The good-wife that runs a farm, a business, and a community. A young woman who lives by her wits, on the streets and in the houses of kings. The Ogre Lore-Master, striding among the infinite shelves of the Library of Narbar. They are Scholars, individuals who use normal, mundane knowledge to keep them alive.
Everyone learns, grows, and expands over time. What makes Scholars unique is their view that this growth is the key to everything. As an Adept focuses on magic, or a Priest on the will of his God, a Scholar is concerned with learning, experiencing, and broadening his own talents.
A Scholar could know how to work magic, wield a sword, or build a dam. He might know how to do all three, and do them well. Scholars will never be as good as a specialist in any of their skills - never as strong in magic as an Adept or as good in a fight as a Warrior. But they have a flexibility and depth that make specialists look one-dimensional.
Scholars come from every corner of the world, from every walk of life and social class. They fall roughly into three classes: Educated, Social, and Street. The three types overlap and combine, but generally correspond with the three kinds of people who find themselves engaged in the 'scholarly' way of life.
Educated Scholars are people who study books, stories, voice crystals, and other formal sources of knowledge in an attempt to understand the world. These people have a broad interest in everything, from how plants grow to why the people of Lopan expose some children but not others. Their knowledge is somewhat abstract, but broad and deep despite that. Note that a 'scholar' who specializes in one or two areas of lore is more likely to be an Artisan than a Scholar.
Social Scholars study the entire world, but do so from the perspective of a traveler or merchant. They have a deep and abiding interest in picking up useful tidbits of information from every imaginable source, with practical experience being one of their primary goals. These Scholars are travelers and explorers, farmers and good-wives. Their skills come from a lifetime's worth of rich experience.
Street Scholars find themselves using their vast array of skills to survive day to day life. They can be found on the streets of every major city, fighting, stealing, and living at a fevered pitch. Street Scholars are thieves, whores, urchins, and beggars, characterized by their broad knowledge of the world in which they live.
The Scholarship skill, which increases IQ, is a must for everyone in the Scholar Vocation. It is not required, but so many skills are based on IQ that it makes good sense for them to purchase high levels of Scholarship, rather than expending great effort into individual skills.
Educated Scholars will have a large number of Scholarly skills, including strong Language and Lore areas. They tend to be weak in the more vigorous skills, but many are talented farmers or craftsmen in their own right. Books and record crystals are as likely to contain useful information as they are airy babble.
Social Scholars have a broad range of skills, skating from Lores to Languages, Hand to Hands, and various Social skills. Most are somewhat weak in the Scholarly skills, but make up for it with a rich combination of Artisan, Performance, Social, Wilderness, Agricultural, and Basic skills.
Street Scholars are strong on the Espionage and Social skills, with some attention spent on Social and Scholarly abilities. Most are weak in the Wilderness and Artisan categories, as they spend most of their time finding or selling other people's goods. A Scholar of this type who expects to live for very long should also have a good understanding of Hand to Hand Basic.
All Scholars have the following advantages:
When a Scholar goes up in Vocational level, he is able to raise any single skill by up to 3 levels or 15% with Vocational ticks. This limit does not include the initial purchase level or chance of success of the skill.
Scholars get 600 ticks to spend on any skill when they go up in Vocational level. A Scholar may spend ticks on any skill that he could reasonably learn, not just those skills that he already knows. He can also use these ticks to learn maneuvers in his level based skills, if he can reasonably explain how he came to know the maneuver.
Scholars start out with six Vocational skills, in which they may advance without restriction. Additionally, every time a Scholar goes up in Vocational level he may select one existing skill to transform into a Vocational skill.
Example: A Scholar goes up from level 1 to level 2. He can select one of his skills and designate it as a Vocational skill, giving him a total of seven (7) Vocational skills.