Sensory Tester

Someone has to find out whether the enchanted oil warms pleasantly or sets the curtains on fire.

You worked as a Sensory Tester, evaluating perfumes, oils, fabrics, temperature charms, tactile enchantments, pleasure devices and other products designed to create a particular physical sensation. Your profession combined quality control with extraordinary patience. Texture, pressure, scent, warmth, vibration and magical tingling were not vague impressions to you; they were properties to be observed, compared and documented.

Work with your GM to determine who employed you. Perhaps you served an alchemical workshop, Relicwright, textile house, pleasure artisan, temple or luxury merchant. You may have tested elegant finished goods, dangerous prototypes or products whose advertising promised considerably more than their craftsmanship delivered.

Skill Proficiencies: Arcana, Perception

Tool Proficiencies: Alchemist’s supplies

Languages: One of your choice

Equipment: A set of alchemist’s supplies, small sample tins, a measuring strip, soft testing cloths, a notebook of sensory ratings, a stoppered vial of neutralizing wash, a defective sample you kept as a reminder, a set of common clothes, and a pouch containing 10 gp

Feature: Quality Control

You are practiced at comparing the ordinary sensory properties of crafted objects and preparations. With a brief hands-on examination, you can usually notice obvious inconsistencies in texture, temperature, scent, balance, vibration or finish that suggest poor workmanship, contamination, wear or a mismatch between what an item claims to do and what it actually does.

When magic is involved, you may recognize common outward signs of unstable or poorly integrated enchantment, such as irregular heat, unexpected vibration, inconsistent glow or other visible and tactile clues. This does not identify an unknown magic item or replace an Arcana check.

Artisans, alchemists and specialty merchants recognize quality-control work as a legitimate trade. In settled communities, you can usually locate workshops that test or repair luxury sensory goods and learn which craftspeople have strong or questionable reputations.