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I love Tully and Saoirse and I've just started design a tattoo. The syntax was wonky to learn for the designing, but seems to be understandable as I keep poking it.

759 seems like an awkward number, can you give toes 1 more weight for a nice round 760?

Also are elemental runes affected by the damagebuff tattoo?

Might mean something Numerology related. (Trying to get the Serenwilde architect to build the bench right now...)

Question, these "organizational tattoos," are these for all guild leaders, or just monk guild leaders?

Naturally this is released alongside a lesson sale.

And this is probably the most character-inappropriate trade Daraius could possibly learn, but how else will Hallifaxians get their tattoos?

I just want to know how hard it's gonna be to get a furred race tattooed. Ye gotta save them all down bare to do it!

I figure that for 100 weight, those tattoos that affect being moved around on one elemental plane should have a greater than 5% chance of working; more like 50% (the artifact is 100%). 400 weight to get 50% resistance on all four planes is a pretty hefty sum, but it'd be more worthwhile than 5%.

Sounds like organizations can purchase guild-only tattoos, to ink on their members...

I would, more importantly, ask whether this means that Gaudiguch and Hallifax will be getting monks and bards soon. Not that I expect an answer, but a guy can hope.

Does this mean those of us who already had tattoos will need to de-tat themselves..?

I don't think you have to remove tattoos that you received previously. It seems this kind of tattooing is not only getting the tattoo but also having it empowered with ka energies.

Do tattoos show up in your description, if the bodypart is uncovered?

I've thought about it, and raised some preliminary objections in a couple of clans, and then thought about it some more, and decided to just write down what I think and see what you guys make of it.

What I've learnt from people in the know for designs is that, right now, a tattoo design includes the power it provides. These are the available powers:

DamageAbsorption (9 different types)
IllusionPerception
DamageBuff (9 different types)
DivineTattoo
Charisma (5 different types)
Interference
ElementalTattoo (4 different types)
EnchantedTattoo
PowerTattoo

That's a total of 32 DIFFERENT powers, along with the following:

OrganizationTattoo (1 for each org)

And then there's the available bodyparts:

Fingers
Toes
Neck
Face
Wrists
Ankles
Hands
Feet
Arms
Legs
Waist
Gut
Back
Chest

For a total of 14 different bodyparts, each with differing amount of tattoos they can hold. Minimum being 2 weighted, maximum being 200 weighted.

As I understand it, however, designs must be specified with not only which BODYPART they will be inked on, but also only ONE POWER. There are several problems I see with this:

Power customisation:
Such an intricate skillset, 14 different bodyparts, up to 759 points to spread over 32 (33?) different powers, with each power able to be customised to how strong/effective the user wants it to be by the points assigned to it. All of this customisation... but we have to specify the power that is imbued, effectively takign the control of all this power customisation away from the end-user unless they request a set of designs for themselves, personally.

Time taken for full customisation:
Which is fine, really, except that with 14 bodyparts, you're going to need a minimum of 14 designs to get a full set, and cartels get 6 designs (3public, 3private?) per IG year. Also note that with back and chest capable of 200 weight, that means they are capable of holding 2 tattoos, which means a total of 16 designs for one person. This will take... slightly over 5 IG years (60 rl days, 2 rl months) to get a full customised set of designs, if you only use private slots from a single cartel, assuming that cartel is willing to dedicate all their private slots to you for 5 years. Compare this to a splendour suit (not robes), which will need 2 designs for a full-body customisation.

Switching customisation:
And then after a few fights, you decide that the customisation you came up with isn't optimal for your fighting style. Whoo, you want to switch up some weights. Not only have you got to spend the time to rub all the tattoos off (taking power again) you get to redesign certain parts of your getup. And best still, your old designs will probably never see the light of day again.

Bodypart limitations:
Let's say you make a generalised FLAMING PHEONIX tattoo with 25 weight for fire absorption dmp and design it for the back. From now until the end of time, you can only ever ink it on that body part. You can't choose to have it on your back AND your arms, for a total of 50 weight, because it can only go on the back. Also, if you ever want a FLAMING PHEONIX tattoo for your arms, you'll have to spend another slot for another seperate design.

Rarely used bodyparts/designs:
And finally, you will rarely see toe designs because they are only 2 weight. There's no point in them unless you combine them with another tattoo. You will never see an epic, 200-weight, full back/chest tattoo. Because it is a waste of weights if most powers are capped at 100 weight for their full effect and you have to specify what power goes into the tattoo at design phase.

My suggestions:

Divorce power imbuing from designing. Use a system like tailoring proofings. You design a tattoo, and take the comms. You ink it, and take the time. Then you enter one command, and imbue it with whatever power you choose, and take the power. So, I can design a 200 weight HUGE AWESOME SCORPION tattoo for the back, and ink it on every single Nekotai, so we all look badass. Then a tattooist can waltz along, and say, "So, you want 50 fire/cold/lightning/psychic on your tattoo? Okay. You want 100 fire/cold on yours? Okay. You want 1 fire/cold/lightning/psychic and leave the other 196 points empty? Okay."

Then when you want to switch it up, you have to rub off the entire tattoo and re-ink it to re-imbue.

Divorce bodypart specification from designing. Make it so that you only have to specify the weight (size) of the tattoo. So I can design a 25 weight middle-finger tattoo and allow it to be inked 8 times on the back, or 2 times on the gut. Or both.

Edit: Alternatively, divorce tattoo weight from designing. Make it so each bodypart only holds 1 tattoo, but is automatically the full weight (or make certain maximum tattoo numbers for certin bodyparts: back tattoo designs are all 50 weight each, so a back can have 4 different designs, etc). Of course, this will only work with the above suggestion of divorcing imbuing powers from designing, so that you can customise what power goes where, with what amount of weight.

Edits: added some points, fixed some numbers, organised the problem rundown.

I'm just glad they aren't like the other IRE tattoos.

From the help file:

TATTOOS FAVOUR
TATTOOS UNFAVOUR
You may also favour one of your tattoos, which means that one tattoo (so long as it is not
covered by clothing) will be visible on a brief examination of yourself.

EXAMINE TATTOOS

Anyone can examine another's visible tattoos (i.e., not covered by clothing), and further examine
the details of a specific visible tattoo on that person.

I disagree.

Who could be better for making sure the needle is clean?

That does raise a more serious question for me. Would a Hallifaxian monk have to join or own a private cartel in order to learn tattoos?

In order to get access to designs, probably.

In order to learn it... you would need to join a Monk guild I imagine, since it's a Monk only tradeskill (unless they just flagged it to whether or not the person has Kata). Usually SKILLCHOICE SELECT requires being in the guild when it is a guild specific tradeskill however...

Have been doing some more thinking, and I realised I have an additional question. Tattoos are permanent, are they not? This makes tattooing a one-shot trade that doesn't have any re-profit from the same customer unless they want to change the tattoos they wear, right?

I personally don't mind having permanent stuff myself, because dang, having to maintain robes have always been a pain for me, but that DOES take away from this as a trade skill, a little, I think. Ultimately, I don't mind either way, but what are some options for tattoo maintainence if there are any? Time based as usual?