Editing Arcane Background (section)

===Huckster===
One of the two most famous Arcane Backgrounds in Deadlands Classic, the Huckster is the Deadlands [[Wizard]] (although flavorwise it's closer to a [[Warlock]]). Using magical lore developed by Hoyle - as in, the author of Hoyle's Book of Games, which in this universe contain his coded notes of his studies - the Huckster works wonders by opening their soul to the Hunting Ground and offering a game of chance to the nearest manitou, luring them in and trying to wrangle them into providing the juice to create a magical effect. This isn't without its risk; whilst a manitou with the higher hand (represented by failing to get the hand needed to cast your spell) will just laugh and give you the finger before buggering off, causing your spell to fail, going bust or drawing the Black Joker lets a manitou take a chunk out of your huckster's hide, resulting in the phenomena called Backlash.

To make it easier on themselves, hucksters visualize what they're doing as a poker game - technically, any game of chance will do, but poker is the iconic version, and the game works assuming that's what a huckster does. As such, when a huckster casts a spell, a fan of cards appears in their dominant hand, and they have to look at the draw in order to make the spell go off; this is why most hucksters cultivate an appearance as professional gamblers, as that way they can use their mundane playing cards to try and obfuscate what's happening. People don't like witches and warlocks in the world of Deadlands.

Huckster magic is predominantly utilitarian in nature; there are some offensive spells, such as the beloved Soul Blast, but mostly it adds a lot of versatility to what the huckster can do. They're even capable of magical healing.

Mechanically, a huckster needs both 1 level in Academia: Occult (representing the studying of magic they did in order to figure out the secrets of the huckster) and at least one level in the Aptitude of Hexslingin' before they can take Arcane Background: Huckster. As Hexslingin' is their skill to actually try and cast hexes, they need to get this good and high.

Hucksters have their own sourcebook, "Hucksters and Hexes", which expands drastically upon their lore and their available hexes. It also adds the concept of "Tricks", the huckster equivalent to cantrips; small spells that are easy to pull off. Unless you accidentally grab a bigger manitou than you expected. "Hexarcana" adds even more new spells, especially those favored by the rare Metal Mages - Huckster Mad Scientists.