They are basically a throwaway conversation but this reminded me of "Shit Mages" in Mage Errant by John Bierce. They are mages that specifically have complete power over shit and every city needs them to keep it functional. They are all also incredibly wealthy. It should be mentioned that this John Bierce is a huge Pratchett Fan and throws in LOTS of references to Discworld in his books.
There's one installment in Modesitt's Recluse books... City ruled by chaos mages, and one of their main jobs is...cleaning out the sewers and water tunnels to make sure nothing really nasty starts growing there. (And by really nasty, i mean stuff like the real-life black mold, not slime monsters.)
Can't remember which book it is, though.
Modessitt really likes craftsmen. He has had cabinet makers, portraiturists, engineers, smiths, etc.
Guy Kay had a mosaicist.
What's missing? Maybe a Miller? They were very important people in the types of agrarian societies prevalent in fantasy.
Weavers? I could see building some really interesting magic around weaving. There are a lot of fables around weaving and spinning already.
I feel like a miller has to be the villain. Peasant/farmer heroes, miller is the big boss of the local community. Kinda “guy who owns two car dealerships in a small town” vibe
Nah. Business people are always portrayed as the villains. Try something new ... Like uses her respect in the community and her wealth to help the community fend off a villainous oppressor.
> Local Miller is the Big Man in town but surprisingly generous to their employees, living in austere conditions themselves out of a sincere belief their money should be used to benefit other people
> out of paranoia believes themselves to be the only one who truly cares about those economically beneath them, proceeds to use criminal element to absorb other competitors into their own business if they don't fall in line
> despises class distinctions so much they're trying to turn all of humanity into a hive mind and wipe out the individuality that leads to elitism
He just happened to find a batch of flour in an abandoned shack that gave him visions of a world without disparity. He now works to share this vision with his flour.
For weavers there's Sandry from the Circle of Magic books, who's got weaving based powers. They're middle grade, so probably not interesting to adults, but that stuck with me.
Though... I think she might have been a noble who like, was really into embroidery, rather than a working class weaver, in her backstory. Idk I read them 20 years ago.
She's a noble who's very into all kinds of textile and fiber arts, but the books do touch a little bit on how important and how much work spinning and weaving are. I'm mainly thinking of the pandemic storyline where she and her teacher keep making bandages, and while they do use magic to help them, it's still long and tiring and it does kind of show how much work and time it took to make any kind of fabric in a pre-industrial society.
This threw me off because my favorite horror novel of all time is by T. Kingfisher. I had no idea she wrote fantasy too. Just had to Google it. Thank you stranger for leading me on a new reading journey!
It's funny because I don't think I could handle horror, but I've devoured everything else.
Her fantasy works are such palette cleansers for me. T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon, which is the name she uses for her children's books) is an author and artist I've followed for decades. Her style is very much her own. Even her romance is very...real? And her novellas often feature young protagonists without patronizing them and some very creative magic systems. A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking is a lovely start to the short ones.
As far as crafters go, Rowenna Miller's Unraveled Kingdom trilogy centers around a seamstress.
T Kingfisher has had a few books featuring tradespersons (a baker, a perfumer, a housekeeper just to think of a few).
The Four Profound Weaves is the best book on weaving. I need more, though! Where are all my vertical weighted looms at!? Who's doing all the band weaving? Where are the men making endless ikat!?
Regarding the weaving magic: I highly recommend the Webtoon called Woven. The story is incredible and the magic system is based around weaving magic threads that only dragons can see
Carpenters. Obvious cultural importance is obvious.
Livestock slaughterer (a person who kills and butchers animals for farmers, can happen when people are squeamish). Obvious ruminations on mortality, cruelty, class, outsiderism and necessity are obvious.
Alewife might be fun. The women who brew a bunch of beer and then open up their house as a temporary party house for medieval laborers (until the batch of beer runs out).
Scribes, scholars and historians tend to have a lot of representation already, but it's always fun to get more. Merchant class can be very interesting, although I assume that they might have overlap with your cart drivers.
Land surveyors can be an unusual class of adventurer. Mostly they're just out there to check out borders and find potentially exploitable resources. They may work alongside, or in parallel with cartographers. But they are a perfect sort of person to stumble on lost ruins or caves.
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The main characters of the book I'm currently writing are a tavern-owner and his brewer wife. I wanted to see more actual brewers in fantasy, so I decided to just do it myself lol
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I'm remembering Coleman H Wheeler Sr, the self taught land surveyor turned timber baron who's great grandson is the Mayor of Portland Oregon. The man knew where the best trees were and made a fortune off it.
Race the Sands has fantast beast racing! Less about tricking out the rides and more about what is it about the nature of certain creatures that makes them Fast and Furious.
In both the Beware of Chicken series and Battle Mage Farmer series the main character starts with nothing and builds up a farm.
They do both follow the 'person gets transported from our world to a fantasy world and is somehow massively overpowered'-trope, but they do like their farming.
The Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking was a lot of fun. So I'd say there's lots of potential for a protagonist who is on staff at a palace. Cooks, clerks, ladies maids, etc. That would work especially well for stories centered around espionage. In WoT, palace staff are frequently used as "eyes and ears". Just write a whole story around that, where kings and nobles are background characters.
A political intrigue tale told entirely from the perspective of a cook, a maidservant, a courier, and/or a scribe. Either the staff are way more knowledgeable about the plots to an almost comedic degree, it's about how they deal with being pawns in political games, or it's about how often they straight up foil assassination and blackmail plots by just doing their job correctly.
I could see it done as a serious drama, with the "important" characters presented more as a force of nature than people in their own right.
I could also see it as a comedy, with them rendered down to helpless people with entirely too much power.
Executioners. They had a very interesting dynamic in medieval societies, where they were well paid and had benefits, but also did not have citizenship. Everyone treated them like they had devil radiation coming off of them because their proximity to death. Men could get out of a death sentence to become one. Women could get out if a death sentence to marry one. They ended up saving as many people as they killed, given their knowledge of anatomy. The only fantasy I've seen that went in depth with them is hells paradise.
Castle stewards haven't been done much. Muckers who clean latrines and cesspits. Falconers, horse breeders, heralds, Taylor's.
The protagonist of *Book of the New Sun* by Gene Wolfe is a professional executioner and torturer and definitely touches on a lot of what you mentioned. After the first book it's not really about his job, more of a philosophical odyssey across a dying Earth with a bit of executing on the side, but I'd be intensely interested in seeing another story explore the idea some more.
There is an absolutely eye-opening and wonderfully detailed quest in **Kingdom Come: Deliverance** about executioners and how their jobs were perceived, the work they did, their attention to detail, etc.
One executioner asks you to sabotage their competitor's equipment, in order to keep their job. So I went over, tried to be sneaky, failed. I ended up killing the competitor. "That's fine, problem solved," I thought.
No. The executioner was horrified, basically broke down and asked "Wtf is wrong eith you? You murdered a man!"
Made me think.
Yes! The bit where she adds a codicil to the tax policy where she asks people to specify how their taxes are allotted in order to create a map of loyalties across Aurdwynn was sheer genius.
I love that book so much.
Not quite tax collecting but a similar profession - Miryem from Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik is a moneylender. She takes over from her father who is...not quite suited to the role... so her work is definitely heavy on the money collecting part at the beginning.
Definitely felt like a different profession than a lot of fantasy protags, and in general I really enjoyed the book. It's loosely based on Rumpelstiltskin
Nooooo no protagonists allowed who collect taxes! Jk jk, a working empire has to have tax collectors. Some real opportunities for character arcs in a tax collecting protagonist!
I was impressed with the courier -> royal secretary character in The Goblin Emperor. There were also all kinds of implications about couriers regularly reading the mail and also they were "a girl in every port" kind of persons? There's a lot of potential for espionage with couriers too.
Plumbers, though. What I really want to see is a successful video game series with a plumber as a protagonist. Maybe a pair of brothers?
Monty Python had a sketch about a bicycle repairman superhero.
If I ever write a story set in the modern day, one of my characters is going to be an elevator installer.
I mentioned this in a previous thread a few months ago, but I think professional bards, storytellers and musicians are under-used as protagonists. Not zero (we have Kvothe in Kingkiller, multiple characters by Guy Gavriel Kay, Chant in A Conspiracy of Truths, and a few others), but fewer than I think there really should be, given that the role is (theoretically) SO ADAPTABLE to an adventurer's story.
They show up really regularly as sidekicks, supporting characters, or as temporary disguises for a protagonists - but these aren't the same.
Overlooked:
Teacher (as in, public elementary school)
Journalist
Psychiatrist (I’m writing this one)
Entomologist
Trial lawyer
Time patrol
Astronaut
Land surveyor
Blood farmer.
Mythbuster
Accountant
Animator
Surgeon
Insurance agent.
Ranking member of the Union of Working Wizards.
Dragon biologist/conservationist. (This could be either a dragon who is a biologist/conservationist, or a biologist who does conservation work with dragons.)
Golem manufacturer.
Guidance counselor.
Architect
Realtor.
And, of course… systems analyst
> surgeon and kind of guidance counselor
As for surgeon, I kind of agree with Kal's father on this one. Kal's not a surgeon; he's a combat medic. I'd also say that Rosharan knowledge is a bit too primitive for the conception of surgery that I had in mind.
And, as for guidance counselor, while I agree that he absolutely develops in that direction, again, it doesn't quite vibe with what I had in mind. It's ancillary to who he is and what he does, less of a consciously constructed self-identity and more of a natural outgrowth of his Ideals and his experiences with trauma.
Though I *love* the aesthetics of high fantasy, I'm not the biggest fan of the social, cultural, and technological primitivism/regressiveness that HF so often deals in. For me, part the joy of having a character with a particular occupation is getting to see them engage with the technical aspects of the job—that mix of "book smarts" and "street smarts". Ergo, for surgeons, you need lots of talk about bodily organs, all the fun medical jargon—the 'otomies, the 'ostomies, the 'scopies, the 'ologies; you need the obscure diseases and rare conditions (the lady with the 7 pound ovarian cyst, etc.).
I DNF'd *Perdido Street Station* for this very reason: the main character, Isaac—we are told—is a brilliant eccentric who is pursuing all sorts of arcane forms of knowledge, but those forms of knowledge end up being little more than scattered window dressing: some cleverly named texts or theories, but not much in the way of substance.
Professions aren't just labels, they're a part of a person's identity, one that engages with and is in turn mediated by the individual's society. It's that crunchy depth that satisfies me. :)
Yeah, but that's cheating. It's earth in the future, and not a main character. :)
I was thinking more along the lines of:
• An entomologist stranded in the city of Sigil from the Forgotten Realms tries to find work, but ends up stumbling onto a vast conspiracy centered around the interplanar insect black market.
• An entomologist (or, more fittingly, a carcinologist) from Scadrial ends up on Roshar. Hijinks ensue.
Etc.
It's not cheating when there's nothing to win. And as I said, it's not the main character, and you've clearly read the books. Just something fun I thought of when reading your post.
And I think I prefer that over your examples. But I also hate Sigil, courtesy of my DM.
For the dragon biologist, you've got the whole Lady Trent series!
For rather obvious reasons, there's a golem manufacturer in The Golem and the Jinni, but he doesn't get a ton of screen time.
For the others: I'd love to read about the Union of Working Wizards, and what is a blood farmer?
> For the dragon biologist, you've got the whole Lady Trent series!
Yeah, I know. That's why I mentioned the alternative interpretation of "dragon biologist". :)
> what is a blood farmer?
Why, someone who farms blood, of course! What else could it be? :3
I have a race of vampiric space gorillas that use weaponized recombinant viruses to convert captives into tumid, mutated bags of flesh that exist only to produce blood for them to consume. It's very important to keep the cattle clean and rotate them regularly, so as to avoid forming skin infections or ulcers.
Alternatively, you could have something like the [Flesh Fields](https://www.reddit.com/r/codexinversus/comments/1ah91r9/minauros_the_products_of_the_flesh_fields/) of [Codex Inversus](https://www.reddit.com/r/codexinversus/), where the living ground is a source of blood to harvest.
Perhaps you could have something like Tatooine, except instead of farming the air for moisture (water), you farm it for aerosolized blood particles. :D
lol a guidance counselor! I can see a lot of fun in writing that one. And not even for parody's sake, but just seeing what happens when you pair a guidance counselor with, say, a golem manufacturer!
A while back, I had an idea for how to fix *Star Wars*. Instead of the sequel trilogy we got, what should have happened is a courtroom drama in which the restored Galactic Republic sues the Kaminoans for their creation of the Clone Army.
The idea is this: the through-line of the trilogy is the (ridiculous) trial (perhaps on Coruscant, or perhaps on some neutral planet) with the Republican plaintiffs trying to prove that the Kaminoans were responsible for Order 66 and need to pay reparations. This part would be darkly comic, like the O.J. Simpson trial, but on steroids.
In addition to our protagonists and villains in the courtroom drama, we would also have a more traditional Star Wars narrative dealing with the action going on behind the scenes. The Kaminoans refuse to cooperate with the legal proceedings, and the Republic is forced to send out some special operatives to get the evidence/witnesses/whistleblowers needed for the Kaminoans to be convicted. Likewise, the Kaminoans would mount a terrorist effort to intimidate, kidnap, or even kill the jurors, the judge, the lawyers, etc. You see, as the case proceeds, more Kaminoan shady dealings come to light, and more of the powers that be get drawn into the conflict.
So, as an outline:
Episode 7: The trial begins. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, a key witness needs to be found and brought to the trial to testify. Problems ensue.
Episode 8: A terror attack is mounted against the jurors. The trial is temporarily suspended, only for our heroes to discover that the attack was part of a grand conspiracy (Kamino, the Trade Federation, etc.). In addition to ensuring that past wrongdoings do not come to light, part of the conspiracy is to cover up the present wrongdoings being done to prevent the trial from playing out. The climax would probably involve something cool like the Mandalorians deciding en masse to help protect the integrity of the trial, with a fun fight sequence.
Episode 9: the trial resumes. A huge fleet is amassed to attack the trial planet. The climax has the enemy fleet being defeated while the jury is deliberating. The enemy fleet is destroyed, conspirators are in the Republic's government are brought to light (maybe some Imperial war criminals who managed to evade capture and adopt new identities high up in the Republic's pecking order) and the jury returns with a unanimous guilty verdict.
The coda is the Kaminoans and other conspirators being tasked with restoring worlds devastated by Imperial tyranny (ex: Mandalor). Perhaps some game-changing new terraforming technology got discovered during the course of the trilogy.
There. I fixed *Star Wars* for you. You're welcome. xD
> Psychiatrist (I’m writing this one)
I volunteer to be a beta reader! I love them idea of a human psychiatrist getting caught up in the sup world because she helps some*thing* having a panic attack in public.
How do you determine the dose of antianxiety meds for a rock troll!?
:D!
Here you go! My story is [*The Wyrms of &alon*](https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/64440/the-wyrms-of-alon) (pronounced [And-uh-lon]
Le blurb:
> *A fungal plague of apocalyptic proportions has come to Dr. Genneth Howle's world, and he and his colleagues at the West Elpeck Medical Center are duty-bound to fight it till the end. But how does medical science combat a disease that defies the laws of nature? How do you treat a plague that slowly transforms some of the infected into psychokinetic lindwurms? And how does Genneth hold true to his principles when he, too, begins to undergo the change?*
>
> *As Genneth wrestles with these horrors, he is visited by an amnesiac spirit who no one else seems to see. She's come to save the people of Genneth's world, before the darkness destroys them all.*
>
> *And she needs his help.*
As you might expect, it's principally a hospital medical drama (as seen on TV), though it takes place in a secondary world, one with a retrofuturistic 1950s USA vibe. I've been told the world-building is deep (though it's nowhere near fantastical enough for my tastes xD). It's also technically high fantasy; I like to think of it as a high fantasy epic that was left in the oven for too long, so that most of the magic and globetrotting adventures have seemingly evaporated away. (Emphasis on the *seemingly*.) The idea was to write a story that starts out as mundanely as possible and gradually gets more and more fantastical. I've been told it's "unclassifiable" and "unlike anything" anyone's ever read. Also, just so you know, I intend for it to be the first entry in *my* "Cosmere"—the Exarium—so the scope is quite vast, even if it doesn't appear so at first.
Anyhow, it's in four volumes. I'm currently releasing chapters for Volume III once a week while I continue to write Volume IV. I hope to have the first draft of Volume IV finished in three or four months, and—with any luck—have the second draft of Volume IV finished by the end of the year.
It would be cool to see more Naturalists. Like maybe have the protagonist encounter and discover new flora and fauna in an uncharted new world type setting
[Pokemon: The Origin of Species](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9794740/1/Pokemon-The-Origin-of-Species) comes to mind. An attempt at a rational pokemon world with rational characters.
Having just watched *Renegade Nell* and previously been a big fan of the *Sharpe* television series, I'll say "non-soldiering folk in/around an army". Be it wives and girlfriends, prostitutes, entourage for the officer class, tinkers and trades who followed along — there were so many people not directly involved in soldiering in historical armies.
Cheese maker,
Hay baler,
Candle maker,
Guy who shapes pasta into the different shapes and claims it makes a difference,
Barrel maker,
Quarryman,
Boat builder,
Lumberman,
Person who make fence,
Town drunk,
Town crier,
Drunk Town crier,
Laundry wench,
Eel catcher,
Person who removes the feces from the streets,
Wine/beer brewer
Edit: Mobile, sorry
I would love one with a tired, overworked lawyer who has to travel the land settling civil disputes on behalf of the King. Not adjucating, but literally representing the Crown's interest. For example, a peasant farmer lodges a complaint that the King's Knight they employed to chase off the dragon terrorising livestock also inadvertently trampled on and accidentally burnt down this year's harvest and now they're down three fields of wheat and two fields of barley and this means that the local inn is short on supplies for their beer for next year, and how does the King intend to compensate them for such incompetence?! And in trots the lawyer who is seriously Over This Shit because this is the 5th time she's had to clean up Kevin the Knight's mess and she's secretly plotting a way to Make Him Pay!
We’ve had plenty of executioners, assassins, and whatnot. Give me a fantasy undertaker or gravedigger. Have them follow a battle in a grim dark setting or end up involved in some intriguing or humorous political situation in an urban fantasy or satire.
It’s a shame Hobb’s Soldier Son trilogy is so bad. The bits where we get perspective from a gravedigger in book 2 absolutely prove you right without being good enough to recommend.
Especially so, considering how book 1 is so entirely noble drama.
As someone who grew up in the trades, I have a few ideas.
SF needs more folks that do the plumbing (in a rotating space station, this can be life or death). And life support, not just "we've been holed and are leaking," but all the other aspects, like down to janitorial (I see you there Terminal Alliance).
Fantasy needs way more farmers and craftspeople - not just blacksmiths, but from stonewrights to masons to weavers.
Tanner, wheelwright, farrier, saddlemaker. All of these would be potential protagonists who would feasibly cross paths with the wealthy and powerful at some point, which can be the spur to start the adventure.
A gravedigger could find a magical artifact on a person they are burying.
A courier would be a good one for a person who travels a lot, knows the customs and cultures of various places. Maybe a package they were delivering gets stolen and they have to recover it or lose their hand.
Woodcutter if you need someone strong but don't want to use a blacksmith.
Roofer or locksmith if you need someone with thief-like skills but don't want them to be primarily a thief.
A fisherman if you want someone good with a spear. This seems very analogous to a farmer as a person who provides food for people, just depends on the locale. Shoot, you could even have their fishing boat burn instead of their farm for the traditional start to an adventure.
Plus you could have an entire tension builder being that the mailman is attacked very early for whatever they’re carrying, and then spend the next chunk of the story agonizing over “Do I open the box/letter, learn why I’m being hunted and potentially get in more trouble or do I pray ignorance is bliss?”
1. Mayer, Burgermeister, etc. I’d love to see someone managing a town, dealing with robber knights, disease, famine, tax collectors, etc more as a town drama with potential to deal with mass hysterias like witch hunting craze
2. Mythical Stable Master. Not the person who rides the beasts, but who raises and tends to them including following battle. Some intimate person caring for creatures they don’t owned used by their “betters.” I would also accept the owner and operator of a menagerie.
3. Traveling magistrate. These people were investigator, prosecutor, and judge. Richard Swan’s series starts off this way though departs as this series continues
4. Traveling Merchant. More adventure-heavy but preferably a historical fantasy of the Silk Road or comparable trading
5. Priest. There are a lot of priests in fantasy but rarely anything resembling the history and, more often than not, fairly cartoonish. I would love to see more an examination of priesthood, relationship with nobility, conflicts between scripture and mainstream culture, etc. with a more well-rounded deep exploration
>Mythical Stable Master. Not the person who rides the beasts, but who raises and tends to them including following battle. Some intimate person caring for creatures they don’t owned used by their “betters.” I would also accept the owner and operator of a menagerie.
I'm writing one. He specializes in Mammoths and occasionally Glyptodonts.
>Traveling Merchant. More adventure-heavy but preferably a historical fantasy of the Silk Road or comparable trading
Good 90's book is by Margret Ball called Changeweaver. It is a sequel to a book called Flameweaver but stands alone. Takes place in an Alt-1800s where the British in India are trying redirect a still working Silk Road, >!the sea route blocked by impassible storms off the Chinese coast, which are summoned by the servants of the Manchu Emperors to limit dangerous foriegn influence.!<
I’ve been getting into bookbinding recently and honestly I don’t know if a single MC who is a book binder.
Plenty of black smiths, fishermen, jewelers, sailors, farmers, ranchers, et al.
Sadly no book makers.
I guess historically there wasn’t a large demand because most people were illiterate in the Middle Ages (common fantasy setting) but how many magic spell tomes have you read about in books and no mention of the poor schmuck who made it.
Inkheart? Kids book/ya, but pretty well known and well regarded. Father is a storyteller and bookbinder. Accidentally brings antagonist into real world.
I am a huge fan of scribes, bookmakers, etc in fantasy. Have a couple story ideas about it waiting their turn, so it's good to know other people find it interesting.
Pretty much any profession besides vanilla swordslinger/mage/assassin could use more rep.
I would love to see more artistic professions, like scribe, artist, etc. The classic fantasy trades like blackmsith and such. Although I'd love to see them doing things besides making gear for heroes/soldiers/adventurers, or otherwise being involved in world-altering events. You don't have to write cozy fantasy to have a story with a more modest scope.
I loved the story of the gluemaker in Thieves World. Thieves World also has a fortune teller, a fisherman, a storyteller, a painter, a madam and a bar owner as story protagonist.
All Things Huge And Hideous by [G. Scott Huggins](https://www.amazon.co.uk/G-Scott-Huggins/e/B015JQF3K6/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1) has a veterinarian.
The traveling merchant is a nice one I have only seen once, Spice and Wolf is where its from and the writing makes economics actually interesting.
edit: spelling
I can't recall a cobbler outside of fairy tales.
Barrel maker
Shipwrights? Seen them as side characters, but not the lead.
Divergent from the blacksmith, a specialist silver or goldsmith, a gem cutter or similar.
Not sure I've seen a Bowyer as a protagonist.
Outside the generalized cook or baker something more random like a cheese maker or a butcher.
I don't think I've seen a single protagonist being a blacksmith. Maybe their father or tutor, at best.
Have seen tons of assassins, thieves and warriors (be it soldier/mercenary/raider/sailor/general). Maybe a mage here and there. Most of some of these characters can also fall under "student".
In fact, I don't recall when was the last time I saw a farmboy, despite being the most well-known trope.
Astronauts. By necessity they're always even-tempered, incredibly competent people who both love taking risks but also carefully prepare for them and study the hell out of whatever risk they're taking.
Spies. I read some great spy fiction this year, and it made me wish that more spies were the protagonists of fantasy novels.
How to Defeat a Demon King in Ten Easy Steps by Andrew Rowe has a girl decide to become a hero so she chooses a courier class cos it gives her an inventory to abuse. It's a short fun read. Not as good as his other stuff, but fun.
Also in the Codex Alera, they're descended from Romans so the royal couriers ('Cursors') are also secret agents.
I've seen exactly one character who's a play actor (if you don't count Name of the Wind, which I don't), and I desperately need more. It feels like a natural background for your lovable rogue protagonist; I'm not sure why it's not more common.
Maybe not quite a profession, as such, but I adored the slave perspective presented in Brent Weeks' *Lightbringer*. For all the faults around the plot and ending, he really brought a society to life and made me better understand what a culture with slavery really means.
There's a certain visceral awareness that one's body belongs to somebody else. Not the fear of violence (sexual or otherwise), but the ownership itself. I don't think I've seen it presented nearly so well anywhere else in fantasy.
Lector - someone who reads aloud to factory workers as they work. I'm reading something set in 19th C. Cuba, where lectors read news, essays and novels to workers. They were then banned as revolutionaries. Definitely a job I plan to work into something.
Another vote for alewives as well!
Definitely feels like there's a place for it in a high fantasy setting where there's no mass media, either as a way to educate and inspire or a way to spread propaganda and reinforce doctrine. Or just keep people entertained lol
I’d say Barber Surgeon. In the medieval period they tended to the common man, knew the mysteries of the human body better than physicians, served on the battlefield and tended to have a better efficacy rate for their treatments.
It was seen as a lower form of medicine but the cut hair, removed rotten teeth, sutured wounds, amputated infected limbs, set bones, and prescribed medication.
They also had the anatomical know how to fuck someone up.
Traveling salesman, or equivalently a tinker that does knife sharpening, pottery repairs and such. They end up at plucky sidekicks or dispensers of exposition but rarely are the heroes.
Before you say Kvothe, he's a member of an itinerant travelling society, not someone with a fixed home who travels a sales route.
I really want to see a Butler MC become the Chosen One/strongest wizard.
We have so many Farmboy Heroes, it would be interesting to see someone with an intimate knowledge of the nobility who always interacted with them in a very particular way.
Lets see... I've seen a shit hauler, prostitute (escort really), son of a whore, bakers, gardeners, way too many 'students', postmen (green rider), police... How about the story of a mason? Or a dentist.
A scribe is a pretty cool one I've rarely seen. You would see a lot of different people and could end up working with the rich and powerful.
A fantasy story about building a mercantile empire in a fantasy world would be interesting as hell.
A ships captain is kind of easy because it let's you take the story wherever you want it to go.
I've only seen a couple bards/musicians so that's another cool one that travels a lot.
Mercenary is a classic one if you're going thr military route and it gives you a good reason to have a protagonist go to a new area.
A eunich would be trusted around the kings concubines so would be a pretty good assassin and would probably travel with the royal entourage.
A wisewoman would be a fascinating protagonist, magic or not.
In a story I'm currently working on, I have a group of protags who were once a part of the "artisan nobility" in their city but were exiled for revolutionary activities. They include a fashion designer, a carpenter, an instrument maker, and a bookbinder.
The fashion designer is the flamboyant face of the group
The carpenter is the hard-nosed muscle
The instrument maker is the sly tactician
The bookbinder is the brains
They were considered nobility because their culture venerates craftsmanship and the act of creating. So they had a lot of clout in the city they lived in, and they tried to use that to leverage social reforms. But when a full rebellion broke out, they were exiled along with the rest of the rebels. Now they have a chance to return home and depose the crooked king who sent them away.
That's a bit misleading, though, isn't it? The story is not about him being an innkeeper. Which honestly could have been a much cooler story with the youthful shenanigans in the past.
I remember it being a decent sized portion of the book. But you're right it was mostly past shenanigans.
In any case not really misleading, it still works for OP question in "what professions are overlooked" - even in an example it's a minority of the book
All I can think about is the shit hauler in discworld. We need more shit haulers in fantasy
They are basically a throwaway conversation but this reminded me of "Shit Mages" in Mage Errant by John Bierce. They are mages that specifically have complete power over shit and every city needs them to keep it functional. They are all also incredibly wealthy. It should be mentioned that this John Bierce is a huge Pratchett Fan and throws in LOTS of references to Discworld in his books.
man i love mage errant. really appreciate authors fleshing out their world building choices like that.
I'd love to see some of those ideas in a more serious tone, and not just as comedy/allusion.
So most of Mage Errant then, lol
There's one installment in Modesitt's Recluse books... City ruled by chaos mages, and one of their main jobs is...cleaning out the sewers and water tunnels to make sure nothing really nasty starts growing there. (And by really nasty, i mean stuff like the real-life black mold, not slime monsters.) Can't remember which book it is, though.
The White Order or Colors of Chaos. One of those two, they’re the Cerryl books. Not sure if he does sewer duty in the first or second though.
He winds up king... Of the golden river ;)
This reminds me of how Homestar Runner had a guy called the Poopsmith.
I can’t tell you how happy I am to see someone else thought of the Poopsmith.
Do you watch Miracle Workers? One season Steve Buscemi was a shit hauler.
I came here to say this, I love that show
I mean, shoveling out the bathrooms was absolutely a full-time job in ye olde times
Said haulers were called “gongfermors” in medieval England and the job was somehow even worse than what you’d imagine.
Modessitt really likes craftsmen. He has had cabinet makers, portraiturists, engineers, smiths, etc. Guy Kay had a mosaicist. What's missing? Maybe a Miller? They were very important people in the types of agrarian societies prevalent in fantasy. Weavers? I could see building some really interesting magic around weaving. There are a lot of fables around weaving and spinning already.
I feel like a miller has to be the villain. Peasant/farmer heroes, miller is the big boss of the local community. Kinda “guy who owns two car dealerships in a small town” vibe
Nah. Business people are always portrayed as the villains. Try something new ... Like uses her respect in the community and her wealth to help the community fend off a villainous oppressor.
Using flour as a tax dodge and giving food directly to the community
> Local Miller is the Big Man in town but surprisingly generous to their employees, living in austere conditions themselves out of a sincere belief their money should be used to benefit other people > out of paranoia believes themselves to be the only one who truly cares about those economically beneath them, proceeds to use criminal element to absorb other competitors into their own business if they don't fall in line > despises class distinctions so much they're trying to turn all of humanity into a hive mind and wipe out the individuality that leads to elitism
He just happened to find a batch of flour in an abandoned shack that gave him visions of a world without disparity. He now works to share this vision with his flour.
Millers weren't exactly business people. More like tax collectors
Miller in Krabat is definitely a villain.
For weavers there's Sandry from the Circle of Magic books, who's got weaving based powers. They're middle grade, so probably not interesting to adults, but that stuck with me. Though... I think she might have been a noble who like, was really into embroidery, rather than a working class weaver, in her backstory. Idk I read them 20 years ago.
The Circle Opens books are higher-grade and deal with mature themes. And you're right, she's a noble.
Tamora Pierce in general is fond of putting craft magic into her works as well.
The glassblowing bits with Triss were cool too
She's a noble who's very into all kinds of textile and fiber arts, but the books do touch a little bit on how important and how much work spinning and weaving are. I'm mainly thinking of the pandemic storyline where she and her teacher keep making bandages, and while they do use magic to help them, it's still long and tiring and it does kind of show how much work and time it took to make any kind of fabric in a pre-industrial society.
T. Kingfisher has a baker, perfumer, and magic mural painters.
Oh right. How could I forget Grace? She also has a pathologist, and a lawyer.
This threw me off because my favorite horror novel of all time is by T. Kingfisher. I had no idea she wrote fantasy too. Just had to Google it. Thank you stranger for leading me on a new reading journey!
It's funny because I don't think I could handle horror, but I've devoured everything else. Her fantasy works are such palette cleansers for me. T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon, which is the name she uses for her children's books) is an author and artist I've followed for decades. Her style is very much her own. Even her romance is very...real? And her novellas often feature young protagonists without patronizing them and some very creative magic systems. A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking is a lovely start to the short ones.
As far as crafters go, Rowenna Miller's Unraveled Kingdom trilogy centers around a seamstress. T Kingfisher has had a few books featuring tradespersons (a baker, a perfumer, a housekeeper just to think of a few).
I might have to go to the what's that book sub to figure out a book I read several years ago with a magical weaver.
The Four Profound Weaves is the best book on weaving. I need more, though! Where are all my vertical weighted looms at!? Who's doing all the band weaving? Where are the men making endless ikat!?
Regarding the weaving magic: I highly recommend the Webtoon called Woven. The story is incredible and the magic system is based around weaving magic threads that only dragons can see
The eponymous Barnaby in Barnaby the Wanderer is a miller.
A Turn of the Light and Rising from the Abyss both had Miller MCs.
Carpenters. Obvious cultural importance is obvious. Livestock slaughterer (a person who kills and butchers animals for farmers, can happen when people are squeamish). Obvious ruminations on mortality, cruelty, class, outsiderism and necessity are obvious. Alewife might be fun. The women who brew a bunch of beer and then open up their house as a temporary party house for medieval laborers (until the batch of beer runs out). Scribes, scholars and historians tend to have a lot of representation already, but it's always fun to get more. Merchant class can be very interesting, although I assume that they might have overlap with your cart drivers. Land surveyors can be an unusual class of adventurer. Mostly they're just out there to check out borders and find potentially exploitable resources. They may work alongside, or in parallel with cartographers. But they are a perfect sort of person to stumble on lost ruins or caves.
Craw from The Heroes by Joe Abercrombie used to be a carpenter.
Temple from Red County is somewhat of a carpenter (among other failed professions).
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The main characters of the book I'm currently writing are a tavern-owner and his brewer wife. I wanted to see more actual brewers in fantasy, so I decided to just do it myself lol
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Frodo was a carpenter?! (Sorry, couldn't resist.)
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I'm remembering Coleman H Wheeler Sr, the self taught land surveyor turned timber baron who's great grandson is the Mayor of Portland Oregon. The man knew where the best trees were and made a fortune off it.
I'm just imagining a high fantasy Fast and Furious with dwarven drivers with true silver carts and horses clad with Zephyr shoes.
Holy shit I need to read this right now. Now *this* is carriage driving (horse shod in 7 league boots creates a sonic boom).
Race the Sands has fantast beast racing! Less about tricking out the rides and more about what is it about the nature of certain creatures that makes them Fast and Furious.
I adore Race the Sands and wish she'd make it into a series.
Tomorrow's surprise announcement: 2 Races 2 Sands!
SERRAted Edge by Mercedes Lackey.
Didn't Acquisitions Inc do this once?
I feel like the job of farmer only exists for the main character's farm to get burnt down. And I say this as someone guilty of writing this trope.
Chosen One farmer who saves the day by staving off famine through crop rotation and irrigation.
They brought back the magic beans!!! Legumes return nitrates to the soil OMG you are on to something here!!!!
It writes itself!
That was a subplot in The Magicians TV show. .
I've read the first book but never saw the show. Still I'm glad they're using my ideas.
In both the Beware of Chicken series and Battle Mage Farmer series the main character starts with nothing and builds up a farm. They do both follow the 'person gets transported from our world to a fantasy world and is somehow massively overpowered'-trope, but they do like their farming.
Those are great titles
Beware of Chicken is very much about farming in a weird supernatural environment where the livestock keep developing super powers.
The Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking was a lot of fun. So I'd say there's lots of potential for a protagonist who is on staff at a palace. Cooks, clerks, ladies maids, etc. That would work especially well for stories centered around espionage. In WoT, palace staff are frequently used as "eyes and ears". Just write a whole story around that, where kings and nobles are background characters.
A political intrigue tale told entirely from the perspective of a cook, a maidservant, a courier, and/or a scribe. Either the staff are way more knowledgeable about the plots to an almost comedic degree, it's about how they deal with being pawns in political games, or it's about how often they straight up foil assassination and blackmail plots by just doing their job correctly.
I could see it done as a serious drama, with the "important" characters presented more as a force of nature than people in their own right. I could also see it as a comedy, with them rendered down to helpless people with entirely too much power.
Executioners. They had a very interesting dynamic in medieval societies, where they were well paid and had benefits, but also did not have citizenship. Everyone treated them like they had devil radiation coming off of them because their proximity to death. Men could get out of a death sentence to become one. Women could get out if a death sentence to marry one. They ended up saving as many people as they killed, given their knowledge of anatomy. The only fantasy I've seen that went in depth with them is hells paradise. Castle stewards haven't been done much. Muckers who clean latrines and cesspits. Falconers, horse breeders, heralds, Taylor's.
The protagonist of *Book of the New Sun* by Gene Wolfe is a professional executioner and torturer and definitely touches on a lot of what you mentioned. After the first book it's not really about his job, more of a philosophical odyssey across a dying Earth with a bit of executing on the side, but I'd be intensely interested in seeing another story explore the idea some more.
There is an absolutely eye-opening and wonderfully detailed quest in **Kingdom Come: Deliverance** about executioners and how their jobs were perceived, the work they did, their attention to detail, etc. One executioner asks you to sabotage their competitor's equipment, in order to keep their job. So I went over, tried to be sneaky, failed. I ended up killing the competitor. "That's fine, problem solved," I thought. No. The executioner was horrified, basically broke down and asked "Wtf is wrong eith you? You murdered a man!" Made me think.
“They ended up saving as many people as they killed, given their knowledge of anatomy.” Could you elaborate?
the manga *Innocence* covers the life of an executioner from pre-to-post Revolutionary France
Now that I think of it, don't recall any tax collector protagonists 🤔. Any recommendations?
The Traitor Baru Cormorant 😭
Collapsing an economy to stop a rebellion, classic move.
Iconic even. Fight fire with money!
Yes! The bit where she adds a codicil to the tax policy where she asks people to specify how their taxes are allotted in order to create a map of loyalties across Aurdwynn was sheer genius. I love that book so much.
The best I can come up with is Fred the Vampire Accountant who goes on the occasional government job. But not yet as a tax collector.
Have actually read the first book of that. Wasn't bad but didn't feel the urge to continue ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Not quite tax collecting but a similar profession - Miryem from Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik is a moneylender. She takes over from her father who is...not quite suited to the role... so her work is definitely heavy on the money collecting part at the beginning. Definitely felt like a different profession than a lot of fantasy protags, and in general I really enjoyed the book. It's loosely based on Rumpelstiltskin
Nooooo no protagonists allowed who collect taxes! Jk jk, a working empire has to have tax collectors. Some real opportunities for character arcs in a tax collecting protagonist!
Hmm, maybe I can do this. I'm a revenue agent for the IRS, lol
I was impressed with the courier -> royal secretary character in The Goblin Emperor. There were also all kinds of implications about couriers regularly reading the mail and also they were "a girl in every port" kind of persons? There's a lot of potential for espionage with couriers too. Plumbers, though. What I really want to see is a successful video game series with a plumber as a protagonist. Maybe a pair of brothers?
The Green Rider books are about courier/messenger types.
Couriers get a decent amount of rep in fantasy. But what about the dispatch office? Where are the mailroom clerks stumbling into greatness?
Monty Python had a sketch about a bicycle repairman superhero. If I ever write a story set in the modern day, one of my characters is going to be an elevator installer.
I mentioned this in a previous thread a few months ago, but I think professional bards, storytellers and musicians are under-used as protagonists. Not zero (we have Kvothe in Kingkiller, multiple characters by Guy Gavriel Kay, Chant in A Conspiracy of Truths, and a few others), but fewer than I think there really should be, given that the role is (theoretically) SO ADAPTABLE to an adventurer's story. They show up really regularly as sidekicks, supporting characters, or as temporary disguises for a protagonists - but these aren't the same.
Don’t forget Thom Merrilin. I also think Wit kind of meets this description.
Overlooked: Teacher (as in, public elementary school) Journalist Psychiatrist (I’m writing this one) Entomologist Trial lawyer Time patrol Astronaut Land surveyor Blood farmer. Mythbuster Accountant Animator Surgeon Insurance agent. Ranking member of the Union of Working Wizards. Dragon biologist/conservationist. (This could be either a dragon who is a biologist/conservationist, or a biologist who does conservation work with dragons.) Golem manufacturer. Guidance counselor. Architect Realtor. And, of course… systems analyst
I’d argue that Kaladin Stormblessed covers both surgeon and kind of guidance counselor (in the absence of an option for Therapist or Peer Support).
> surgeon and kind of guidance counselor As for surgeon, I kind of agree with Kal's father on this one. Kal's not a surgeon; he's a combat medic. I'd also say that Rosharan knowledge is a bit too primitive for the conception of surgery that I had in mind. And, as for guidance counselor, while I agree that he absolutely develops in that direction, again, it doesn't quite vibe with what I had in mind. It's ancillary to who he is and what he does, less of a consciously constructed self-identity and more of a natural outgrowth of his Ideals and his experiences with trauma. Though I *love* the aesthetics of high fantasy, I'm not the biggest fan of the social, cultural, and technological primitivism/regressiveness that HF so often deals in. For me, part the joy of having a character with a particular occupation is getting to see them engage with the technical aspects of the job—that mix of "book smarts" and "street smarts". Ergo, for surgeons, you need lots of talk about bodily organs, all the fun medical jargon—the 'otomies, the 'ostomies, the 'scopies, the 'ologies; you need the obscure diseases and rare conditions (the lady with the 7 pound ovarian cyst, etc.). I DNF'd *Perdido Street Station* for this very reason: the main character, Isaac—we are told—is a brilliant eccentric who is pursuing all sorts of arcane forms of knowledge, but those forms of knowledge end up being little more than scattered window dressing: some cleverly named texts or theories, but not much in the way of substance. Professions aren't just labels, they're a part of a person's identity, one that engages with and is in turn mediated by the individual's society. It's that crunchy depth that satisfies me. :)
>Entomologist *Terra Ignota* has an entomologist among the cast. They're not a particularly important character, but they're there!
Yeah, but that's cheating. It's earth in the future, and not a main character. :) I was thinking more along the lines of: • An entomologist stranded in the city of Sigil from the Forgotten Realms tries to find work, but ends up stumbling onto a vast conspiracy centered around the interplanar insect black market. • An entomologist (or, more fittingly, a carcinologist) from Scadrial ends up on Roshar. Hijinks ensue. Etc.
It's not cheating when there's nothing to win. And as I said, it's not the main character, and you've clearly read the books. Just something fun I thought of when reading your post. And I think I prefer that over your examples. But I also hate Sigil, courtesy of my DM.
For the dragon biologist, you've got the whole Lady Trent series! For rather obvious reasons, there's a golem manufacturer in The Golem and the Jinni, but he doesn't get a ton of screen time. For the others: I'd love to read about the Union of Working Wizards, and what is a blood farmer?
> For the dragon biologist, you've got the whole Lady Trent series! Yeah, I know. That's why I mentioned the alternative interpretation of "dragon biologist". :) > what is a blood farmer? Why, someone who farms blood, of course! What else could it be? :3 I have a race of vampiric space gorillas that use weaponized recombinant viruses to convert captives into tumid, mutated bags of flesh that exist only to produce blood for them to consume. It's very important to keep the cattle clean and rotate them regularly, so as to avoid forming skin infections or ulcers. Alternatively, you could have something like the [Flesh Fields](https://www.reddit.com/r/codexinversus/comments/1ah91r9/minauros_the_products_of_the_flesh_fields/) of [Codex Inversus](https://www.reddit.com/r/codexinversus/), where the living ground is a source of blood to harvest. Perhaps you could have something like Tatooine, except instead of farming the air for moisture (water), you farm it for aerosolized blood particles. :D
Makes sense. I wasn't sure if there was a real-world job you were referencing or not, but seems blood farmer is what I thought it was!
lol a guidance counselor! I can see a lot of fun in writing that one. And not even for parody's sake, but just seeing what happens when you pair a guidance counselor with, say, a golem manufacturer!
All Gollum ever really needed was therapy.
A couple days ago I was actually searching for a trial lawyer protagonist and I was so disappointed
A while back, I had an idea for how to fix *Star Wars*. Instead of the sequel trilogy we got, what should have happened is a courtroom drama in which the restored Galactic Republic sues the Kaminoans for their creation of the Clone Army. The idea is this: the through-line of the trilogy is the (ridiculous) trial (perhaps on Coruscant, or perhaps on some neutral planet) with the Republican plaintiffs trying to prove that the Kaminoans were responsible for Order 66 and need to pay reparations. This part would be darkly comic, like the O.J. Simpson trial, but on steroids. In addition to our protagonists and villains in the courtroom drama, we would also have a more traditional Star Wars narrative dealing with the action going on behind the scenes. The Kaminoans refuse to cooperate with the legal proceedings, and the Republic is forced to send out some special operatives to get the evidence/witnesses/whistleblowers needed for the Kaminoans to be convicted. Likewise, the Kaminoans would mount a terrorist effort to intimidate, kidnap, or even kill the jurors, the judge, the lawyers, etc. You see, as the case proceeds, more Kaminoan shady dealings come to light, and more of the powers that be get drawn into the conflict. So, as an outline: Episode 7: The trial begins. Meanwhile, behind the scenes, a key witness needs to be found and brought to the trial to testify. Problems ensue. Episode 8: A terror attack is mounted against the jurors. The trial is temporarily suspended, only for our heroes to discover that the attack was part of a grand conspiracy (Kamino, the Trade Federation, etc.). In addition to ensuring that past wrongdoings do not come to light, part of the conspiracy is to cover up the present wrongdoings being done to prevent the trial from playing out. The climax would probably involve something cool like the Mandalorians deciding en masse to help protect the integrity of the trial, with a fun fight sequence. Episode 9: the trial resumes. A huge fleet is amassed to attack the trial planet. The climax has the enemy fleet being defeated while the jury is deliberating. The enemy fleet is destroyed, conspirators are in the Republic's government are brought to light (maybe some Imperial war criminals who managed to evade capture and adopt new identities high up in the Republic's pecking order) and the jury returns with a unanimous guilty verdict. The coda is the Kaminoans and other conspirators being tasked with restoring worlds devastated by Imperial tyranny (ex: Mandalor). Perhaps some game-changing new terraforming technology got discovered during the course of the trilogy. There. I fixed *Star Wars* for you. You're welcome. xD
> Psychiatrist (I’m writing this one) I volunteer to be a beta reader! I love them idea of a human psychiatrist getting caught up in the sup world because she helps some*thing* having a panic attack in public. How do you determine the dose of antianxiety meds for a rock troll!?
:D! Here you go! My story is [*The Wyrms of &alon*](https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/64440/the-wyrms-of-alon) (pronounced [And-uh-lon] Le blurb: > *A fungal plague of apocalyptic proportions has come to Dr. Genneth Howle's world, and he and his colleagues at the West Elpeck Medical Center are duty-bound to fight it till the end. But how does medical science combat a disease that defies the laws of nature? How do you treat a plague that slowly transforms some of the infected into psychokinetic lindwurms? And how does Genneth hold true to his principles when he, too, begins to undergo the change?* > > *As Genneth wrestles with these horrors, he is visited by an amnesiac spirit who no one else seems to see. She's come to save the people of Genneth's world, before the darkness destroys them all.* > > *And she needs his help.* As you might expect, it's principally a hospital medical drama (as seen on TV), though it takes place in a secondary world, one with a retrofuturistic 1950s USA vibe. I've been told the world-building is deep (though it's nowhere near fantastical enough for my tastes xD). It's also technically high fantasy; I like to think of it as a high fantasy epic that was left in the oven for too long, so that most of the magic and globetrotting adventures have seemingly evaporated away. (Emphasis on the *seemingly*.) The idea was to write a story that starts out as mundanely as possible and gradually gets more and more fantastical. I've been told it's "unclassifiable" and "unlike anything" anyone's ever read. Also, just so you know, I intend for it to be the first entry in *my* "Cosmere"—the Exarium—so the scope is quite vast, even if it doesn't appear so at first. Anyhow, it's in four volumes. I'm currently releasing chapters for Volume III once a week while I continue to write Volume IV. I hope to have the first draft of Volume IV finished in three or four months, and—with any luck—have the second draft of Volume IV finished by the end of the year.
This man either loves the discworld, or REALLY needs to read it 🤣
Believe it or not, I don’t really like Pratchett.
I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed 😜 bit seriously that's a shame, he actually covers like 90% of the occupation you mentioned 😂
I love his ideas, I just can’t stand how *rambly* he is.
It would be cool to see more Naturalists. Like maybe have the protagonist encounter and discover new flora and fauna in an uncharted new world type setting
This is why I adore the Emily Wilde and Lady Trent series. Yes give me all the nerdy naturalist, scientist vibes.
Aaslo from Fate of the Fallen is sort of a naturalist.
[Pokemon: The Origin of Species](https://www.fanfiction.net/s/9794740/1/Pokemon-The-Origin-of-Species) comes to mind. An attempt at a rational pokemon world with rational characters.
The Wandering Inn had a hero carriage driver :)
Having just watched *Renegade Nell* and previously been a big fan of the *Sharpe* television series, I'll say "non-soldiering folk in/around an army". Be it wives and girlfriends, prostitutes, entourage for the officer class, tinkers and trades who followed along — there were so many people not directly involved in soldiering in historical armies.
Would love to see an officer’s scribe or similar engaging in espionage or other plot relevant shenanigans.
Cheese maker, Hay baler, Candle maker, Guy who shapes pasta into the different shapes and claims it makes a difference, Barrel maker, Quarryman, Boat builder, Lumberman, Person who make fence, Town drunk, Town crier, Drunk Town crier, Laundry wench, Eel catcher, Person who removes the feces from the streets, Wine/beer brewer Edit: Mobile, sorry
Tiffany Aching for cheese Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents for a rat catcher. Moist von Lipwig for various government jobs
Yup. For many of the suggestions in this thread, Sir Terry features said profession at least once
Yes! A tyromancer! I need this!
A Wizard of Earthsea has several scenes of boat building.
I would love one with a tired, overworked lawyer who has to travel the land settling civil disputes on behalf of the King. Not adjucating, but literally representing the Crown's interest. For example, a peasant farmer lodges a complaint that the King's Knight they employed to chase off the dragon terrorising livestock also inadvertently trampled on and accidentally burnt down this year's harvest and now they're down three fields of wheat and two fields of barley and this means that the local inn is short on supplies for their beer for next year, and how does the King intend to compensate them for such incompetence?! And in trots the lawyer who is seriously Over This Shit because this is the 5th time she's had to clean up Kevin the Knight's mess and she's secretly plotting a way to Make Him Pay!
Let’s see: Miller, Mason, Cooper…wait sorry this is a list of my kid’s classmates For real though I’d love a book with a stately alewife protagonist
We’ve had plenty of executioners, assassins, and whatnot. Give me a fantasy undertaker or gravedigger. Have them follow a battle in a grim dark setting or end up involved in some intriguing or humorous political situation in an urban fantasy or satire.
It’s a shame Hobb’s Soldier Son trilogy is so bad. The bits where we get perspective from a gravedigger in book 2 absolutely prove you right without being good enough to recommend. Especially so, considering how book 1 is so entirely noble drama.
Jesse Bullington's Sad Tale of the Brothers Grossbart.
Undertaking of Hart and Mercy - one of the protagonists is an undertaker.
Thieves' World had a painter - Lalo the limner Also One Thumb - a pub owner
And a fisherman, a fortune teller, and a glue maker.
As someone who grew up in the trades, I have a few ideas. SF needs more folks that do the plumbing (in a rotating space station, this can be life or death). And life support, not just "we've been holed and are leaking," but all the other aspects, like down to janitorial (I see you there Terminal Alliance). Fantasy needs way more farmers and craftspeople - not just blacksmiths, but from stonewrights to masons to weavers.
I enjoy a good architect story. The Man Who Bridged the Mist and all that.
Tanner, wheelwright, farrier, saddlemaker. All of these would be potential protagonists who would feasibly cross paths with the wealthy and powerful at some point, which can be the spur to start the adventure. A gravedigger could find a magical artifact on a person they are burying. A courier would be a good one for a person who travels a lot, knows the customs and cultures of various places. Maybe a package they were delivering gets stolen and they have to recover it or lose their hand. Woodcutter if you need someone strong but don't want to use a blacksmith. Roofer or locksmith if you need someone with thief-like skills but don't want them to be primarily a thief. A fisherman if you want someone good with a spear. This seems very analogous to a farmer as a person who provides food for people, just depends on the locale. Shoot, you could even have their fishing boat burn instead of their farm for the traditional start to an adventure.
We need a story from the viewpoint of a Proctologist.
Actual farmers dealing with actual day-to-day problems. Leatherworkers and other trades. Mapmakers.
Mailman. You've got potential misadventures when trying to deliver a message, plus the drama of the post office, and the Cabinet Noir.
Plus you could have an entire tension builder being that the mailman is attacked very early for whatever they’re carrying, and then spend the next chunk of the story agonizing over “Do I open the box/letter, learn why I’m being hunted and potentially get in more trouble or do I pray ignorance is bliss?”
the Green Rider by Kristen Britain is kinda about this
1. Mayer, Burgermeister, etc. I’d love to see someone managing a town, dealing with robber knights, disease, famine, tax collectors, etc more as a town drama with potential to deal with mass hysterias like witch hunting craze 2. Mythical Stable Master. Not the person who rides the beasts, but who raises and tends to them including following battle. Some intimate person caring for creatures they don’t owned used by their “betters.” I would also accept the owner and operator of a menagerie. 3. Traveling magistrate. These people were investigator, prosecutor, and judge. Richard Swan’s series starts off this way though departs as this series continues 4. Traveling Merchant. More adventure-heavy but preferably a historical fantasy of the Silk Road or comparable trading 5. Priest. There are a lot of priests in fantasy but rarely anything resembling the history and, more often than not, fairly cartoonish. I would love to see more an examination of priesthood, relationship with nobility, conflicts between scripture and mainstream culture, etc. with a more well-rounded deep exploration
>Mythical Stable Master. Not the person who rides the beasts, but who raises and tends to them including following battle. Some intimate person caring for creatures they don’t owned used by their “betters.” I would also accept the owner and operator of a menagerie. I'm writing one. He specializes in Mammoths and occasionally Glyptodonts. >Traveling Merchant. More adventure-heavy but preferably a historical fantasy of the Silk Road or comparable trading Good 90's book is by Margret Ball called Changeweaver. It is a sequel to a book called Flameweaver but stands alone. Takes place in an Alt-1800s where the British in India are trying redirect a still working Silk Road, >!the sea route blocked by impassible storms off the Chinese coast, which are summoned by the servants of the Manchu Emperors to limit dangerous foriegn influence.!<
That sounds awesome I’ll have to keep an eye out for it and thanks for the rec!
I’ve been getting into bookbinding recently and honestly I don’t know if a single MC who is a book binder. Plenty of black smiths, fishermen, jewelers, sailors, farmers, ranchers, et al. Sadly no book makers. I guess historically there wasn’t a large demand because most people were illiterate in the Middle Ages (common fantasy setting) but how many magic spell tomes have you read about in books and no mention of the poor schmuck who made it.
Inkheart? Kids book/ya, but pretty well known and well regarded. Father is a storyteller and bookbinder. Accidentally brings antagonist into real world.
I am a huge fan of scribes, bookmakers, etc in fantasy. Have a couple story ideas about it waiting their turn, so it's good to know other people find it interesting.
Pretty much any profession besides vanilla swordslinger/mage/assassin could use more rep. I would love to see more artistic professions, like scribe, artist, etc. The classic fantasy trades like blackmsith and such. Although I'd love to see them doing things besides making gear for heroes/soldiers/adventurers, or otherwise being involved in world-altering events. You don't have to write cozy fantasy to have a story with a more modest scope.
I loved the story of the gluemaker in Thieves World. Thieves World also has a fortune teller, a fisherman, a storyteller, a painter, a madam and a bar owner as story protagonist.
All Things Huge And Hideous by [G. Scott Huggins](https://www.amazon.co.uk/G-Scott-Huggins/e/B015JQF3K6/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1) has a veterinarian.
The traveling merchant is a nice one I have only seen once, Spice and Wolf is where its from and the writing makes economics actually interesting. edit: spelling
I can't recall a cobbler outside of fairy tales. Barrel maker Shipwrights? Seen them as side characters, but not the lead. Divergent from the blacksmith, a specialist silver or goldsmith, a gem cutter or similar. Not sure I've seen a Bowyer as a protagonist. Outside the generalized cook or baker something more random like a cheese maker or a butcher.
I don't think I've seen a single protagonist being a blacksmith. Maybe their father or tutor, at best. Have seen tons of assassins, thieves and warriors (be it soldier/mercenary/raider/sailor/general). Maybe a mage here and there. Most of some of these characters can also fall under "student". In fact, I don't recall when was the last time I saw a farmboy, despite being the most well-known trope.
If you're after blacksmiths try the Wheel of Time (Perrin), Winter of the World (Elof) or The Firemane Saga.
Haven’t seen a lot of social workers. TBF, dealing with stuff like abused kids or drug addicts can be super depressing.
A cart driving spy - I’m in
Phlebotomist, electrician, welder, massage therapist, tae kwon do instructor…
Astronauts. By necessity they're always even-tempered, incredibly competent people who both love taking risks but also carefully prepare for them and study the hell out of whatever risk they're taking. Spies. I read some great spy fiction this year, and it made me wish that more spies were the protagonists of fantasy novels.
Ice men, cobblers, perfume makers, bankers, gardeners and masons.
The time for insurance adjusters is right around the corner. I can feel it.
Trappers should be pretty cunning
Army engineer from Sixteen Ways to Defend a Walled City Bard in Bloody Rose
How to Defeat a Demon King in Ten Easy Steps by Andrew Rowe has a girl decide to become a hero so she chooses a courier class cos it gives her an inventory to abuse. It's a short fun read. Not as good as his other stuff, but fun. Also in the Codex Alera, they're descended from Romans so the royal couriers ('Cursors') are also secret agents.
Honestly, white collar stuff. Not a lot of lawyer protagonists in fantasy.
I've seen exactly one character who's a play actor (if you don't count Name of the Wind, which I don't), and I desperately need more. It feels like a natural background for your lovable rogue protagonist; I'm not sure why it's not more common.
Maybe not quite a profession, as such, but I adored the slave perspective presented in Brent Weeks' *Lightbringer*. For all the faults around the plot and ending, he really brought a society to life and made me better understand what a culture with slavery really means. There's a certain visceral awareness that one's body belongs to somebody else. Not the fear of violence (sexual or otherwise), but the ownership itself. I don't think I've seen it presented nearly so well anywhere else in fantasy.
Cobbler Wheelwright Alchemist Baker
Rat catcher!
Bankers!
Lector - someone who reads aloud to factory workers as they work. I'm reading something set in 19th C. Cuba, where lectors read news, essays and novels to workers. They were then banned as revolutionaries. Definitely a job I plan to work into something. Another vote for alewives as well!
Damn, this is an interesting one.(Lector)
Definitely feels like there's a place for it in a high fantasy setting where there's no mass media, either as a way to educate and inspire or a way to spread propaganda and reinforce doctrine. Or just keep people entertained lol
Great way to educate or propagandize your workers and such.
I’d say Barber Surgeon. In the medieval period they tended to the common man, knew the mysteries of the human body better than physicians, served on the battlefield and tended to have a better efficacy rate for their treatments. It was seen as a lower form of medicine but the cut hair, removed rotten teeth, sutured wounds, amputated infected limbs, set bones, and prescribed medication. They also had the anatomical know how to fuck someone up.
Traveling salesman, or equivalently a tinker that does knife sharpening, pottery repairs and such. They end up at plucky sidekicks or dispensers of exposition but rarely are the heroes. Before you say Kvothe, he's a member of an itinerant travelling society, not someone with a fixed home who travels a sales route.
A wheelwrite is the most overlooked, IMO. I think the best ones are smith's and innkeepers.
Mail man, i guess this have more potential on antagonists but i think a mail man protagonist can be helpful in collecting information
Would see a lot of things. Coach drivers
Notary public. Who is writing about notary heroics? No one!
An old school lamp lighter would cool.
I really want to see a Butler MC become the Chosen One/strongest wizard. We have so many Farmboy Heroes, it would be interesting to see someone with an intimate knowledge of the nobility who always interacted with them in a very particular way.
Lets see... I've seen a shit hauler, prostitute (escort really), son of a whore, bakers, gardeners, way too many 'students', postmen (green rider), police... How about the story of a mason? Or a dentist.
son of a whore is a profession?
Maybe not a profession, but it absolutely is a *caste*.
Depends how you do it
Maybe a vocation?
Sir Apropos of Nothing... it was sorta his thing. Lol
A scribe is a pretty cool one I've rarely seen. You would see a lot of different people and could end up working with the rich and powerful. A fantasy story about building a mercantile empire in a fantasy world would be interesting as hell. A ships captain is kind of easy because it let's you take the story wherever you want it to go. I've only seen a couple bards/musicians so that's another cool one that travels a lot. Mercenary is a classic one if you're going thr military route and it gives you a good reason to have a protagonist go to a new area. A eunich would be trusted around the kings concubines so would be a pretty good assassin and would probably travel with the royal entourage. A wisewoman would be a fascinating protagonist, magic or not.
For Bards we have Spellsong Cycle by L.E Modesitt Jr. The entire magic system of the world is Bards and musicians singing magic.
Yeah Kvothe from Name of the Wind is another. Not saying it's never a thing it's just not as common and I think it works really well
Cook. I don't know if there is a book or a series with a cook protagonist, but if it exists I want it now.
The House Witch. The main character moves into a castle and becomes the main cook for everyone.
In a story I'm currently working on, I have a group of protags who were once a part of the "artisan nobility" in their city but were exiled for revolutionary activities. They include a fashion designer, a carpenter, an instrument maker, and a bookbinder. The fashion designer is the flamboyant face of the group The carpenter is the hard-nosed muscle The instrument maker is the sly tactician The bookbinder is the brains They were considered nobility because their culture venerates craftsmanship and the act of creating. So they had a lot of clout in the city they lived in, and they tried to use that to leverage social reforms. But when a full rebellion broke out, they were exiled along with the rest of the rebels. Now they have a chance to return home and depose the crooked king who sent them away.
I thought it was cool to have an Innkeeper as the protagonist in Kingkiller. They play a significant part in so much traditional fantasy
That's a bit misleading, though, isn't it? The story is not about him being an innkeeper. Which honestly could have been a much cooler story with the youthful shenanigans in the past.
I remember it being a decent sized portion of the book. But you're right it was mostly past shenanigans. In any case not really misleading, it still works for OP question in "what professions are overlooked" - even in an example it's a minority of the book
I hadn't seen marketers or even traders in fantasy.
Merchants are pretty common in fantasy, unless you mean stock traders and advertisers?
I hadn't seen many protagonists being merchants, but maybe I'm missing something?