One of my charachters expressed an interest in playing a sort of tinkerer jack-of-all-trades type, with stronger technical skills than the cleric or scum, but not hardcore technology-oriented like the tech-priest. I promised him I'd work something out.

So I present for your gratification: The tinkerer (I hate the name, if you can think of a better one, please tell me). Use it like the alternate career ranks in the IJ, of course. Scum of any rank can take it, as can clerics or guardsmen of 3rd rank or higher. Thoughts, criticisms, suggestions, are welcome.

Skills / Traits/Talents

Drive (Ground Vehicle)---------------------------------100

Evaluate----------------------------------------------------100

Navigation (Surface)------------------------------------100

Trade (Any one)*-----------------------------------------100

Unremarkable-------------------------------------------100

Foresight---------------------------------------------------200

Logic--------------------------------------------------------200

Pilot (Civillian Craft)-------------------------------------200

Demolition-------------------------------------------------200

Common Lore (Tech)----------------------------------200

Talented (Any one)-------------------------------------300

Tech-use---------------------------------------------------400

I was really up-in-the-air about including tech-use, because the idea is that he picks up most of these skills just by experimenting and playing around with stuff, but tech-use is really very useful (and my group doesn't have a tech-priest), so I included it, albeit at a high price. I think the rest of the skills are pretty fitting though.

There's an existing rank substitution for scum, takable as your first rank, called the Reclaimator. They're essentially (barely) sanctionedtech-adepts who salvage material from old and ruined machines, scavenge parts and make minor repairs. They run the risk of being deemed a heretek if they syphon off materials for their own use or start teaching themselves machine lore beyond what they are sanctioned to know. Some notable skills they gain access to are;

-Drive (Ground Vehicle)

-Evaluate

-Search

-Trade (Technomat) and +10

-Barter +10

-Common Lore (Tech)

-Common Lore (Machine Cult)

-Scholastic Lore (Chymistry)

-Tech Use and +10

Some of these are quite pricey (a few are 300xp a pop), and you need to be from a Forge World, Hive World of Void Born background with Int 30+ to qualify. But it does pretty much what you're aiming for.

Gah! Not sure how I missed that...