Tinkering

Tinkering is the process by which material reagents recovered from the sky are converted into useful Technology. Characters with the Basic Tinkering skill can attempt tinkering if they have reagents to use.

It is known that attempts to scale up production of tinkered Technology have usually met with abject failure. Trying to mass-produce or farm out the creation of Technology results in it working badly, if at all, so the best method that’s been found has been to allow individual Tinkerers to do things their own way. Even trying to create multiples of the same piece yourself in quick succession is unlikely to work.

Creating Technology

Attempting tinkering can be done at interactives; if you haven't had a chance to do it at interactives, you can do it in downtime instead.

To create a piece of Technology, you must use three reagents. Hand in the reagents to a ref and tell them what you are trying to make. Then conduct at least two minutes of appropriate roleplaying as your character attempts to construct the item. The ref will return one of these results:

• It works! Here is your item.
• You can make it, but it’ll be dangerous. There’s a chance to injure yourself or others around you, then you get the item.
• You can make something close - do you want to do that instead? If not, skip to failure.
• You can't make it with this - but you could if you got X item or reagent. Then go to failure.
• It doesn't work. You get the reagents back, and optionally have experienced some kind of dangerous experimental failure.

You can only make each “recipe” like this once per event - you can’t make more than one of the same item.

There are five kinds of reagents available. Each has different resonances if they are used in making a piece of Technology.

Object	Type	Resonances
Metal Cog	Metal Reagent	Strength, Hardness, Intricacy, Precision
Green Leaf	Life Reagent	Healing, Growth, Stamina, Resilience
Metal Lightning Bolt	Power Reagent	Power, Fire and Lightning, Transference, Light, Dexterity
Amber Bead	World Reagent	Stability, Earth, Widespread Effects, Blood
Yin-Yang Symbol	Balance Reagent	Balance, Entropy, Order, Inversion

Sometimes, rare and unique reagents will be found. These can also be used for tinkering, but the items created cannot be replicated, and will often be single-use.

Limits

Technological items have a limit to their usage. Some items will break when they are used. This means that they are destroyed and cannot be repaired. Some items will exhaust when they are used. This means that they have depleted their energy and need to be repaired or reloaded. This can be done with the Field Maintenance trait by spending a Stamina point or a reagent matching one of the reagents used to make the item. Some items will last for one event and then break.

Example

Charsi wants to make a medical device.

1. Her player finds a ref and hands in her resources to use - "Here is one Metal for precision, one Power for lightning, and one Life for healing. I want to make a defibrillator glove.”
2. The ref goes and determines the result.
3. Charsi conducts some appropriate Mad Engineering roleplay.
4. The ref returns and says “It should work - but it’s dangerous. Do you want to keep going?”
5. She says yes, and the ref draws a Tinkering result - “You take a CLEAVE to one hand as you’re electrocuted working on it. Here’s the item.”
6. The item card reads “Technology. Exhaust to call CURE 4 STUN at touch range on an incapacitated target.”