Field Researcher

The Haan Archipelago is vast in its many little islands and remote locations, and for the longest time learning about its many natural secrets was not a priority of the societarians living there.
This changed in the last couple of centuries, especially with the foundation of The Knowledgeholders, an organization based around researching and preserving knowledge of every possible topic.
Since then and since big libraries started delving into funding research, many people found field research to be a lucrative job or a good side gig.
The expeditions require many kind of skills and abilities to be present in any given crew, from the obvious knowledge in academic research to the no less important negotiating, sailing, hiking, survival, first aid, languages, among others.

Being Hired

Ethel by Naelin

In most cases, field researchers are hired as part of a crew by a research institute, usually a library or university.
The most famous employers are The Knowledgeholders, who will post requests for people with very specific skillsets in order to conduct research on the areas of interest they found to be lacking.
A minority of groups are able to fund their own expeditions and sell them later, famously the crew working in The Book of the Habits and Beasts, who would publish articles about their findings and then sell them to their subscribers and distributors.

The Job

Danae by Naelin

Due to the cost, complexity and danger of expeditions, most field research crews try to cram as many fields of study as they can in any given trip.
Once an expedition is planned and funded, a crew leader or their employer will secure resources and crew members experienced in the areas of expertise they require for transportation, communication with locals, camping and actual research.
A broad "general purpose" expedition to an unexplored area will include cartographers, biologists, cooks, surgeons, soldiers, hunters among others, while more specific trips to gather information about niche topics can be as small as a single knowledgeable researcher put in contact with a local helper.
Researchers will set for their destination and stay in location for a set amount of time or until they have completed the research they went to perform, after which they will return to their home or institution to collate the research and, hopefully, publish and distribute it.

Hazards

Rosscot Nouverre

As with any jobs that will take its workers to the uncharted and the unexplored, field researches put themselves in the path of danger often, traversing hazardous terrain, meeting agressive creatures, and getting to where they are not welcome.
A sad example was that of the settlers of Rosscot Camp, led by famous Dhalmanite explorer Rosscot Nouverre, who was working on charting and describing one of the Savage Isles south of Dhalmain.
Their camp was up for two years of intensive research and reporting back to Dhalmain, until it went silent and dissapeared, with their fate remaining a mystery to this day.

Welkinal by Naelin

Type

Research / Scientific

Famous in the Field

• Danae
• Rosscot Nouverre
• Sidrar
• Veld the Imaginative
• Welkinal

Used By

• The Knowledgeholders

Discoveries made in the field

Some of the most notorious discoveries of the last decades were made by field researchers.

Blossom Gnaw by Naelín

One of such is the blossom gnaw, first described by Welkinal in his expedition to the Delta of Many Birds where he also described species such as the sidrar's wader and documented many characteristics of the legar and the endangered sceapilion, among others.
Rosscot's reports about Rosscot Island expanded the known range of hapists, hirschmalls and others, as well as providing samples of newly discovered plant and creature species.