A calligrapher is an artist when they put quill to paper. Crafting exquisite artwork along the margins of the paper, creating stylistic letters and words to highlight sections in a poem or simply hiding a message. A calligrapher is normally employed to create books, manuals and pamphlets, but some of the best can do more with a quill than others with a sword.
Calligrapher Supplies
Calligrapher's s upplies include ink, a dozen sheets of parchment, and three quills.
The tools weigh 5 lbs and cost 10 gp.
Calligraphy
The art of calligraphy can come across in several different forms. You may try to create stunning artwork for a local establishment's sign, you may be creating pamphlets for a local church or hiding codes through cleverly drawn letters.
Creating Artwork
Many calligraphers have put their skills to use in creating artwork of animals, people, locations and anything else that comes to their imagination. This artwork can be a mundane way of showing portraits to others, locations to wizards or just to make a bit of extra coin while in a town. Most times you are drawing artwork, it doesn't require a check, per the DM's discretion.
When you create artwork you must spend an appropriate amount of time working on it. This is largely up to the DM's discretion, but most simple artwork will only take about an hour while more complex pieces may take 8 hours or even longer. Size can also play a part in how long something takes.
Crafting a Hidden Message
When you create a hidden message, you can create a quick and simple code or choose to make it far more complicated. Depending on how involved your code is, it will take you longer to add it in to a document or artwork.
Simple Codes
Simple codes involve an easy code that can be hidden in artwork or in a cipher. It could be the first letter of every sentence, a simple cipher that looks like random letters, or hidden among some simple artwork in the margins. Each code requires 10 minutes to an hour of work and allows you to transmit short messages.
Complicated Codes
Complicated codes involve expert skills and vast amounts of time. When you wish to create a several page document, create intricate artwork hiding the code, or making a complex cipher you must typically spend 8 hours of uninterrupted work and, per DM's discretion, require several days to complete. This allows you to transmit complex and long messages through your letters.
Extra Time
While you are skilled with your tools, you can always get it just a bit more perfect if you spent a bit more time on it. Whenever you create a code, you can decide to spend double the amount of time making sure every detail is just right. When you do so, any investigation attempts have disadvantage on spotting your code.
Interaction
Creating a code or cipher will put the item in a variety of different situations where it might be cracked. A suspicious creature can make an Intelligence (Investigation) check against your Calligrapher's Supplies DC, on a success they notice the code but may not be able to decipher it.
The DC is 8 plus your Intelligence modifier plus your Proficiency bonus.
The Message
The recipient of your messages or documents must know that you have sent them a hidden message, and they may require a key to break your cipher. This could be a pre-arranged code or a type of Thieves Cant and is up to your character and the DM's discretion.
Locations and Teleporation
If you have seen a location, you can attempt to draw it out for someone else to study to help them become more familiar with the location for use of a Teleportation spell or similar magic. While you can not make the caster intimately familiar, you can provide a clearer picture of the destination than just simply describing it. This type of intense work requires at least 8 hours of work of drawing the location from several different angles and ensuring it is as accurate as possible. Once you are finished, make an Intelligence (Calligrapher's Supplies) check and consult the chart below.
Teleporation Familiarity
DC Familiarity
5 False Destination
10 Description/Seen Once
15 Seen Casually
20 Very Familiar
The DM may choose to make this check for you in secret or adjust the DC per their discretion.
Marketing Material
If you lend your talents to a local business, you can create a variety of marketing material for them. This includes things like pamphlets, signs, menus, or anything else used to draw the eye of passerbys. Per the DM's discretion, you can make a Charisma (Calligrapher's Supplies) after creating materials to see how well your material is being received and how it is affecting business.
The DC is influenced by the population's disposition to the business, the cost and necessity of the product, and the location of the building; final DC is determined by the DM.
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