Brand Tattoo Artist

The Brand is a time-honored coming of age ritual on the continent of Ankaluun and those who perform this ritual are generally held in high esteem and earn enough coin to live quite lavishly, even in smaller towns.
Official Brand artists are required to undergo several years of apprenticeship under a Master before they are allowed to take the tests for certification with the appropriate empires and free-cities in order to apply the Brand to people. In the Kirinian Empire , the bureaucrats responsible for certifying the artists and regulating magical ink supplies claim that only 1 in 3 artists who complete apprenticeships are able to become successfully certified.
Almost every city and most towns across the continent will have at least one artist, although residents of smaller towns and villages often have to travel to get theirs applied. The Brand is applied when a person comes-of-age as an adult which means that it happens at much different ages depending on the species. Just as the artists must be certified, each person wishing to get a Brand must obtain permission to do so. The strict requirements act as a safeguard against young people being able to accidentally cause serious harm to their peers.
Due to the strict requirements, it was inevitable that a black market around the inking of Brands would spring up. The far-reaching criminal organization The Muddled Brand got its start and its very name from the black market Brands that its earliest members would apply for a significant cost. Most of its earliest members and even a sizeable number of its new recruits over the years got their start as former apprentice artists who were unable to pass the certification tests.
Official Brand artists belong to the Inkers guild which has, more than once, been confused during a drunken argument as the Tinkers' Guild and led to some pretty hilarious brawls. Inkers are a proud lot and the guild holds a place of power Ankaluunian politics.