Unaffiliated Professions
Templates
1: The Freelance
"My credentials are real. My org isn't your business."
Identity: The Freelance operates independently across all five orgs, accepted by each as a recognized professional but controlled by none. They may have trained under one org and left cleanly, or assembled their expertise from multiple sources without ever fully committing. They take clients. They deliver work. They go home.
The critical distinction from the Mercenary: the Freelance has professional standing, not just capability. They hold credentials through independent licensing bodies (international standards boards, profession-specific guilds that predate the five org structure, or multi-org certifying consortiums). These credentials open doors without granting the institutional authority that makes org-affiliated characters threatening.
Why they left, or never joined: The Freelance calculus is personal. Some found org culture incompatible with the way they think. Some ran the numbers and concluded that independent billing rates exceeded org salary plus the decade of deferred agency that org advancement requires. Some had an offer from a second org before the first one finished their training and decided the right answer was neither. Some simply could not commit to a Clancorp the way Dwarven culture demands, or found the NTC's Meritocratic Mesh ranking exhausting.
Social Position:
| Org | How They See a Freelance |
|---|---|
| LGT | Tolerated, legally recognized, no enforcement leverage. Useful for deniable legal work the LGT doesn't want in their records. |
| BVHI | Contractually acceptable, a Freelance can hold a BVHI subcontract but never a Clancorp role. Treated with professional respect and personal wariness. |
| NTC | Certified-not-Collective, NTC issues independent practitioner certifications; a Freelance Technomancer has one. They're in the system but not in the Mesh. |
| HIA | Potential asset, the HIA tracks Freelances in relevant fields as potential recruitment or intelligence targets. A Freelance probably doesn't know their HIA file exists. |
| NVS | Natural clients, the NVS hires Freelances constantly. Good working relationship, transactional terms, no expectation of loyalty. |
| ### Freelance Stage 1: Open Market Standing |
Type: Faction Authority Replacement | Stage 1 | Free Action | Self | Session
The character holds recognized independent professional credentials, not issued by any single org, but accepted across all of them for baseline access purposes. This is the professional equivalent of a neutral passport.
Once per session, invoke independent credentials to bypass one standard access restriction that would normally require org affiliation: a professional entry point, a licensed access terminal, a credentialed-only floor in a building, a restricted vendor relationship. The bypass works because the character's credentials are real and verifiable, not because they have institutional authority. Security personnel check the credential, find it valid, and let them through.
The bypass does not grant org authority, only entry-level access. A Freelance Arbiter who bypasses the LGT's credentialed entry can attend the negotiation; they cannot issue an Injunction once inside.
What it cannot bypass: High-security internal facilities requiring org-specific clearance (NTC server cores, BVHI Deep Vault restricted zones, HIA operations centers). Bypassing those requires a different approach.
Limit: Once per session.
Freelance Stage 2: Provisional Engagement
Type: Faction Authority Replacement | Stage 2 | Primary Action | Single org or client | Long Rest
The character formalizes a temporary professional engagement with any org, individual, or organization. For the duration of that engagement (the current scene or operation, as agreed), they are treated as a temporary affiliate with access to relevant facilities, information channels, and basic professional standing within the scope of the engagement.
Provisional Engagement is a real contractual status; it carries legal weight in most jurisdictions. While engaged, the character can access org facilities appropriate to the job, be briefed on relevant information the org would share with a contractor, and act with the org's procedural backing on the specific task. They cannot issue org authority (no Injunctions, Overrides, Flags, or Pulls) and the engagement expires when the task concludes.
The engagement must be plausible and mutually agreed, a Freelance Seismic Engineer can provisionally engage with BVHI to assess a construction site; they cannot provisionally engage as a Covenant practitioner for an LGT arbitration they have no relevant background for.
Limit: Once per Long Rest. The engagement is logged by the client org and creates a traceable professional record.
Freelance Stage 3: Jurisdictional Ambiguity
Type: Faction Authority Replacement | Stage 3 | Free Action | Self | Full Rest
No single org has unambiguous legal jurisdiction over the character. Their credentials are multi-source, their professional record spans multiple org systems, and the Linden-Green Accords' language on independent practitioners was written before the five orgs reached their current dominance, deliberately, by Freelance advocates at the time.
Once per Full Rest, when an org attempts to exercise institutional authority over the character, a Certification Flag, an Infrastructure Override applied to the character's equipment, an Axiomatic Injunction targeting their actions, an HIA detain-order, the character may invoke Jurisdictional Ambiguity. The invocation creates an immediate legal dispute about which jurisdiction applies, delaying the authority action by 24 hours while the dispute is processed. The action is not prevented, only delayed.
During the 24-hour window, the character is not in violation of anything; they are pending resolution. They may act freely. If they resolve the underlying dispute or remove themselves from the org's reach before the window closes, the authority action may never land.
Additionally, when Jurisdictional Ambiguity is invoked, the character receives a free Wit + Lore roll vs Threshold 2 to identify the specific procedural gap in the org's authority claim, information that may be useful beyond the immediate delay.
Limit: Once per Full Rest.
The Outcast
"I know exactly how they do this. I designed part of it."
Identity: The Outcast was inside. They had the credentials, the standing, the access, and they lost it, left it, or had it taken from them. The Clancorp Severing. NTC delisting for ethics violations. LGT credential revocation after a Covenant was ruled invalid. HIA burned cover that exposed an operative. NVS blacklist after a contract went wrong.
What the org cannot revoke is what they know. The Outcast carries institutional memory they were never supposed to take with them: security protocols, internal authorization patterns, the specific weaknesses in procedures that looked solid from outside but have a seam if you know where to push. The org knows this. The org is displeased.
The Outcast is not necessarily bitter, some left on principle, some were pushed out unfairly, some burned themselves deliberately to get out. What matters mechanically is: they know the inside, and they are no longer inside. This creates a specific and powerful capability set that depreciates over time as the org updates systems, rotates personnel, and patches the gaps they know about.
Why they lost standing: This is a character creation decision with table stakes. The GM should know: which org, why, and how long ago. The how-long-ago matters, a Seismic Engineer who left BVHI six months ago has more current knowledge than one who left six years ago. The template represents residual insider knowledge; it does not refresh.
Social Position:
| Org | How They See an Outcast (from their org) |
|---|---|
| Former org | Active threat or embarrassment to be managed. Surveillance, pressure, and occasional "job offers" that are really assessments. |
| LGT | If an LGT Outcast: credential flagged; any LGT official who recognizes them is required to report contact. |
| BVHI | If a BVHI Outcast: The Severing is permanent and public. All BVHI personnel know not to work with them. |
| NTC | If an NTC Outcast: delisted from the Certification Registry. All NTC-standard systems flag their credentials as revoked. |
| HIA | If an HIA Outcast: burned cover means their real identity and field techniques are known. The HIA considers them a live intelligence exposure. |
| NVS | If an NVS Outcast: blacklisted, contract breach on record. Other orgs they work with will eventually hear about it. |
| Other orgs | Cautious interest, an Outcast from Org A is a potential intelligence asset for Org B. Recruiting them is politically complicated; using them quietly is common. |
| ### Outcast Stage 1: Ghost Credentials |
Type: Faction Authority Replacement | Stage 1 | Free Action | Self | Long Rest
The character's revoked credentials have not been fully purged from every system that uses them. Physical keycards may still work in unmaintained access points. Authentication tokens that reference an outdated credentials database may still validate. Personnel who knew them personally may still recognize the badge before checking the revocation flag.
Once per Long Rest, use former org credentials to access a system, space, or resource as if their credentials were still valid. The GM determines how current the target system is: - Outdated systems (unmaintained infrastructure, legacy hardware, infrequently-audited access points): succeed automatically - Standard systems (regularly-maintained org infrastructure): Wit + Technical vs Threshold 2 - Current systems (recently-updated, high-security, flagged for this specific individual): the credentials fail immediately and trigger a security alert
The GM tracks the passage of time, Ghost Credentials become less reliable as the org updates its systems. After significant in-world time (GM's discretion, typically one campaign arc), some former access points may be permanently closed.
Limit: Once per Long Rest. Each use is a gamble on how current the system is.
Outcast Stage 2: Institutional Memory
Type: Faction Authority Replacement | Stage 2 | Primary Action | Former org target | Long Rest
The character spent years inside the org learning how it actually operates, not the public-facing version, but the real authorization chains, the internal procedures, the gaps that exist because one department didn't communicate with another, the personnel who are trusted more than they should be, and the specific seams in security that every insider knows and no one has fixed because fixing them would require admitting they exist.
Once per Long Rest, the character may invoke Institutional Memory against their former org. Choose one of the following:
Protocol Gap: Identify a specific procedure the former org is required to follow that creates a window of access, delay, or vulnerability in the current situation. The GM must acknowledge the gap exists and describe what it provides, the character genuinely knows this. Example: "NTC compliance flags require a 24-hour internal review before escalation to legal, during which the flagged party retains provisional access."
Personnel Insight: Name a specific type of former org personnel (not necessarily a named individual) and identify their likely decision pattern, pressure points, and credibility within the org hierarchy as the character knew it. The GM provides this information honestly, the character spent years watching these people.
Security Seam: Identify one specific physical or digital security gap in former org facilities that the character knows about from the inside. The GM determines whether it has been patched since the character's departure, roll Wit + Attunement vs Threshold 2 (favored if recent departure; unfavored if long ago). On success, the gap is still exploitable. On failure, it was patched after they left.
Limit: Once per Long Rest. Institutional Memory degrades with time, the GM may increase the Threshold on Security Seam checks as the campaign advances.
Outcast Stage 3: The Burned File
Type: Faction Authority Replacement | Stage 3 | Primary Action | Former org | Full Rest, see limit
The Outcast left with knowledge they were never supposed to have. Not operational gaps, secrets. The kind of information the org cannot acknowledge publicly without causing significant damage to themselves. The Bedrock Protocol. The Zero-Day Soul. The Shadow-Census. The Extinction Clause. Whatever the character's former org has buried, they know a piece of it.
Once per campaign (not per Full Rest, this is a one-time use with permanent narrative consequences), the character may act on their knowledge of one significant org secret. This is not a leverage moment, it is a detonation.
Choose one:
Controlled Burn: Leak the information to a specific party, another org, a journalist, a regulatory body, a rival faction, in a form designed to cause maximum institutional damage to the former org. The GM determines the fallout, but it is significant and lasting: investigations, loss of contracts, internal purges, regulatory action. The character's role as the source may or may not remain hidden depending on how carefully they manage the leak.
Direct Leverage: Present the former org with evidence that the character holds this information and is prepared to release it unless specific terms are met. This is blackmail under most jurisdictions, including Juris-Axiomatic law. The org must choose between compliance, compromise, or escalation, any of which creates its own cascade. A successful Wit + Persuade vs Threshold 4 improves the terms; the base outcome is the org meets a single significant demand to contain the exposure.
Burn the Bridge: Release the information publicly and completely with no personal benefit. This permanently destroys any chance of reconciliation with the former org but may genuinely shift the setting's political landscape. Characters who choose this path often do so on principle. The GM should treat it as a setting-altering event.
Limit: Once per campaign. Using The Burned File changes the campaign world. Plan accordingly.
The Mercenary
"I don't care who you are. I care whether you can pay, and whether the job is worth taking."
Identity: The Mercenary sells professional capability, not loyalty, not institutional affiliation, not long-term relationship. They have a price, a reputation, and a standard of work they maintain because their reputation is the only credential that matters. They will take clients from any org, including clients who are in direct opposition to each other in different jobs.
Combat is one expression. An information mercenary is as real a character as a physical one, a Plane-Runner who hires out to anyone who needs network access, a Shadow Liaison who runs intelligence operations for whoever pays, a Seismic Engineer who assesses infrastructure for any corp that needs the report. The defining characteristic is transactional clarity: they are hired for a specific job, they deliver, they are paid, the relationship ends until the next contract.
The Mercenary has Licensed Contractor status, a formal independent professional registration that exists in most IL jurisdictions as a legal category distinct from org affiliation. It provides legal standing, tax classification, and a complaints mechanism without providing institutional backing.
Why they work this way: Mercenaries are often people who tried org life and found the exchange rate unfavorable, the loyalty cost was higher than the security benefit. Or they have a specific skill set that multiple orgs want access to and found that selling access was more lucrative than committing to any one buyer. Or they have a history (personal, professional, ethical) that makes full org affiliation untenable but whose skills remain marketable.
Social Position:
| Org | How They See a Mercenary |
|---|---|
| LGT | Contracted frequently for deniable legal work; paid promptly; not trusted with anything that can't be documented cleanly. |
| BVHI | Subcontracted for work outside Clancorp scope; treated with professional respect; Debt of Honor applies to completed contracts. |
| NTC | Licensed-not-Collective; used for jobs the Mesh doesn't want logged; monitored for EULA compliance. |
| HIA | Potential exposure, a Mercenary who works for multiple orgs has access patterns the HIA tracks carefully. Used at arm's length. |
| NVS | The primary client base. NVS hires Mercenaries constantly. Excellent working relationship. The Syndicate Vouching may apply to them via client relationships. |
| ### Mercenary Stage 1: Licensed Contractor |
Type: Faction Authority Replacement | Stage 1 | Free Action | Self | Session
The character holds formal Licensed Contractor status, a legal professional classification in most IL jurisdictions that provides genuine professional standing without org affiliation. Their credentials are real, verifiable, and carry their professional reputation rather than an org's backing.
Once per session, invoke Licensed Contractor status to access org-adjacent resources or spaces that are open to credentialed independent professionals: contractor entries, licensed vendor markets, professional networks, and services that accept independent billing rather than org accounts. This is a narrower access than org standing; they are in the contractor ecosystem, not the org itself.
Additionally, when negotiating a contract with any org or client, the character may roll Wit + Persuade with +1D when establishing terms. The Licensed Contractor credential signals professional reliability, clients know they are dealing with someone who has a reputational stake in delivery.
Limit: Contractor status is always active. The +1D negotiation bonus applies once per session (first contract negotiation per session where it is relevant).
Mercenary Stage 2: Scope of Engagement
Type: Faction Authority Replacement | Stage 2 | Primary Action | Single client or org | Long Rest
The character formalizes a contracted engagement with a specific client. For the duration of the current job (the current scene or operation), they operate with the practical authority of a client-sanctioned representative within the scope of the contract.
Scope of Engagement is more specific and legally tighter than the Freelance's Provisional Engagement; it defines exactly what the character can and cannot do on behalf of the client, and both parties know the terms. While engaged: - Access client facilities and resources relevant to the contracted work - Act as a client-authorized representative for the specific task, other parties dealing with them on that task may treat them as having the client's backing - Provide or request information the client has authorized them to handle
The contract provides legal protection for actions taken within scope: if a Mercenary Seismic Engineer damages infrastructure while completing an authorized Infrastructure assessment, the client is liable, not the Mercenary. Actions outside scope have no such protection.
The character may define the scope narrowly or broadly at contract establishment, the broader the scope, the more expensive the contract, and the more the client can ask of them.
Limit: Once per Long Rest. Scope of Engagement requires a real contractual exchange, the client must be capable of fulfilling their end.
Mercenary Stage 3: Reputation Ledger
Type: Faction Authority Replacement | Stage 3 | Free Action | Self | Full Rest
The Mercenary's institutional authority is their professional reputation, and at this Stage, that reputation has become a form of currency that transcends any single org's endorsement.
Maintain a Reputation Ledger: a running cross-org record of completed contracts, delivery record, and professional standing in the independent market. The Ledger is tracked narratively, the GM notes significant jobs completed, clients satisfied, commitments honored, and any breach of contract or professional failure.
At Stage 3, the Ledger provides:
Reputation Draw: Once per Full Rest, invoke Reputation standing to open a conversation with any org or significant party who would otherwise have no reason to meet with the character. They are known professionally across the market; this opens the room. Getting what they want from the meeting still requires skill.
Leverage of Record: When negotiating with any party who has verifiable access to the independent market record, present the Reputation Ledger as a credential. Gain +2D on all negotiation, contract establishment, and persuasion rolls for the current scene. This bonus applies once per scene and once per Full Rest.
The Call-In: Once per campaign, call on a debt owed by a previous client or contact. A past client who benefited from a completed job owes a professional obligation. The character may invoke one significant favor from this relationship, meaningful assistance, information, access, or resources. The client may grumble; they may negotiate; they will ultimately deliver, because their own reputation depends on honoring professional obligations. The GM determines what the client can realistically provide.
Limit: Reputation Draw and Leverage of Record once per Full Rest. Call-In once per campaign.
The Off-Grid
"I'm not in the system. I was never in the system. That's not an accident."
Identity: The Off-Grid character has deliberately removed themselves from org information architectures. They have no verifiable digital identity in org databases, no professional registration, no network footprint, no Shadow-Census file. They exist in the spaces between the five orgs' monitoring, and in a world where the NTC indexes nearly everything and the HIA tracks what the NTC can't reach, those spaces are narrower than they appear.
The Off-Grid character has actively maintained their absence from org systems, cycling identities, using off-network communication, operating through intermediaries, and avoiding the professional registration that would anchor them to a searchable record. They know what the orgs' surveillance architecture looks like because they've spent years learning how to avoid it.
Who goes Off-Grid: Some had no choice, their work requires deniability that org affiliation would destroy. Some are ideological: the five orgs' increasing surveillance of civilian life represents something they refuse to participate in. Some are protecting someone else. Some were heading toward a situation where disappearing was the safest option and built the capability before they needed it. Whatever the reason, maintaining Off-Grid status is a continuous active project, not a permanent passive state.
Social Position:
| Org | How They See an Off-Grid Character |
|---|---|
| LGT | Unverifiable, cannot be party to Juris-Axiomatic contracts without identity verification. Legally invisible, which is itself a legal problem. |
| BVHI | Cannot hold a Clancorp role or subcontract. May interact with BVHI as an anonymous contractor through an intermediary if terms are agreed. |
| NTC | A priority intelligence concern, someone not indexed by NTC systems is either HIA-affiliated or a deliberate gap. The NTC wants to know which. |
| HIA | Professionally interesting, the HIA Shadow-Census Pull returns nothing on them. The HIA has a file labeled with their description but no name, which is unusual enough to be notable. |
| NVS | Potential client or vendor, the NVS's grey-zone operations frequently use untracked contractors. They don't ask for ID if payment is in physical currency. |
| ### Off-Grid Stage 1: Data Shadow |
Type: Faction Authority Replacement | Stage 1 | Passive | Self | Always active
The character has no verifiable digital identity in org surveillance systems.
Passive effects (always active): - HIA Shadow-Census Pull targeting the character returns no results. The HIA system finds no file. - NTC Certification Flag cannot target the character; they have no certification record to flag. - NTC Network Presence and standard network surveillance do not detect the character's physical presence in a space based on device signatures; they carry no indexed devices, or devices are spoofed to return noise. - Any org roll to research or identify the character using standard data systems has its Threshold increased by 2.
Active use, once per Short Rest: The character may deliberately assert their absence from a specific scan, system, or surveillance sweep as a Free Action. Rather than passive non-detection, they actively ensure that a specific search for them at this moment returns clean results, not "no file found" but "scan completed, nothing matching parameters." This is the difference between being invisible and being confirmed absent.
Limits and costs: Maintaining Data Shadow requires ongoing active effort, it is not a permanent passive state achieved once and forgotten. Physical biometrics (face recognition in a controlled space, fingerprint scans, blood tests) can identify the character regardless of digital absence; Data Shadow does not defeat non-digital identification. If the character establishes a lasting relationship with an org or registers professional credentials, Data Shadow begins to erode, GM tracks degradation.
Off-Grid Stage 2: Grey Space Access
Type: Faction Authority Replacement | Stage 2 | Primary Action | Variable | Long Rest
The character has mapped the infrastructure that exists in the spaces between org control, the off-network safe houses that predate the NTC's digital rollout, the physical currency markets that the NVS's black-listed contractors use, the communication channels that route through hardware the HIA hasn't indexed, the people and places that deliberately exist below org visibility.
Once per Long Rest, access one resource from the Grey Space network, the informal, untracked infrastructure layer that exists precisely because the five orgs don't control it:
Safe Location: A secure resting point known to be outside current org surveillance. Not a luxury location, a basement, a converted storage space, a pre-NTC building with no smart infrastructure. Clean, safe, off-record. Accommodates the party.
Off-Network Contact: A specific type of expert, vendor, or specialist who operates entirely outside org licensing, an unregistered practitioner, a black market equipment supplier, a document architect who creates clean false identities. The contact exists and is reachable; the transaction is outside any jurisdiction that would log it.
Off-Net Channel: Establish a communication line for the current scene that routes through non-indexed hardware, not through the NTC's net infrastructure. Messages sent through this channel are invisible to Network Presence and standard signals monitoring. The channel is physically routed, not digitally, and has distance limitations (Near city-level range for reliable use; further is possible but increases interception risk).
Physical Cache: A supply cache that the character has pre-positioned and maintained in a location outside org tracking, equipment, funds, documentation, or specialized materials. The cache contents must have been established during a prior downtime period or at character creation; they are not generated on demand.
Limit: One Grey Space resource per Long Rest. Using these resources creates no logged record.
Off-Grid Stage 3: The Void
Type: Faction Authority Replacement | Stage 3 | Free Action | Self | Full Rest
The character has developed the capability to disappear completely, not just from digital records, but from active awareness. For a scene, they become genuinely untrackable by any org-level surveillance mechanism.
Once per Full Rest, declare entry into The Void at the start of a scene. For the duration of that scene:
- All org surveillance systems (NTC Network Presence, HIA signals monitoring, LGT contract-tracking, BVHI infrastructure sensors, NVS market monitoring) return clean results for the character's location and activity, not "unknown" but "nothing to report."
- Any org-authorized roll to locate, identify, or track the character automatically fails for the scene, regardless of dice result. This is absolute within the scene's timeframe.
- Physical observation by org personnel still functions, The Void defeats surveillance systems, not eyes. A Linden Guard who is directly looking at the character still sees them.
- The character may act normally within the scene. Their actions have effects. Those effects may later be attributed to them through investigation, but in the moment, the surveillance record is clean.
Exiting The Void: The character may exit early as a Free Action. The scene's clean record remains from entry through exit, the gap is logged as a system anomaly, not as the character's activity.
Limit and cost: Once per Full Rest. After using The Void, the character's Data Shadow (Stage 1) is stressed, their pattern of active absence created a detectable signature. For the next 24 hours, org rolls to identify them through non-digital means gain +1D, as personnel who noticed the surveillance gap have been alerted to look.