Skills

Skills are practiced abilities that a character has that are above and beyond common knowledge. These represent things that a character has learned throughout their life. Skills are what differentiates characters of the same stats; even though they may be physically or mentally similar, they would have had different backgrounds, and thus learned different skills.

Skills are applied with your character's stats to try to reach a Difficulty Class or DC. Which skills can be used are limited by the situation and what your character is doing.

Skills are ranked from 1 to 5, with 1 being a hobbyist (someone who as taken an interest or practiced this thing more than average) and 5 being a master of this skill (someone of world class notoriety on that subject). Skills are usually very specific, but as they increase in rank can be applied more generally. Someone with a single rank in "throwing stars" would only be able to apply their skill bonus to throwing stars specifically, while a rank 5 master of throwing stars may be able to apply this skill to almost any thrown weapon, or even just skipping rocks.

The player can take skills from those listed below ( or on the racial pages) for their character, or create their own. When creating a skill keep the following in mind :

### What a Skill IS

#### A skill should be something learned over the course of the characters life.

This should be something the character has practice at or an interest in. "Urban Survival" is a good skill because it was learned over the course of a lifetime. "Knowledge of the Greentree pub", is not a good skill because it can be learned in a conversation or exploration, not over a lifetime.

#### A skill should be knowledge above and beyond the average person.

This should be something that the character has explored or practiced often enough that the average person simply wouldn't have as much information or practice as the character. A professional Baker might have a skill in "Baking", but someone cooking bread out on a camp trail probably would not.

#### A skill should connect to a character's background.

When making a skill the player should ask "Why does the character know this?" The answer should be something from the character's past. Perhaps a character has "Stability" because they spent most of their life on a ship, leaning not to get rolled by waves. Perhaps a character has "Alcohol Tolerance" because they've drank from a young age.

### What a Skill ISN'T

#### A skill should not be something innate.

Skills like "Tough", "Charming" or "Quick Thinker" are innate traits, not learned ones, and are better covered by the characters stats.(Body-Resist, Social-Power, and Mental-Finesse, respectively)

#### A skill should not be too broad.

A skill like ,"Guns", "Lore" or "Deception" is too broad. Narrow the focus and remember that as your character levels up the skill will apply more broadly. "Guns" could become "Conventional Pistols", "Lore" may work better as "Astaran History", and "Deception" could be narrowed down to "Cambrian politics"

Skills are listed on the character sheet, and are ranked from one to five, each rank costing Skill points equal to the new rank. For example, a rank 1 skill will cost one point, but moving it to rank 2 will cost two points. A player must purchase all ranks up to their current rank. Thus a rank 2 skill costs a total of three points (one for rank 1 plus two for rank 2).

If a skill is given for free as part of character creation (for example the one rank in skinwalking for Haidani), you do not have to pay for it with Skill Points, but you do have to pay full price for additional levels (For example, you have a free rank in "Arctic fox Skinwalking". To add an additional rank you must put in two points, to reach rank 2.)

When a character is created they must spend all of their mental points on skills.

#### Examples of skills:

Tracking, Tailing, Stitching, Weaving, Cooking, Carpentry, Meteorology, Rigging, Piloting, Navigation, Mechanics, Stability, Horsemanship, Baking, Haggling, (location)Politics, Hand to hand combat, Alcohol Tolerance, Oldmantium energistics, NewTech Engineering, Trickshots, (culture)Diplomacy, (sense)Perception, Occult Knowledge, Fencing, Longswords, Shortswords, Daggers, Small firearms, Rifles, NewTech firearms, Newtech heavy weaponry, Cannoneering, Contortionist, Second-story work, Genealogy, Spirit healing, Herbalism, (animal) Skinwalking, Nialli spirit calls Nialli Short spear, Nialli climbing axe, Alchemy.