Archetypes

Drevan

Professional mercenaries, known as Drevan, have plenty of dealings with folk from other nations, and are often obliged to pick a side in their disputes if they want to earn coin. In centuries past, these warriors were once all that was known of the Urdrevan people to outsiders, raiding nearby nations on the backs of their beasts.
While they rarely attack their allies in this age, Drevan are nonetheless a fearsome force to come up against in battle, fighting in bands for money or under contract for more long-term jobs.
The Drevan are usually heavy fighters, they celebrate surviving each day, and honour fallen comrades by incorporating pieces of their warskirts and trinkets into their own, building up over time a tapestry of victories and losses that tell their story.

Shepherds

Shepherds protect the flock – both animal and human – as fighters and scouts connected to bands. For most Urdrevan, it is a Shepherd who first teaches them to use a bow or wield a sword, training in the long evenings after making camp. They are usually versatile in the arms they can wield, although some of the most sought after Shepherds have specialised in one weapon to the exclusion of all others and travel from band to band on the most dangerous routes through Urdrevan. Shepherds are usually lightly armoured, ready to take action in defence of their people.
They are the most likely to wear mantles that blend them in with the beasts they protect, giving them some camouflage from those watching from afar.

Beastmasters

Beastmasters specialise in the management of dangerous creatures, so that the Urdrevan can move through the territories of predators without constantly fighting to defend themselves. They are experts in applying ingenuity to overcome human disadvantages, evening the odds with poisons and potions, wielding polearms to fight beyond the range of claws and jaws, and of knowing the right tactics to employ. The best beastmasters know how to make an opponent back down through deception and intimidation, and thus kill the fewest creatures.
Beastmasters usually go lightly armoured, since agility is the only defence against the stamp of a thunderfoot or the jaws of a Carnosaur.
Beastmasters are most commonly identifiable by the belts or bandoliers they wear to keep their alchemical supplies close to hand for use in combat.
It is said that Mercenaries leave home to make money, Beastmasters leave home to protect the people, Shepherds stay at home to protect the people, and once someone works out a way to stay at home and make money no one is going to do any of the other jobs.

Starseers

Star Seers are to Urdrevan bands what Navigators are to Portavan ships, utilising the stars to navigate the vast plains and ensuring their bands don’t get lost along the way. Most are weavers, using Earth and Air magic to guide their band, both literally and figuratively using Oracle weavings to divine possible outcomes and interpret omens pertaining to their bands.
A Star Seer must know the folk of their band very well if they are to accurately interpret the signs that come from their divinations, and when the stars are silent on a topic it is this background knowledge that enables them to still give good advice.
Star Seers spend time thinking and divining, sitting still while others may be active around them. They often wear large coats, embroidered or painted with constellations, usually with a motif of the ones they meditate on most.

Craftsworn

The life of an Urdrevan artisan is a hard one, pulled between the demands of nomadic family life and the drive to advance and perfect their craft. Most take up crafting as a useful tool among their life skills, but do not dedicate their lives to becoming the best they can be. Those who choose pursuit of their skill over life with their band are known as “Craftsworn”. They begin their journeys by travelling from band to band seeking new folk they can learn from, most will also spend some time among the settled folk apprenticed to masters in their chosen craft. The very most dedicated will find ways to travel to the Sphere of Forge and bargain for secrets from the living fabrications that inhabit that plane of existence.
The Urdrevan appreciate that all must travel their own path, but still the Craftsworn is considered a lonely figure – more likely to keep company with those who share their consuming obsession than with ‘distractions’ like friends or family…
Craftsworn are typically festooned with the tools and products of their trade, as well as mementos of the many masters they have learned from in the course of their travels.

Woundbinders

Glassware is not the nomad’s friend, so those alchemists and healers among the Urdrevan who favour the creation of concoctions tend to specialise in the use of herbs and other natural materials. Some ingredients can be grown in pots or baskets, thus skirting the Urdrevan rejection of tilling the earth, but a Woundbinder is always on the lookout for where rare reagents can be found growing naturally. These expeditions into the untrodden wilds are the catalyst for many an adventure, and a wounded hero being “chanced upon” by a wandering Woundbinder in their hour of need is a steady trope of Urdrevan storytelling. 
Urdrevan Woundbinders tend to have an eclectic mix of skills as a result of their travels, and may often have considerable experience as veterinarians as well as doctors. They keenly appreciate the benefits of a proactive approach to medicine and problem solving.
Woundbinders will often have images of medicinal plants painted onto their clothes to assist in comparison and instruction, and may carry dried sprigs of useful plants for fragrance or rapid incorporation into poultices and treatments.

Liberators

While the Urdrevan share their animals’ natural revulsion at corporeal undead, they find incorporeal shades and ethereal undead to be truly tragic. The idea of an echo of a person being so traumatised that it is forced to haunt one place, never being able to move on with its journey, seems to the Urdrevan a fate worse than death. There is a tradition of Urdrevan priests, often followers of the Reaper, who make it their life’s mission to lay these unquiet shades to rest. It requires a keen mind, with insight into the ways of the settled folk, and the tenacity to pry for secrets that living are unwilling to divulge. Liberators live a mendicant life, travelling widely with Urdrevan bands when possible and preaching to the throng of regular travellers when they have need of faith to perform banishments.
If there is excavation to be done as part of investigating a haunting then Liberators will usually hire a non-Urdrevan to do the digging, due to their cultural aversion to breaking the earth. On occasions this has led to accusations of grave robbery, often by those who would prefer that the dead and their secrets remain buried, it is a stigma that continues to follow the profession.
As exorcists, Liberators are often festooned with holy charms to protect them from the tormented energies they lay to rest. Equally as sure a sign is the begging bowl many will carry in order to solicit donations for their work.

Deathspeakers

The Urdrevan believe that what is worthy in life lives on in song and story, and that it is the responsibility of the living to commemorate those who have passed by keeping some tale of them alive in the telling. A Deathspeaker is a storyteller who shoulders this burden, a keeper of lore and wisdom as well as a dramatist. When the insight of a particular person is needed a Deathspeaker will invoke their voice and manner through performance, so that the deceased can pass on advice or react to events that have taken place after their passing. Some Deathspeakers make use of Athria to summon and channel the shades of the dead from that cold realm, but just as many use Fable to weave new insight out of wild story-stuff.
Deathspeakers may augment their tales with music, but this is by no means mandatory. Their performances run the gamut of comedy to tragedy, depending strongly on the folk they have known and the stories that they carry, despite their name they are not dour folk by any means.
A Deathspeaker can be recognised by the mask they carry to cover their own features while impersonating the dead. 

Matchmakers

In a nation dispersed across the world, finding someone can be a daunting task. Among the Urdrevan there are folk who specialise in the trading of information and helping people to meet each other. Although “Matchmaker” may have largely amorous connotations in other Nations, among the Urdrevan the role goes beyond arranging meetings of romantic prospects. A Matchmaker will work reuniting separated kin, bringing buyers together with sellers, artists together with patrons, students together with teachers, and people with ideas together with the people able to make them happen.
There is a difference between giving someone directions and cultivating the amount of connections necessary to be a good Matchmaker. Many are prosperous traders or acclaimed bards in their own right, but a Matchmaker defines their true success by the pairings their meetings have made possible.
Matchmakers are known for wearing brightly coloured or otherwise ostentatious clothes, so that they are memorable and easily identifiable to potential clients. Some will go as far as to wear bells in an effort to make themselves more distinctive.  

Rattlers

In these sad days where most Urdrevan have been driven out of the lands of their roaming there are a number of bands who have been unable to keep their Inspirational Beasts alive, whether by loss in combat or being forced out of suitable habitat. It is an occasion of great shame and much mourning for a band to be unable to live with its Inspirational Beasts, and when this happens one or more members may take on the role of a Rattler in response. A Rattler clothes themselves in the bones and relics of the fallen Inspirational Beast, often fashioning weapons and armour from them – particularly if the Beast was slain in battle. Their role is to remind the members of the band of the example the Beast set for how they were to live their lives, to keep the memory of the creatures alive by recounting tales and parables, and to remind people of the oaths they have sworn.
Rattlers can come from many walks of life, but once they have chosen their path they will stick with their band in order to be effective. As a result there are few wandering traders or adventurers who become Rattlers. Should a band reacquire examples of their Inspirational Beast then a Rattler is expected to continue their work until that creature has produced offspring for the band to raise, only then burning their relics and setting down their responsibility.
Not all Urdrevan who wear or wield bones are Rattlers. If a Rattler is performing their role well then identifying them should be no problem at all.