#Engineer (技術者)

Contents

Authority. The set rules of this document are a variant rule (Variant) — as with every variant of this volume, they are premised on GM permission, and fc cannot override co Canon. The figures of the starting drifted-goods cards are narrow Canon (canon only within this volume), and §Table Hooks is a Scene Tool. This document follows, as is, the 5 components and common format that the Identity Sets Overview fixed, and the data-card standard format that the Depletion System fixed. And this set is the set that meshes most deeply with that Depletion System — the debt 01-02 deferred with "the detail is in that document" is repaid by this document.

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#Scent — What Were You Mending, Once

#Opening Fragment — The Hand That Mends a Lamp

On an afternoon when the rain had cleared, in a shed beside the watermill, a man was taking a dead lamp apart.

On a spread cloth he laid the screws in order of size. From left to right, in the very order he had drawn them out. Beside them lay three screwdrivers and a scrap of tape bitten off with the teeth.

The eyes of children had come to the gap in the planks. The stranger who, three days before, had walked out alone from the fog — the grown-ups called him a Kamikakushi and kept their distance, but the children's legs were faster than the grown-ups' words.

"Keep your breath quiet," the man said without turning around. "The dust rises."

The children froze. Two pairs of feet ran off; three breaths remained.

"...That — is it dead?" asked the most fearless voice.

"It is ailing." The man held the inside of the lamp up to the lamplight. "It took the rain crossing over. Iron rusts when it takes the rain. Rust is — a disease of iron."

"Can you mend it?"

"I opened it up, so I know." The man wiped the contacts with a rag. Slowly, in one direction only. "One who claims to mend without even opening it up is — not a physician but a sorcerer-shaman."

The children gave up the gap in the planks one by one and came round through the doorway. The man did not chase them off. On the cloth the screws vanished one by one, this time from right to left.

The last screw locked tight. The man pressed the button with his thumb.

Light burst out. The shadowed shed rose up white as high noon, and the children screamed and toppled over — then, as if spellbound, crawled back. A light a hundred lamplights gathered could not match was coming out of that small box, with no sound and no smoke.

The man counted to three and put out the light.

"Why put it out?" the children protested.

"This light is not a well but a water jar." The man wrapped the lamp in the cloth. "It dwindles by as much as you draw, and the rain to refill it — comes no more."

The light at the doorway darkened. A grown-up was standing there. The master of the watermill. In his hand was neither a chipped axe nor a broken sickle but a single cogwheel, swollen and warped by water.

"The mill has stood still three months," the master said. "...Will you open it up and see?"

The man took the cogwheel in hand and, for a long while, listened to the sound of the river.

"Let us open it up and see," he said. That was the first piece of work he took on in this era.

#Scent — The Mending Hand

This man was not on the night bus the samples of this volume rode across together (sample characters). He is another Kamikakushi, fallen alone, apart. Drift is not an event that ends with a single bus — the goods came first, the people followed, and the people come still.

The engineer set binds three branches of former occupation. The mechanic — the person of engines and bearings and grease. The electrician — the person of wiring and contacts and short circuits. The building engineer — the person of loads and circulation lines and blueprints. The branches differ, but the hand is one. The hand that opens it up, finds the cause, and locks it shut again.

The engineer is not a person who summons machines. They are a person who knows the procedure and can explain the cause of failure. And in this era they are not a person who teaches everything either — before the lack of materials and tools and precision, they are a person who negotiates with the local artisan.

The place this set stands in this volume is clear. When everyone's drifted goods are dying in one direction only, the one and only person who can slow that clock. The spine sentence does not bend here either — this book is not a book that makes the modern person strong. It is a book that gives the drama of a future being consumed. The engineer is not an exception to that spine but a proof of it. They cannot refill the future. They only slow it. The future of a party with an engineer is not longer — it merely shortens more slowly.

So the conflict of this set is the deepest, too. The knowledge of the medical worker stops at one patient's body, but the knowledge of the engineer remains as an object. And an object — is copied.

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#Set Data — The Five Components

The frame of the Overview Law 1, exactly as is. Beyond the five lines written here, there is nothing this set gives.

#Component 1 — Starting-Ability Adjustment

• Common replacement — the canonical modern person's Stratagem acquisition is changed to Disable acquisition. Disable is the ability that unbinds what is bound, opens what is locked, and neutralizes what is set — the axis of handling devices and mechanisms, and the maintenance check of this volume (2d10+Wisdom+Disable) and the breakdown-check base formula (2d10+Finesse+Disable) all stand on this axis. In place of the head that reads tactics, the hand that reads structure has come.
• Optional replacement (the building engineer's road) — Perception entry can be changed to Geography entry. The eye that read loads and circulation lines reads the bottleneck and the line of fire in this era's castles and bridges too. The mechanic and the electrician may end with one replacement.
• Licensed cap — the Disable and Geography gained by set replacement rise only as far as Licensed (3), exactly per the Overview Law 1. The technique of a former occupation peaks on the very day one crossed over — only the canon opens the door of mastery.

#Component 2 — Set Technique

#tier 1 — Emergency Repair (a choice with the canon Foresight)

[aptitude] Emergency Repair (應急修理) — tier 1 set technique
Maintenance: +2 to the maintenance check (2d10+Wisdom+Disable).
Restoration: the engineer's maintenance turns back degradation up to two stages —
   On the Verge → Intact. Raising the "one stage" limit of Depletion System
   Law 3 is, in this volume, this technique alone. 1 time per interlude on the
   same gear, and no return from Silence, stay the same.
Tending (interlude action): 1 time per interlude, with tools in hand, choose 1
   [Depletion Clock] item the party holds and inspect it. Nullify the next
   1 Clock decrease of that item — whether by use, or by GM declaration
   from sitting idle or degrading. The stock per item is 1 use; it does not
   stack. It does not work on rounds or uses — bullet and medicine
   cannot be tended into growing.

The value of this technique is reckoned not on one sheet but on the whole table. Set it down plainly — if a holder of Emergency Repair is in the party, the Depletion Clock of everyone slows. The rifle of the Self-Defense Officer draws one step further from wearing out, and everyone's battery lives one scene longer. What a party that loses its engineer loses is not one comrade but the remaining days of everyone.

The value of the choice is set down too. An engineer who chooses Emergency Repair forfeits the historical knowledge, emergency medicine, and language of the future of Foresight — in place of the memory of the future, they brought over the hand-habit of the future. But Energy Transfer and the ability-score special are kept, being not a technique but the skeleton of the occupation (Overview Law 2 — the canon-protection principle).

#tier 3 — On-Site Modification (a choice with the canon tier 3 choice)

On-Site Modification (現地改造) — tier 3 set technique · interlude action
Condition: one interlude + this era's workshop (smithy, woodshop, foundry) +
   that workshop's artisan. It does not activate alone — this is a
   collaboration check.
Check: 2d10+Wisdom+Disable >= 13. GM adjustment ±2 by the grade of the workshop
   (+2 for Kunitomo-Guild grade, -2 for a wandering smith's field forge).
Success: one of the following.
 ① Substitute part — the next maintenance check of 1 party implement
   succeeds automatically. The part has been shaped in advance. The
   1-per-interlude limit stays the same.
 ② Quality of the patch — at the juncture where smithy collaboration's
   revival (Depletion System Law 3) bears fruit, erase 1 permanent
   weakening that is revival's price. Revival itself is still the
   scenario's reward — this technique does not open that door,
   it only cuts the toll when the door has opened.
 ③ This era's road — build non-combat implements like a pulley, waterwheel,
   filtration tank, still, or stretcher from this era's materials. +1 to a
   non-combat check for one narrow use agreed with the GM. Up to 2 at once
   on the table.
Failure: only the materials and the interlude are lost. No retry in the same
   interlude at the same workshop.
Aid: +2 to the black-powder reloading check (Firearms Law 3).
Limit: a modification that touches an attack check or Wounds — by any detour
   whatsoever — cannot be made.

A line on tags. This technique is given no canon maneuver tag — in the tag table of the skill list, [upkeep] is the name of a Lull-Phase-only effect, and this technique, which uses up a whole interlude, does not fit in that box. This volume sets it down plainly as an interlude action — the Tending entry of tier 1 Emergency Repair is of the same branch.

An engineer who chooses On-Site Modification forfeits the canon tier 3 choice (Squad Command, Energy Infusion, Field Search). And the condition clause of this technique is at once the worldview of this set — it does not activate alone. The knowledge of four hundred years on must borrow this era's forge and this era's hands to become an object at last. The reloading synergy of the Aid entry is the place Firearms Law 3 foretold.

#Component 3 — Starting Drifted Goods

The one-backpack principle, exactly as is. All three cards follow the standard format of Depletion System Law 4, and the starting remaining count can be adjusted by the §Operation Dial.

#Component 4 — Conflict Hook

The set cannot make a new axis of conflict — it only swaps the lens into the canonical modern person's list of conflicts. The engineer's lenses are two, and both are the 1st person of era contamination. Contamination, before it is a management item of the GM Guide, is the lost sleep of the person holding this sheet.

• To mend, or to bury — the engineer's version of the canon conflict "the meaning of war." If I mend one bellows, the village grows warm. Do the same work once more with the same hand, and — a gun barrel runs straight. Unlike words, the engineer's knowledge remains as an object, and an object does not choose its owner. How far to mend, and what to bury under a pretense of not knowing. The GM's dial does not reach this question — what the dial reaches is the speed of the world, and what this question reaches is one person's hand.
• The artisan's pride — the engineer's version of the canon conflict "to return or to stay." On the day they watch the old man of Kunitomo catch up to their own half-day of work with a single stroke of the file, the engineer realizes — that what they believed a superiority of four hundred years was in fact a superiority of factory and tool. The conflict of beauty (美) stands here. The humility of kneeling before the attainment of this era's artisan is sweet, and bitter — because to stay means to enter anew as an apprentice as an artisan of this era.

#Component 5 — Adaptation Variation

The canon rules of the Adaptation mechanic are all as is. Atop them only two lines of color are painted.

• Fast path — Artisan. From the first technique borrowed from the Artisan, the same-occupation exemption applies. Just as a nurse reads a healer-monk's hand-movements in a single day, the mechanic reads the color of the smithy's fire in seven days. The speed of absorbing this era's tools and materials is the fastest of the six sets — at the end of it they are called "the artisan of the Sengoku."
• Blocked path — the domain of the mysterious. The borrowing of techniques from occupations whose skeleton is sorcery, barriers, and exorcism (the likes of the onmyoji, the feng shui master, the esoteric monk) has no exemption rule applied — the Energy penalty remains to the end. What cannot be opened up never, in the end, grows familiar to the hand. A talisman does not come apart, and a barrier has no screws.

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#Friction with the Era — A World Without Standards

Friction is not a penalty but the material of a scene. The engineer's friction comes from four places.

#There Is No Tolerance (公差)

There are the sun and the shaku (Terms and Weights-and-Measures Glossary) — but there is no tolerance. There are no standard screws, no interchangeable parts, no culture of drawing up a blueprint and handing it over. Even two teppo made by the same artisan do not have parts that mix. Half of the engineer's knowledge stands on the floor that is the standard, yet in this era that floor is not laid down. The half-day spent filing to fit one part — that half-day becomes a scene just as it is.

The boundary between what can and cannot be made also divides here. The pulley and the lever, the improvement of the waterwheel, filtration and distillation, soap and hygiene, surveying and the division of labor in process — the knowledge of procedure stands even on this era's materials. The revival of the precision bearing, smokeless powder, and electricity — does not stand. The name of that wall is the wall of materials and precision that the Principles of Drift set down.

#The Guild (座) and Status

In this era, skill asks of belonging at once. Of which guild are you. An artisan with no guild is a wandering journeyman, and the wandering journeyman's outstanding skill becomes at once the question of "who will take them in." Word of mending the watermill reaches the lord's ear within three days, and the lord's summons is a glory and — in effect, a conscription. Choosing the words of refusal, and haggling over the price of being taken in, are all scenes.

#The Direction of Admiration

The first thing the engineer learns is the fact that they are not a person who came to teach. The forging that folds a blade up by repeated lamination, the joinery that stands a hundred years without a single nail, the civil engineering that carves a mountain and raises a castle, the teppo that copied the Nanban's goods in two years and made them its own — attainments at which the modern engineer would rather marvel stand in rows in this era. The superiority lies not in the quantity of knowledge but in the ordering of procedure, and that superiority is the capital of negotiation, not a throne.

#The Kunitomo Guild — The Greatest Powder Magazine of This Volume

Northeast of the lake there is a land where the whole village is a single workshop — the Kunitomo Guild of Omi. They are people who make teppo and karakuri, copy what they have seen, and mend what they have copied to make it their own (the scene before its gate was set down by Travelogue — Omi). The modern engineer and the finest workshop of the Sengoku — the moment these two meet is the place where era contamination turns fastest in this volume.

So this meeting is not a default but a GM's option.

1. Keep it at a distance (the default) — the Kunitomo Guild exists only as rumor and scouting. The engineer collaborates with nameless smithies, and the fire does not reach the powder magazine.
2. Embrace it — the workshop campaign. The engineer become a guest, the artisans who copy, the era that quickens. The dial and the control device of what spreads how fast are held by the GM Guide — here only the location of the powder magazine is marked.

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#Growth Curve — The Maintenance Hand, the Modification Hand, and

The tiers of growth are held by the canon. What the set paints is the scenery of each of those tiers.

• The maintenance hand (tier 1 to 3) — the party's clock-keeper. The person who, every interlude, spreads out everyone's load and wipes, tightens, and oils it. Not flashy — but a party with this person and one without grow poor at a different speed, holding the same remaining-count sheet.
• The modification hand (tier 3 to 5) — On-Site Modification opens, and the relationship with the workshop becomes half the character. Along the fast path, the Artisan's craft begins to take to the hand. The gun barrel is filled in with this era's iron, and the hand is broken in to this era's hammer — exactly as the Depletion System set down, the object's naturalization and the hand's naturalization go side by side.
• The artisan who bridges the techniques of two eras (tier 7 on) — at the end of accelerated Adaptation, they are no longer "the Kamikakushi who mended machines" but have become something that holds the techniques of two eras in one hand. That this looks like in effect a new occupation is narrative, not data — neither former-occupation nor a dual build opens. The canon's choice-instead principle stands to the end.

At the deepest part of that road there is one door. The canon set it down — "Making karakuri — mechanical dolls — is the domain of the Artisan alone." (Artisan) And of what is born at the end of that domain as well — "The mainspring is the heart, and the gears are the muscle." (Automaton) An artisan who bridges the techniques of two eras will, someday, go as far as the front of that door. The matter inside the door — the matter of the doll opening its eyes — is the canon's. This volume stops at standing the engineer before the door.

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#Table Hooks (Scene Tool)

This section alone is a Scene Tool — a scenario seed the GM picks up and uses on the spot.

• The lord's weeping box — in the lord's treasury there is a "broken precious thing." A black box that flowed in from a rift ten years ago, beyond the words of this era to describe — the goods came first. An order to repair it comes down. Open it up and only the engineer knows what it is (whether a generator, a power tool, or a loudspeaker is decided by the GM). Mend it and the lord comes to know that power; fail to mend it and the skill is doubted; pretend on purpose to be unable to mend it and — the eye to be deceived is not the lord's alone. An onmyoji stands at his side.
• The guest's seat of the Kunitomo Guild — a person of the guild follows the party a third day. Not a tail but a courtship. The offer is the guild's seat as a guest (客人) — lending board and tools, to repay "by as much as you show." Take it and it is a paradise of maintenance and an accelerator pedal of contamination; refuse it and — will the guild stand by and watch that skill flow off to the workshop of another domain? The two options above become, just as they are, a whole scenario.
• The iron cart that became a god — a village over the pass enshrines a stalled truck as a divine body (神體) (a vehicle is a GM-only prop — Vehicles). When a drought comes, the village calls a Kamikakushi who, they say, will soothe the iron, crying that "the iron spirit is enraged." Wake it and the faith collapses; do not wake it and you leave the village before a false god and depart. And how far the woken iron cart can go — the fuel's Clock decides.

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The mending hand does not defeat time — it only steals a day at a time from time. And with each day so stolen, someone's story grows a day longer.