Lore

Lore represents your occult knowledge. Looking at the world at large, most people don’t have this skill or even know it exists. But for those who’ve studied the *real* teachings of the occult, Lore allows them to gain useful insight into the arcane elements of the mortal world. With a high Lore skill, you can pick up on mystical happenings that are nigh invisible to others, know and discover magical particulars when it comes to assembling the materials for spellcraft, and (in some cases) even perform basic rituals— given the right text. Mystics, monsters, and wizards have high Lore skills. Lore is one of the three cornerstone skills for effective spellcasting, along with **Conviction**  and **Discipline**.

### ***Arcane Research***

*Above all, Lore is the skill used to research things related to arcane and occult principles. If you’re looking for the right way to fight a monster, the recipe for a potion, or a new protective incantation, Lore’s the skill to roll. Other than the subject matter, Lore behaves exactly like the **Scholarship** skill when it comes to the functions and methods of research, allowing most of Scholarship’s trappings to be used, with the focus changed to arcane and occult matters. When a library is needed, it must be rated for providing rare occult texts. Such libraries are few and far between, and thus true practitioners often must contact the spirit world for the needed information, be it in the form of a bound spirit, a demonic summoning, or some other ritual.*

### ***Common Ritual***

*Anyone who can light a match can use it to set off a stick of dynamite—whether or not they can do it safely is another matter entirely. The same is true of the practice of “common” rituals— sometimes all you need is the untrained use of Lore plus a rare, arcane ritual text to contact and interact with mystic and dark powers from beyond.*

*Common rituals that actually work are very rare. Most common rituals have been rendered powerless thanks to their distribution to the public. (Think of it this way: each common ritual out there represents a conduit to a specific supernatural power, but that entity has only a fixed amount of power it can send down that particular channel. The more people that are aware of a ritual, the more they pull power from that channel. Get too many trying to tap into the same power source, and soon there isn’t enough left for any person to grab power of any consequence. Thus, one of the White Council’s most effective ways to rob common rituals of their power is through wide publication and distribution in various “new age” texts and other books of the type.)*

*When given an actual, usable common ritual, Lore is the skill of lighting the wick on the dynamite of that supernatural entity’s power. But unlike a stick of dynamite, that entity is a thinking being, usually with thousands of years of experience in outsmarting humans like you who come knocking and asking for power. More often than not, a common ritual blows up in your face.*

### ***Mystic Perception***

*Exposure to arcane lore leads to a heightened awareness of the supernatural. In certain circumstances, you can substitute Lore for **Alertness** to pick up on supernatural details about a scene. These details should be extremely vague, limited to statements such as “You’re getting a bad feeling about this” or “Something about this place is just…wrong.” Used this way, Lore is more an indicator that there’s something weird happening rather than a lens through which to see the weird.*