, something to protect oneself. In this category, there are weapons, talismans, and various countermeasures against spirits but also a fellow man who'd decide they want some or all of the carried loot.

Hazards

Getting lost, getting eaten, killed, possessed, changed physically, having one's mind broken. Becoming a toy, slave, or a pet to a spirit. Being hunted, getting sick, poisoned, marked. Suffering from hallucinations, being cursed, hearing voices, and seeing memories of places, while the present dangers are still there. The list is pretty long (way longer than this).  

Being a stabilizer and a forager

For Stabilizer, the world after The Curtain fell is always the same. This of course lowers dramatically the chance of them getting lost.
Depending on their luck and how the world looks to each one of them, they might have constant access to some resource or never be able to find anything at all in miles.
Another downside is that while everyone else might find new things every time they wander out, the stabilizers might simply gather all non-renewable resources from the area.

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