Engineer

The engineer is a combination geologist and craftsman capable of identifying minerals, constructing improved buildings, making improvements to armor and weaponry, developing schematics for traps and seige weaponry along with other mechanical possibilities up to the imagination of the engineer.

Perception

Purpose

Engineers provide insight into the potential uses of minerals and other materials. They provide a keen knowledge of proper design when it comes to buildings which can lead to improved defenses or function. Their ability to design traps can be both defensive or, in the case of hunting, offensive, and their ability to improve armor or weaponry in the field can be very beneficial despite the potential other drawbacks involved.

Operations

Tools

As a well-rounded craftsman and miner, Engineers have the following tools: a saw, nails, a hatchet, a ruler, an adze, a plane, a trowel, a chisel, brushes, a square, hammers, tongs, charcoal, rags, a variety of hand tools, thread, needles, a whetstone, scraps of cloth and leather, and a small pot of glue.

Provided Services

Engineers provide a variety of services:

Mining/Mineral Identification

While in the field, those familiar with geology and in possession of the right tools can identify minerals. An engineer's knowledge of advanced maths and so forth can also determine interesting properties of minerals involving things like the angles of crystalization, notes on the dimensions of certain minerals and practical uses for minerals.
The geometry and tools involved to relieve the ground of its mineral deposits (mining) is also something an engineer would be proficient at. Finding a way to remove a great deal of minerals from the ground, divising some way to get vehicles in and out of a mine, or designing pully systems are all aspects of this process.
There are many different places where one could find rare and unique minerals in The Gates, including the Underground Tunnels.

Crafting Traps

Engineers, logically, have some capacity for crafting. Making buildings and mechanical contraptions falls in line with making traps as well.
Whether you're on the road or at the home base, having a well-crafted trap can be the world of difference between a comfortable night's sleep and waking up in the middle of the night with fangs at your throat.
Working with Occultists can also lead to making specialty traps designed to capture, stop or hinder spirits in some other form. Working with Apothecarists can help make lures for certain traps if you wanted to capture animals for research or consumption, or even to lure animals/other creatures away from the main entrance and towards another area with a trap. This would effectively save your main entrance trap from being triggered too early on in the night or something.
Get creative with the traps, there's lots of wacky ideas to come up with! Heck, there might even be combat applications for them...somehow.

Improving/Crafting Buildings/Defenses

While making buildings for a home base, the Engineer has a better chance of making blueprints or schematics for different projects that will be easy to understand with the group in mind. These blueprints can then be used to craft buildings and defenses that will be sturdier, more practical, or more powerful in other ways than normal.
Additionally, an engineer could imporve existing buildings to become more useful for the task at hand by changing a defense's purpose to better stop some incoming forces on the fly.
Specialized defenses using mechanical concepts are definitely something within the engineer's wheelhouse! One could make autoturrets that fire on sight, or ones that can trace certain animals or spirits, or any other thing that might be in the imagination of the engineer.
Depending on if an improvement is "on the fly" or done more deliberately "over time" will effect not only the durabilty of the improvement but also the overall function of it. An "on the fly" improvement might only last for a few rounds of an onslaught, or the entire onslaught but break shortly afterwards. An "on the fly" improvement may also have other drawbacks like inadvertently having a weakness against some element that wasn't accounted for in the speedy design process since there was no testing.

Improving Weapons/Armor

Similar to improving defenses and buildings in a base, an engineer can improve weapons and armor!
The improvements made could be, again, "over time" or "on the fly" with certain drawbacks involved for making it "on the fly".
Improving a weapon or a piece of armor might be as simple as combining the properties of some recently discovered mineral into the equipment, or adding a mechanical piece to the mix so that your longsword now also shoots bees at people.
It's all, again, entirely up to the imagination of the engineer!

Famous in the Field

• DAN Wildcloak