The six callings

The inn called The Last Lamp at night, full of delvers of every people and calling: an Ashborn sellsword arm-wrestling a huge Cragborn, a Tinkerling arcanist reading by candlelight, a Stonekin lampwarden with a lantern, a Burrowfolk delver under a table, a Sylvan wayfinder with a map, a tusked Marrowkin oathknight, and a human barkeep; a long wall behind them painted with the names of the fallen.

The Free Companies: two crossed swords below a lamp, on a battered round shield.

The Collegium of Sparks: an open book with a single spark rising from its pages, inside a ring of stars.

The lamp sigil: an oil lamp with a single flame inside a ring, rays around it.

The Quiet Hand: an open hand with a closed eye in the palm, drawn faintly, as if half erased.

The Wardens of Roads: a compass rose whose north point is a flame, over a winding road.

The Oath of the Unbroken Flame: an upright sword whose blade is a tall flame, inside the lamp-sigil ring.

Draft. The game's six classes are "callings", and each has an order, guild or tradition behind it in Lanternhollow. The ten titles each calling has in the game are the ranks of that order.

Sellsword: the Free Companies

An Ashborn sellsword of the Free Companies (ember-coloured glowing eyes, dark skin with faint orange cracks of light), a broad-shouldered woman with a scarred jaw and a notched long sword over her shoulder, leaning on the bar of a rowdy inn called The Last Lamp; behind her a long wall painted with the names of fallen delvers.

Order: the Free Companies of the Hollow, a loose brotherhood of sellswords licensed to delve since the Delving Charter (640 YH). Their hall is a rowdy inn by the Hollow Gate called The Last Lamp.

Sellswords fight for pay and fight better than anyone (the most hit points and the surest blows; no magic at all). Most are soldiers out of work from the Tarrow towns. The companies keep a roll of the fallen painted on the inn's long wall, and a sellsword's rank is counted in names they have outlived.

Ranks: Recruit, Blade, Veteran, Swordhand, Champion, Warden, Hero, Warlord, Lord of Blades, Unbroken. The last, Unbroken, belongs by custom to the one sellsword who comes back up from the Pit of the Gloam.

Arcanist: the Collegium of Sparks

A young Tinkerling Arcanist of the Collegium of Sparks (small, quick-handed, magnifying spectacles pushed up on the forehead), in ink-stained robes too long for them, a battered book open in one hand and a crackling spark of cold starlight jumping from the other, in a crooked library of unused rooms.

Order: the Collegium of Sparks, founded in Aurenhold around 1700 BH and now a narrow, crooked house in Lanternhollow full of rooms no one uses. It teaches arcane magic, the shaping of starlight (see Cosmology).

Arcanists are frail and learn the most spells (the whole arcane realm by level 40), starting with Spark, the first lesson in the Book of First Sparks. The Collegium is proud, argumentative and badly funded. Many of its "runaway apprentices" end up in the Ring of Stone as monsters, and its expelled masters (Grimsby Coldhand, Skarth) are its great shame.

Ranks: Novice, Scribe, Spark-wright, Conjurer, Spellbinder, Thaumaturge, Magister, Arch-scholar, Stormcaller, Archmage.

Lampwarden: the Order of the Lamp

A Stonekin Lampwarden of the Order of the Lamp (broad, square-jawed, braided beard bound in iron rings) in simple cream robes with the lamp sigil, a brass lantern held high casting a warm halo, a mace at the belt, stepping down a dark stair while the shadows recoil from the light.

Order: the Order of the Lamp, founded by Caedra around 2560 BH. It built the Lampway, crowned the Lamp Kings, and has shrunk since the Fall to a single temple in Lanternhollow under Sister Ilvane, which keeps the Eternal Lamp (lit from Caedra's own lantern, they say).

Lampwardens are the Order's delving keepers. They carry the carried flame (holy magic), their light reaches one step further than anyone's (the light bonus), and they learn every prayer, starting with Mend. Their duty is the old one: go down, relight what has gone out, and keep the dark down. The Lamp Psalter is the Order's oldest prayer book; the Rites of the Unbroken Flame were written by Caedra herself, the Order says.

Ranks: Acolyte, Lamp-bearer, Keeper, Watcher, Warden, Beacon, High Keeper, Lightward, Dawnbringer, Lamp of the Deep. The last has been held by only one person: Caedra.

Delver: the Quiet Hand

A Burrowfolk Delver of the Quiet Hand (small, bare-footed, bright-eyed and nimble) in grey, half in shadow, kneeling at a locked chest with a roll of lockpicks, a sleeping monster's huge clawed foot just visible at the edge of the frame.

Order: no one admits to belonging to the Quiet Hand, which is how you know it exists. The Delvers were the original treasure-seekers of the Delving Charter and have always been half-thieves: they go down quietly, take what is valuable and leave what is dangerous asleep.

Delvers let monsters sleep longer, strike a sleeping one twice as hard (the ambush), and pick up a little arcane magic later, from the Collegium's back door. The Mantle of Quiet Steps is their legend (see Magic & artifacts).

Ranks: Footpad, Cutpurse, Sneak, Prowler, Shadow, Infiltrator, Vaultbreaker, Nightblade, Master Delver, Unseen. "Vaultbreaker" is a nod to Ironjaw's vault, which every Delver dreams of breaking.

Wayfinder: the Wardens of Roads

A Sylvan Wayfinder of the Wardens of Roads (tall and slender, keen grey eyes, long braided hair with leaves woven in) with a sling and a quiver of darts, frowning at a hand-drawn map that is visibly wrong, at a fork in a mossy cavern with three tunnels.

Order: the Wardens of Roads, the old kingdom's road-keepers and messengers, who mapped the lamplighters' roads through the rings. Today they are scouts and guides who chart each new shape of the Lampway and sell the maps (which are useless the next time, because the rings shift, and Wayfinders know it, and sell them anyway).

Wayfinders are the best shots (they start with a sling, iron shot and throwing darts) and learn some arcane magic later, and value most the spells that find the way, such as Phase Step and Chart the Depths. Many are Sylvan or Burrowfolk.

Ranks: Trailhand, Scout, Tracker, Pathfinder, Outrider, Hunter, Far-strider, Deepranger, Wayfinder, Warden of Roads.

Oathknight: the Oath of the Unbroken Flame

A Marrowkin Oathknight (small tusks, heavy brow, thick bones, calm eyes) in worn plate with the lamp sigil, kneeling to swear on a sword before the Eternal Lamp in a small stone temple.

Order: the Knights of the Oath, holy warriors who swore, after the Fall, the oath that King Ysmer broke: to keep the dark down at any cost to themselves. They are a small, stern order with a chapter house beside the temple. Many are descendants of the Marrow Guard, which is why so many Marrowkin are Oathknights.

Oathknights fight nearly as well as a Sellsword and learn prayers more slowly (part-time holy casters). Their dream is to win back the Crown of Aurenhold from Duke Ashvane and end the debt the kingdom fell into.

Ranks: Squire, Sworn, Shieldbearer, Knight, Oathkeeper, Knight-Captain, Lord Protector, Banneret, Paragon, Oathbound.