Chimerist

Chimerists are engineers who build monsters, though in most cases their creations (called chimera) are designed with a narrower goal in mind. Some specialize in creating one-of-a-kind pets, others build workbeasts who can do the job more efficiently or tirelessly than their natural counterparts, and some specialize in creating creatures who can lead sportsmen on a challenging hunt. Most chimera, however, are built for fighting, usually as guard beasts designed to protect the estates of the city's wealthier residents.

Career

Qualifications

Chimerists use a combination of magical and scientific knowledge to bring their creations to life. The physical forms of chimera are cobbled together from existing beasts, which requires an understanding of anatomy, surgery (which usually includes some training in healing magic), and basic taxidermy. While some chimerical traits and abilities rely on physical features, others are bestowed upon the beast through magic--sigils carved into bone or burned into flesh, magical substances place within or on the body, and the like. Bringing the creature to life requires access to or alchemical know-how to create primordial slime as well as the ability to handle lighting without getting oneself killed. An understanding of animal husbandry and breeding is extremely helpful for keeping creations alive until they can be sold and, if desired, building a breeding population that can perpetuate the species without the chimerist having to build new creatures.

Career Progression

Chimerist training in most parts of the world is obtained through apprenticeship. In Khezvaros, the Chimerists' Guild  is heavily involved in the process, but in other locales the master often has total control over the particulars of an apprentice's training.
The first step on the path to an apprenticeship involves obtaining sponsorship from a guild member in good standing. This usually requires a series of interviews during which the potential sponsor assesses the would-be chimerists' foundational knowledge (of magic, biology, and medicine), character, and overall suitability for the profession. If the petitioner impresses them, the chimerist will arrange to present the prospective apprentice to an admissions council made up of guild volunteers. If the council accepts the petitioner and the sponsor is eligible to take on an apprentice, the apprenticeship can begin immediately if the sponsor agrees, but this usually only happens if the petitioner shows unusual potential or the petitioner and the sponsor have a pre-existing agreement or relationship. More often, the petitioner must serve for a time as a guild associate.
Guild Associates are expected to spend at least a few days a week at the guild hall, where they can attend lectures, discussion groups, and other guild events and are allowed to study the journals and other texts in the guild library. Guild Chimerists who need assistance with their current project can offer the position to any available associate, who is generally expected to accept. This allows the associate a chance to get some hands-on experience and training and gives the Chimerist an opportunity to assess whether the associate would make a suitable apprentice. During this time, the associate's sponsor is responsible for their behavior, and a sponsor whose charge is blackballed from the guild is banned from sponsoring another associate for a year and a day.
With any luck, the associate will eventually be selected to enter into an apprenticeship with one of the guild members. Formalizing the arrangement involves the chimerist and apprentice drawing up a formal statement outlining the terms of the apprenticeship, which must be ratified by a majority of the guild membership present at the next guild meeting. This is usually a formality, but other guild members are permitted to argue against ratification or to make counter-offers for taking on the associate as their own apprentice. In the latter case, the guild membership votes on all viable offers and the associate is allowed to choose among those that win approval.
When the apprenticeship begins, responsibility for the aspiring chimerist passes from their sponsor to their new master, who begins formally training their charge by allowing them to actively participate in the master's projects. When the chimerist feels that the apprentice is ready to move on, they submit one of their own creature designs (typically a straightforward one) to the guild as the apprentice's journeyman experiment. If the proposal is accepted, the apprentice takes the lead in creating the creature, with the master serving in a purely advisory role. Once a viable creature is produced, the apprentice presents it to the membership, who typically question the apprentice regarding deviations from the original design and the details of the construction process. If the majority of the members present agree that the apprentice has successfully fulfilled the parameters of the submitted design, the apprentice is promoted to journeyman chimerist.
Promotion to the rank of journeyman makes the chimerist eligible to join the guild, which in turn grants them the ability to practice their trade as they see fit provided they follow guild regulations. The only thing a journeyman is not allowed to do are take on an apprentice, which is a privilege reserved for master chimerists.
In order to obtain the rank of master, the journeyman must submit a design for an original creature whose design and manufacture requires the use of innovative or challenging methods and processes. If the guild approves the proposal, the resulting chimera is presented to the guild just like the chimerist's journeyman project, but with a much higher level of scrutiny. After the presentation, the guild's master chimerists meet privately and decide whether or not to welcome the journeyman into their ranks.

Payment & Reimbursement

Associates of the Chimerists' Guild are essentially day laborers, earning a small daily wage whenever they are selected to assist a guild member with a project. Given the unpredictability of such work, most associates who do not have personal or family wealth have to rely on more mundane employment to support themselves. Chimerists who take on apprentices must pay them the guild rate and most apprenticeship contracts include either room and board or an additional stipend for living expenses. Minimum pay rates for both associates and apprentices are set by the guild, as are rates for journeymen or masters who accept employment contracts with fellow guild members or other employers.

Journeymen and Masters negotiate contracts with buyers and set prices for chimerical creations on a job-by-job or creature-by-creature basis. While the bespoke nature of most chimerical work makes exact pricing regulations impossible, the guild does set extensive guidelines that members are expected to follow when setting a price. Those who consistently charge too much or too little may be subject to disciplinary action. Guild rates only apply to creatures born from chimerical processes; if a guild member manages to establish a breeding population of chimera, biological offspring are not subject to guild regulation.

Other Benefits

Chimera are expensive and time-consuming to create, which makes them a luxury item that only wealthy citizens and institutions can afford. Therefore, a chimerist with a good reputation can often build valuable relationships with the city's rich and powerful. Additionally, chimerists who publicize their work can sometimes obtain a level of fame (or infamy) among the general population by creating unique pets or infamous guard beasts for famous clients, memorable monsters for Arena gladiator to fight, and new species whose biological members are affordable to the non-wealthy. Chimerists whose creations fail spectacularly or go rogue can also become famous, but not in a way that is beneficial or desirable.

Perception

Purpose

Chimerists serve a role similar to animal breeders, but allow the client to commission more customized beasts.

Social Status

Chimerists fall into the wizardly class and benefit from the reputation for intelligence and rarified knowledge typical of highly trained practitioners. While some people see all chimerical works as man overreaching into territory meant for the gods, the general population has no moral qualms about chimerists who refrain from engaging in forbidden experimentation. Since even the hint that a chimerist has participated in unacceptable research or experimentation can destroy a reputation, chimerist must scrupulously avoid activity that could be interpreted as bordering on the taboo or criminal.

Demographics

The low demand for and time-consuming nature of chimerical work means that the guild must carefully control guild membership to meet demand without spreading the work so thinly that members can't earn a decent living. Guild membership is currently limited to 55 members with no restrictions as to the ratio of journeymen to master chimerists. If membership is at full capacity, apprentices must wait for an opening before they can advance to journeyman status. Each master chimerist is limited to one apprentice at a time and members can only sponsor one associate member at a time.

History

Journals describing the chimerical arts were recovered from ancient Eloszorian ruins by imperial explorers during the early days of the empire and chimerists came to the Tarsan plains with the earliest settlers. Chimerists have periodically set up shop in Khezvaros since at least the time of Tolva, Queen of Thieves, with practioners settling more permanently and in greater numbers as the city grew. While informal societies of chimerists existed previously, the guild is an imperial import that came to the city in the wake of the Grain Rot Pact.

Operations

Tools

Chimerists require a selection of surgical, alchemical, and magical tools to practice their trade.

Materials

In addition to source creatures to be broken down and reassembled into new beasts, chimerists must acquire or manufacture primordial slime, which is applied to chimerical bodies to help them accept the spark of life. The spark itself is the final component necessary in the process. For smaller creatures, the lightning generated by electric eels or rays or stored in a Thunderjar. usually proves sufficient. Larger creatures require either a direct lightning strike (natural or magical) or a carefully timed barrage of shocks from multiple smaller sources.

Workplace

A chimerist's work space typically contains a surgery or vivisection table used for taking apart source creatures and reassembling them as chimera, one or more vats of primordial ooze and possibly the alchemical equipment necessary to manufacture more, tanks holding rays and eels, and in some cases a metal resurrection table with heavy restraints that can be either connected to a lightning rod assembly or raised to the roof to capture the large supply of energy necessary to awaken a large creature. Source animal parts subject to decay are stored in jars of preservative fluids, while things like horns, teeth, and claws are stored in jars, bins, or hanging from rafters and ceilings. Since fresher source materials tend to respond better to the process, pens and cages containing live animals are common during the construction stage of a new chimerical undertaking. Chimerists who offer "off the shelf" creatures for sale or wish to establish a breeding population of a chimerical creation also need pens, barns, farmland, or zoo-like spaces where their creations can be kept and cared for.

Provided Services

The vast majority of chimera are made to order based on a customer's needs and specifications, but chimerists often have a few creatures on hand that are available for purchase by anyone who can pay the price. These include chimera produced from personal research and experimentation, orders that fell through once the chimera was completed or too near completion to abandon, recreations of past chimera that are widely useful and can be affordably replicated, or the result of breeding experiments.

Dangers & Hazards

The two greatest hazards that chimerists face are being mauled by a rogue experiment and electrocution.

Building A Better Tiger...or Turtle

Alternative Names

Monstersmith

Type

Arcane

Demand

Demand for chimerist services is small, but the nature of the work means that a single project can occupy months or years of a practitioner's time. Chimerists with good reputations often have a waiting list of backlogged requests to choose from.

Legality

While there is no restriction against harvesting the cadavers of humans or other intelligent creatures for source materials, imperial law forbids the creation of sapient creatures, which is considered an affront to the gods. The typically cited test for sapience is whether a chimera is capable of engaging in complex and meaningful communication with a human being. By this logic, a creature capable of mimicking human speech like a parrot or troll would not be considered sapient, but a creature with the ability to communicate complex ideas using sign language would be a blasphemous creation. However, since this test is mostly used as an illustrative example and imperial officials can ultimately use any criteria they please to evaluate a chimera's sapience, most chimerists are careful to stick to creations that are not even remotely likely to be mistaken as exhibiting advanced intelligence. Conviction of blasphemous experimentation triggers immediate expulsion from the guild and even the suggestion of improper activity can lead to a tribunal to decide whether or not to revoke the guild status of the accused. 
Chimerists who design creatures or processes that meet certain standards of innovation and uniqueness can register the design with the guild in order to secure the right to regulate (usually through fees) use of the process or replication of of the creature (or significantly similar creatures) by other guild members. Anyone proven to be in violation will have to pay restitution and may find their guild membership at risk depending on the severity of the violation.

Famous in the Field

• Anders the Unsleeping
• Lydeh Kuviljim