There’s a post on Facebook that can take the blame for this one.
telluric-engineering-google-docs
Telluric Engineering
There’s an old joke that when physicists mess up, you can maybe get black holes; when biologists mess up, you maybe get a super-plague; and when geologists mess up, you maybe get a rock falling off of the table. They stopped making that joke when all the Earth elementals woke up, and all of a sudden the penalties for a really bad day at the geology lab could be ‘Whoops, the Ring of Fire just went critical.’ …Not that that’s likely, but then: neither were the black holes or super-plagues.
Still, humans continued to need oil, and water, and coal, and rare earths, and everything else that usually involves mining things. And it turned out that Earth elementals could be reasoned with, bought off, scared away, or sometimes just worked around. If you had the right theories and equipment and mindset, that is.
Below are some of the Skills and Advantages needed for this exciting new field of human endeavor. Note that having at least one level in the Telluric Engineer Talent is more or less required for real proficiency in the field: Charisma does work on sentient Earth elementals, as does open-handed bribery – but the less intelligent elementals only react well to people with Telluric Engineer.
Electronics Operation/TL (Tellurics) [IQ/Average]
Default: IQ-5
This specialization includes the equipment used in both detecting esoteric geological formations/conditions, and communicating with Earth elementals.
Geo-Negotiation [IQ/Hard]
Default: IQ-6
This skill is for propitiating, negotiating with, and generally interacting with Earth elementals. Like Diplomacy, Geo-Negotiating may be used in place of a non-combat reaction roll. Also like Diplomacy, a failed Geo-Negotiating roll will not make things worse. However, Geo-Negotiation does not default to Diplomacy, or vice versa: the mindsets are too dissimilar. On the other hand, Earth elementals are indifferent to most human mental and physical disadvantages.
Also note that this skill is used for both sentient and non-sentient elementals.
Survival (Underground) [Per/Average]
Default: IQ-5
This skill covers looking for water, detecting unsafe passages, avoiding bad air, and how to get back out of the cave. It will only let you find food on a critical success, unless the underground area in question somehow has a flourishing ecology.
Telluric Analysis [IQ/Hard]
Default: IQ-6, Geology-4, Prospecting-5
This skill represents the application of geomantic occultism to geology. Use this skill to look for esoterically-charged mineral deposits, remote dowsing for water and oil, reduce the risk (or mitigate the effects) of earthquakes and volcanoes, and of course detect concentrations of Earth elementals, who are notoriously touchy about having their movements and actions circumscribed.
Terran
Humans can only speak the language of Earth elementals with specialized equipment; but they can always understand both the spoken and written form of it.
Telluric Engineer
Bonuses: Electronics Operation [Tellurics], Geology, Geo-Negotiation, Prospecting, Survival (Underground), Telluric Analysis
Reaction Bonus: all Earth elementals
Cost per level: 5