Freelance Occultist

The traditions are fine for what they are. You've studied most of them. You've studied things older than most of them. What you've built doesn't have a name that any one tradition would recognize, but it works.

Favored Save: Wit Save (+1D to Wit + Resolve rolls)

Power Access: Mediumship or Glamourist at 1D (player's choice, no Talent cost). The Freelance Occultist has developed practice outside the formal tradition structures, they have real capability, but it is idiosyncratic and their path to it was non-institutional.

Mediumship aligns with Haunt or Dhampir connections
Glamourist aligns with Faeborn or Marked (Light-Bound) connections
Human Freelance Occultists, with no lineage Power Access, access their tradition through study rather than lineage.

Starting Resources: A personal research library, physical, digital, and field-note format, covering multiple traditions and non-tradition approaches. A working knowledge of the hidden world's major organizations and how to navigate their peripheries without being absorbed by any of them. Access to one research resource not available through normal channels (a specific archive, an unusual contact, an artifact they've been studying).

Lineage Affinity: Human, Haunt, Faeborn. Human occultists who developed capability through study rather than lineage are the canonical fit. Haunt and Faeborn characters who have pursued research beyond their lineage tradition also work well.

Design Note: The Freelance Occultist is defined by breadth over depth; they know a lot about many things and have genuine tradition capability, but they are not a specialist in the way that a Warden (Sacred Fire 1D at access) or a Grimoire Compact Researcher with full institutional resources is. Their strength is adaptability, cross-domain knowledge, and access to approaches that tradition specialists have never considered.

Progression Track: Freelance Occultist

Stage 1 (10 XP), Applied Research
  The occultist's cross-domain study is paying off in the field.
  - Eclectic Approach: Once per scene, the character may apply their
    tradition access to a problem that the tradition was not specifically
    designed for. (Mediumship used to detect a fae's Liminal signature;
    Glamourist used to read a shadow compact's metaphysical structure.)
    The Threshold increases by 1 for this off-domain application, but the
    attempt is possible where tradition specialists would say it shouldn't be.
  - Threat Research: Given access to their library and a scene's worth of
    time, the occultist can produce a working threat assessment, weakness,
    known behavioral patterns, documented destruction methods, for any threat
    category. Wit + Lore vs Threshold 2 for standard information; Threshold 3
    for obscure or variant information. The library covers more categories
    than any single organization's resources do.

Stage 2 (25 XP), Theoretical Depth
  Years of cross-domain research have given the occultist a grasp of
  underlying principles that tradition specialists often lack.
  - Tradition Insight: The occultist's understanding of how their tradition
    actually works, at a theoretical level, gives them one additional
    technique. Choose one: (a) their tradition Threshold 1 applications cost
    no Veil Strain (they are so well-practiced at base applications that they
    don't strain); or (b) when they fail a tradition roll, they may spend
    their Free Action to attempt a modified version at Threshold +1 in the
    same scene (the first attempt told them something about what won't work;
    they adapt immediately).
  - Independent Archive: The occultist has built research connections across
    multiple organizations without becoming beholden to any of them. Once per
    session, they may access a piece of information from any organization's
    research base (Grimoire Compact, Aldersham Institute, BUA unclassified,
    Network lore archive) as if they had standing contacts there. The
    information is a specific fact, not ongoing access; they know who to
    ask and the ask is currently acceptable.

Stage 3 (50 XP), The Approach No One Else Has
  The occultist has developed something genuinely novel, a synthesis
  of tradition knowledge, independent research, and field experience
  that exists nowhere else.
  - Developed Methodology: The occultist has formalized one specific
    non-standard approach into a reliable technique. Work with the GM to
    define this: it should be specific (a particular type of binding,
    a research methodology that surfaces hidden connections, an off-domain
    application of their tradition that they've refined into reliability).
    This technique functions at normal Threshold rather than the +1 that
    Eclectic Approach requires; they've practiced it enough that it's
    no longer improvised.
  - Tradition Depth: The occultist's tradition access increases by 1D
    (to 2D total, no Talent cost). The theoretical understanding has
    finally translated into genuine deepened capability, late, compared
    to a lineage practitioner, but built on a foundation of comprehension
    rather than instinct.