The Role of the Gemmed

[DustMight]

Having just started a gemmed character, the first in a long time, I'm wondering at what role they play in Allanaki society.  Back in the wild n' crazy day when halflings were welcomed in Salarr and magick practiced in Tuluk back when there were no gemmed at all it was easy to get hired as a 'naki mage.  The docs (pretty out of date) even suggest this - hire a water mage for water, etc.

However, in the here and now, the gemmed are worse than half-breeds and if you are a half-breed gemmed, you are sh*t out of luck.  Why would someone take the gem (as a player)?  What role does one envision for such characters?

Are we, as someone wrote in another long-dead post that I did not resurrect (not enough mana) risking conflating sorcerers with elementalists?  Other than hiring on with Oash (if you are human or look human) what real options do the gemmed have for gainful employment (and the one easy exclusion we don't need to talk about).

[musashi]

I don't know, but it seems to me like the overall feeling a large portion of the playerbase has towards the gemmed is that they should be played as somewhere between a slave and a citizen. Not quite one, not quite the other.

[Synthesis]

Basically the only people who hire gemmers openly are the ones who can control them:  the Templarate.  Even then, it's not so much "employment" as "do this, and maybe I won't do something really nasty to you."

House Tor might employ war mages (Ruk, Suk-Krath, Elkros), but I suspect this would depend very much on the noble in question.  It would probably have something to do with coordinating magicker and mundane tactics during warfare.

Merchant Houses might employ gemmed mages below the table on a per-contract basis, but I doubt they'd let it be publicly known, and they'd probably deny doing so if pressed on the issue.

The plus side to being gemmed:  you have a safe place to hang out and practice your spells; you're easily identified as a mage, so you don't have to worry about people spotting you casting outside the gates; the dull black gem usually makes raiders think twice before trying to jack you; basically you don't have to hide your abilities at all; and one more minor side effect that you can find out about IC.

The down side:  you're at the whim of the Templarate; hardly anyone will hire you openly; people who are specifically hunting magickers can easily identify you; you can't wear neck armor (peeve:  why the fuck can't the gem be worn in the <about throat> location?); you can't travel around the world at will; you don't really get normal social interaction of the type you're probably accustomed to.

[NoteworthyFellow]

...you can't travel around the world at will...

Well, you can, but there are certain places where you'd be more unwelcome than others.  Some settlements allow magickers to stay there so long as they keep their magick away from the settlement and they declare themselves as magickers--which the gem counts as doing--but, of course, you wouldn't want to be anywhere near Tuluk.  You're free to leave the city any time you want, though, and go anywhere you dare.

[Tallulah]

Playing a gemmed mage is a good way to learn the magick system.  You have a safe haven to practice in, and other mages to teach you what you should know.  Oash will probably offer you employment at some point if you aren't an elf or a half-elf, and templars will most likely give you work regardless of race.  You might not be treated as well as other citizens, but it's a much easier route to take with a first mage PC than a hidden magicker.

[X-D]

Actually, Tor used to employ war mages(krathi and elkros, for some reason they never considered ruk as such), and even a single vivaduan. While another noble house would take the rest. But during the term of a certain PC they stopped and for some reason never started again.

One of the biggest problems with today is not so much the limited amount of employment, which pretty much goes against the docs. But that the few who do are busy with other things. And staff seems bent on gemmed staying with nothing much to do or much leadership. So, you get a bunch of powerful bored mages...you can guess how that ends up.

Gemmed is still a good place to start for your first mage though, and can even be fun for vet players.

[Clearsighted]

It doesn't help that there are so many gemmers around lately either. I don't think it is even possible for all of them to be hired.

[Kassindra]

Well I played a gemmed magicker, can't say I had a great time or had a great example set for me by the more experienced gemmed ones out there. Some were helpful though, others cut things short for me, so I as a new player didn't get to fully explore it unfortunately. Maybe one day far from now I'll try it again. 

[Zoltan]

Playing a gemmer has its ups and downs, just like any other role. Sometimes it's kind of boring, but then the action picks up and you can't get yourself to log out...

I know that I wouldn't have been able to stand playing a gemmer if I hadn't gone into it with a better-than-average (for me) fleshed out character concept and a clear OOC goal in mind for how I was going to play them, and what I wanted to accomplish as a player. If there aren't a ton of gemmed active at times, the role can start to feel really iso, so it's good to have something fun to do with your PC in those down times.

I have to say that most of the characters that have passed through the Quarter lately have been a lot of fun, even if some of them only end up surviving for a short time.  Like I said earlier, the role has its good and bad times. A lot of that depends on your fellow players, so here's a vague kudos for all those gemmers that have been truckin' for a long while and keeping me entertained.

My advice for people that are playing their first mage as a gemmer is to play a human for a slightly easier time with interaction and employment. Magick is probably going to dominate their life, so think about how they view it (blessing/curse) and have fun coming up with a story of how their magick first manifested in them. Then you should bug other gemmer PCs. Even if those other PCs hate your character's guts, there's still plenty of fun interaction to be had if you "stay in touch" as it were.