Unlike their peers in many other milieus, the adventuring-classes in Cothon-Gadeed have professional backgrounds to fall back upon, if they have time to cool their heels in-city, or if their adventuring lives don't pan out in spectacular glory and riches (per Creating a Character, third entry).
In lieu of other downtime activities, a character may elect to pursue their own profession for a week of downtime either to 1) earn income, or to 2) earn experience.
Earning Income
Each profession is listed as one of three broad classes, Plebeian, Skilled, or Noble. When electing to pursue one's profession to earn income for any given week, a character will roll 2d6 and cross reference the result with their class of profession on the following table to ascertain their earnings for the week:
The mean income is based on an average weekly income derived from Professor Barker's Empire of the Petal Throne (from which also come the classes of professional skills). A straight 2d6 roll is justified as merely the vagaries of the market; other factors must be applied by the referee per 3) below.
It should be the case that about 50% of freshly generated characters have Plebeian skills, and are unable to make much gold according to this system. Indeed! it is unfortunate to be born into such a class!
Three observations follow: 1) this is a game of adventure--go acquire your wealth!; 2) it is possible for characters interested in advancing their station through education to pursue education in "higher" skills in some form of downtime by seeking a "master" to learn from; 3) special patrons, certain guilds, particular festivals, and a variety of other factors may offer opportunities for increased income, depending on circumstances ...
Earning Experience
A character can never advance in level by earning experience in this way; all experience excess to any level that would have been gained is lost, i.e. a first level fighter cannot advance beyond 1999 xp via this downtime.
Whereas it is rather straightforward that a sailmaker should make a small wage making or repairing sails, or that an alchemist might earn some coin grinding ingredients in the mortar for a master alchemist without any fuss, the earning of experience is another matter.
Experience is something sought after, mulled over, tested by hand and by brain; be it the words of an expensive manual or fechtbuch, or the advice of a living master, or merely constant repetition for the sake of getting something right, experience is earned by sacrifice, rather than merely plying one's trade. And its gain is not guaranteed!
Per Ben L.'s downtime posts (and Vincent and Meguey Baker, of Apocalypse World, whom he's quoting), "If you want to do the move, do it,"--that is, if your character is to earn experience through pursuing their profession, describe what they are doing that is worthy of experience, and then spend up to 100 gp per level.
Is an alchemist researching in the library for alchemical formulae? Is the fisherman seeking further shoals, or learning how to wrangle fish into his panga with a mere line, rather than rod and reel (and thus better learning to feel the way the fish tugs and fights ...)? With whom is the interpreter speaking to get a better gist of the language--or is she buying rosetta-stones from the Souk?
The action thus described (and a sentence passed to the referee can certainly suffice--just something to justify the fiction), the player will roll 2d6, plus any relevant modifiers as ajudged by the referee:
Not all complications are bad; sometimes a novel situation is just what one needs to advance further in experience; sometimes a complication can open new doors or avenues, even if it doesn't result in honing your skills or earning further experience.
If a complication is indicated, roll a d20 on this table (much of it is abstract at the moment; I may well fiddle with it in the future):
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