Wretched Space Empires - Dragon (Issue 31 - Nov 1979), Empire of the Petal Throne, & The Wretched Space rpg -Giving The Wretched Space Shaman Some Space Age Sorcery

 So let's pick up from yesterday's Wretched Space Empires blog entry here.  The Human Space Empires have spread throughout the universe possibly except old Earth. Mankind's technologies have made quantum leaps through Synapse & Synapse technological leaps after encountering alien species. These are the main races within Empire of the Petal Throne rpg. And this puts Dragon (Issue 31 - Nov 1979) into the cross hairs. Why because of the 'A New Profession for EPT: The Adventurer By Glenn Rahman - A new profession combining Warrior, Priest, and Magic User for Empire of the Petal Throne. The following is the article intro from The Dragon issue #31; "Those of us who enjoy EPT occasionally chafe at its scheme of society, which restricts player-characters to only three professions. A player may portray either a Warrior, a Priest or a Magic User. This is irrespective of the fact that the typical adventurer of heroic fantasy is not precisely any of these three professions. Michael Moorcock’s Elric combines the attributes of Warrior, Magic User and Priest in a fascinating mixture. Richard Tiemey’s Simon of Gitta is simultaneously a Priest and Warrior. Karl Edward Wagner’s Kane is a Warrior with access to magic. All these heroes differ widely in philosophy, motivation and personality. What they have in common is their personal independence and ability to master many disciplines for their own ends. These mavericks, for want of a better term, we shall call “Adventurers.” The Adventurer lives by his wits and owes allegiance to no professional caste. His objectives are easy riches, reputation and excitement. The Adventurer is multi-talented, but lacks the self-discipline to master any one of the other three player-professions. Drinking deeply of life and experience, he “picks up” things that will be useful to his escapades." 

Adventurers are the backbone of the Human Space Empire & the Old Empire of Humanity. They allow trade between the two interstellar powers because of the fact that in Wretched Space rpg the psi & magical powers are part of the same branches on the same tree. But the fact is that as a friend of mine & fellow DM  pointed out the Shaman & Conjurer don't have the teeth to take on some of the threats that we see in Empire of the Petal Throne.  Myself & James Garrison did a free  OSR supplement called Space Age Sorcery available here. 

Does this material fit the Wretched Space rpg?! Absolutely it does especially if these spells are actually rituals. And these rituals could theoritically be stacked into a conjurer or shaman's staff or wand or ritual tool. Say six spells that could be 'loaded' into a magickal tool. This allows the conjurer or wizard to compete with the horrors from beyond without breaking the Wretchedverse asthetic. 

And the adventurer from The  Dragon magazine  not fitting the Wretched asthetic here's a bit on the guile of such an adventurer; "The successful character is a clever fellow. To an Adventurer, wits on both hit and damage dice. are his most prized possession. Fritz Leiber’s Gray Mouser and Jack 96-100 Devilish. As above, but greater. 20% chance to detect Vance’s Cugel the Clever are past masters in cunning.
If Intelligence represents the conscious intellect and logical process, Guile is the subconscious, the “survival instinct.” The two are only tenuously connected. An intelligent scholar might be helpless when faced with survival in the woods. On the other hand, the fox is unintelligent, but his slyness is proverbial. Sometimes Intelligence and Guile achieve the same ends, but differently. A smart warrior learns how to fight well; one who is instinctively cunning gets in the effective, “dirty” blows without even thinking. A man with Guile is a slippery fellow, a natural confidence man. One without it is the type who lets out secrets unknowingly, one who buys too many bogus magic weapons and faulty Eyes. He will be hard put to prosper in the rat race of Jakalla." 

So we combined the Adventurer class from Dragon (Issue 31 - Nov 1979) with the one from Wretched Space to get the adventurer that we're looking for.