Chapter 09 · WorkshopsFM 93-07

Workshops

Six skills, one hundred twenty-nine recipes, and two extra vices the county already knew about. Every input is something you can already find in a Greene County house.

A cluttered 1993 basement workshop with a CRT computer, chemistry glass, brass casings and a guitar. — Plate VII. — One room, four disciplines. The guitar is not decoration.

// FROM THE FILES — TRADES

Net Control still bothers to print six workshops because a town that cannot make a disk, a nail, a dressing, a round, a deal, or a song is a camp waiting to be a raid report. The paper is in the same houses it always was. The jobs are the ones people had in June.

Each workshop has its own ladder from 0 to 10, its own magazines, and its own bad habits. Profession twins cannot be stacked with the purchasable trait of the same name — you already are that person.

Computers

Build and strip desktop machines. Run a renewable floppy economy. Write and copy training software. Program timers, remotes, proximity sensors. Build working arcade cabinets. RuckNet is the county’s BBS — message boards, newsgroups, games — over a modem whose speed is your skill level. Walk it as a Sysop or a PC Repair Technician.

Computer Whiz +4Hobbyist +2Two-Finger Typist −1Technophobe −2

Technophobe locks you out of training software entirely. Do not take it as a joke. Two-Finger Typist is half a Technophobe: slower, still able to learn.

Salvage

Break junk down into what it is actually made of. Dead televisions, appliances, scrap plastic, waste paper. Deeper teardowns recover timing circuits, camera optics, instrument pickups — the parts Computers and Performance are hungry for. There is no magazine gate; skill required is the only lock. Resourceful is the live bonus-component roll. Walk it as an E-Waste Recycler or a Scrapper.

ResourcefulDumpster Diver

Chemistry

Household junk, crops, and hazardous liquids become medicine, fuel and firepower. Every job carries a stability risk. Skill makes mishaps rarer. Protective gear makes them hurt less. Precision Chemistry sometimes yields a bonus batch — the Industrial Chemist start. Hazmat Protocol halves severity and is the only way to Hazardous Reclamation — the Hazmat Technician start.

Caution A bad batch is not a failed craft with a sad noise. It is a thing that happens to the person standing at the bench. Gloves, distance, and not being a Two-Finger Typist of chemistry are the job.

Gunsmithing

Spent brass, cast lead, milled powder, a press. Pipe and sheet become crude single-shot weapons. The workshop firearms — shop pistol, revolver, shotgun, carbine — are schematic-gated. Skill will not invent them. A Gunsmith walks out of creation already knowing the patterns. An Ammunition Technician keeps the settlement loud: bonus yield on cast and load, plus Reloading.

ArmorerHandloader

Commerce (the skill)

Know what things are worth. Talk people into your price. Cuts your personal vendor tax, improves hiring odds, and raises how many companions may travel with you. No recipe waits on a magazine; the skill is the market sense, not a workbench. Walk the road as a Merchant or the counter as a Shopkeeper. Haggler is the small tax cut. Silver Tongue is the large one, plus hire. Easy Mark is the opposite tax. Abrasive is the opposite hire.

Performance

Play for people who badly need to hear some. Lifts boredom, unhappiness and stress for everyone in earshot. Pays coin when you busk inside a settlement. Carries further than that, to things that do not clap. The room is the Musician; the sidewalk is the Street Performer. Musical fumbles fewer notes. Showman plays cleaner for a crowd and is paid like it. Tin Ear fumbles far more — and a bad verse carries further than a good one. Stage Fright pays less from strangers.

Operator’s note An instrument occupies both hands. The Street Performer’s Nimble boost is the intended escape hatch. Check your rear before the chorus.

Clay & pottery

Dig, form, fire. It is not a sixth custom perk with a flashy tab; it is the county’s old quiet craft, still in the files, still in the dirt. A settlement that can make a cup does not have to loot one.

Narcotics

A full chain with tolerance, dependency, withdrawal, and settlement-level cultivation law. The plants are not a flavour item. The claim flag is the law. Counties that do not want this on their dirt should read the standing orders before the first seed.

Caution — dependency Tolerance and withdrawal are kept in the books. You cannot talk yourself clean in a menu. If your settlement forbids cultivation, the dirt agrees with the flag, not with your backpack.

Trait index

Trait	Cost	Effect, in one line
Computer Whiz	+4	Terminals are faster; long sessions barely bore or tire you.
Computer Hobbyist	+2	Terminals bore and tire you somewhat less.
Two-Finger Typist	−1	Everything at a terminal takes longer.
Technophobe	−2	Much slower; training software is beyond you.
Resourceful	+	Bonus-component odds; Salvage XP.
Dumpster Diver	+	Salvage XP.
Precision Chemistry	+	Bonus batches; Chemistry XP.
Hazmat Protocol	+	Half mishap chance; hazardous reclamation; Chemistry XP.
Armorer	+	Gunsmithing XP; weapons hold up.
Handloader	+	Bonus yield on cast/load; reload speed; Gunsmithing XP.
Silver Tongue	+	Much lower personal tax; easier hires; Commerce XP.
Haggler	+	Lower personal tax; Commerce XP.
Easy Mark	−	Higher personal tax.
Abrasive	−	Harder hires.
Showman	+	Cleaner under audience; better pay; Performance XP.
Musical	+	Fewer fumbles; Performance XP.
Tin Ear	−	Many more fumbles; they carry.
Stage Fright	−	Strangers give considerably less.

Exact point values for salvage through performance sit on the trait cards at creation; the signs above are the ones that matter. Profession twins reuse these names and cannot be purchased on top.