Skills

## About

A character’s Attributes measure his innate physical, mental and social qualities — how strong he is, how quick he thinks on his feet, and how well he interacts with other people. The different ways in which a character can apply these Attributes are determined by his Skills. A character’s Skills reflect the education and training he’s acquired over the course of his life, and are a reflection of his origins and interests. Skills can be acquired in any number of ways, from institutionalized learning to hard, hands-on experience. A young recruit at the police academy is trained to use a handgun, while a gangbanger learns to shoot as a matter of survival.

Like Attributes, Skills are broken down into three general categories: Mental, Physical and Social. A character’s initial Skills are purchased during character creation and are prioritized in the same manner as Attributes, with 11 points to allocate among primary Skills, seven points to allocate among secondary Skills, and four points to allocate among tertiary Skills. Skill dots can then be increased further using experience points (both at the conclusion of character creation if the Storyteller allows it, and later during play). Or new Skills can be purchased during a chronicle at the player’s discretion.

# Mental Skills

## **Academics**

Academics is a broad-based Skill that represents a character’s degree of higher education and general knowledge in the Arts and Humanities — everything from English to history, economics to law. Dots in this Skill do not directly correlate to a given level of education. Your character could have entered a doctorate program but spent more time partying than studying, resulting in low dots. Conversely, a self-taught individual who read voraciously and studied intensively could have high dots with- out ever earning a diploma.

* **Possessed by:** College graduates, executives, lawyers, librarians, scholars, students
* **Specialties:** Anthropology, Art, English, History, Law, Religion, Research

### ***Roll Results***

* **Dramatic Failure:** Your character fails to remember crucial facts, incorrectly informing his actions. A character with a history background may remember an incorrect set of dates that completely alters his theory on a certain event, or a former art student might incorrectly identify a painting as a worthless copy instead of a priceless original.
* **Failure:** Your character is unable to summon the necessary information. It’s on the tip of his tongue, but the name, date or reference eludes him.
* **Success:** Your character is able to summon the necessary knowledge to serve his needs.
* **Exceptional Success:** Your character recalls or knows especially obscure or detailed facts that give him additional insight into the matter at hand. She not only identifies a particular work of art but recalls that the artist was renowned for his fascination with demons and the occult.

## **Computers**

Characters possessing this Skill have the necessary training or experience to operate a computer. At high levels (3 or more), a character can create his own computer programs. People with high levels in this Skill are familiar with a variety of programming languages and operating systems.

Note: Dots in Computer do not apply to manually fixing or building machines, only to operating them. Construction and repair is the province of the Crafts Skill.

* **Possessed by:** Business people, professors, programmers, students, sys-admins.
* **Specialties:** Artificial Intelligence, Data Retrieval, Graphics, Hacking, Internet

### ***Roll Results***

* **Dramatic Failure:** Your character has caused a system crash, interrupting any work in progress and forcing him to start his efforts from scratch. Data may be lost at the Storyteller’s discretion.

* **Failure:** The task your character attempts to execute does not go off properly or the database query he makes returns no useful information.
* **Success:** Your character’s function executes properly or his queries come back with the correct information.
* **Exceptional Success:** Your character’s program or function executes more quickly and efficiently than expected.

## **Crafts**

Crafts represents a character’s training or experience in creating works of physical art or construction with his hands, from paintings to car engines to classical sculpture. Characters possessing this Skill typically have the knowledge, but not necessarily the tools or facilities to make use of their capabilities. A character might be an exceptional mechanic, for example, but still needs to sweet-talk his boss into opening up the garage after-hours to work on his friend’s car. Crafting a piece of art or creating an object is almost always an extended roll, with the length of time and number of successes required deter- mined by the complexity of the piece. The Storyteller has final say on the time required and the number of successes needed for a particular item.

* **Possessed by:** Contractors, mechanics, plumbers, sculptors, welders
* **Specialties:** Automobiles, Aircraft, Forging, Jury-Rigging, Sculpting, Sewing

### ***Roll Results***

* **Dramatic Failure:** Your character makes a horrible mistake in creating the piece, ruining it in the process. The chisel hits a flaw in the stone, shattering the statue, or he over-tightens the pipe, stripping the threads. He must begin the job from scratch.
* **Failure:** Your character makes no progress in creating the item in question.
* **Success:** Your character makes progress in crafting the piece (apply successes rolled toward the total needed).
* **Exceptional Success:** Your character makes substantial progress in crafting the piece — a sudden burst of inspiration or a breakthrough in fabrication speeds up the process dramatically (apply successes rolled toward the total needed).

## **Investigation**

Investigation is the art and science of solving mysteries, examining seemingly disparate evidence to find a connection, answering riddles and overcoming paradoxes. It not only allows your character to get into the head of a killer to grasp his motives or plans, it allows her to look beyond the mundane world to guess at answers to mysterious problems, or to have a “eureka” moment that offers insight into baffling circumstances. Your character might realize that all murder victims have the same digits jumbled in their phone numbers, she might interpret a dream that has striking similarities to events in the real world, or she could recognize why an intruder took the time to paint a room red. Certain individuals such as law-enforcement officers, forensic specialists, scientists and investigators are trained in the art of examination, while others simply develop the knack through years of practice.

**Note:** that Investigation is different from the perception Attribute task. Perception (Wits + Composure or Wits + another Skill) is typically checked when a character could spot something unusual or amiss when she isn’t actually looking for it. Investigation-based rolls are typically made when a character actively studies a situation. Dots in Investigation don’t give a character sudden insight or capability in the realms of other Skills, however. She can’t miraculously identify changing brushstrokes in a painting, for example. That would be the realm of Academics or Crafts. But she might identify how the placement of paintings throughout a house creates a pattern and imparts a message.

* **Possessed by:** Criminals, doctors, forensic examiners, police officers, scientists, scholars, soldiers
* **Specialties:** Artifacts, Body Language, Crime Scenes, Cryptography, Dreams, Autopsy Diagnoses, Puzzles, Riddles, Scientific Experiments

### ***Roll Results***

* **Dramatic Failure:** Your character studies an individual or situation and draws an incorrect conclusion or focuses on the wrong details.
* **Failure:** Your character fails to notice the details or information for which she searches. It might be right under her nose but she overlooks it.
* **Success:** Your character studies the situation or problem and finds useful details that answer her questions. A single success might be sufficient to solve a simple puzzle, but more successes may be required to gather extensive clues. The Storyteller may offer small insights with each success in an examination, starting with the obvious and ending with the obscure.
* **Exceptional Success:** Your character studies and not only discovers useful details about a person or situation, but notices additional clues that provide more in-depth information. Not only have the murder victims at two separate scenes been killed elsewhere and dumped, they both possess matchbooks from the same bar.

## **Medicine**

The Medicine Skill reflects a character’s training and expertise in human physiology and how to treat injuries and illness. The trait represents knowledge of human anatomy and basic medical treatments. Characters with a low level in this Skill (1 to 2) often possess only rudimentary first-aid training, while characters with high levels (3+) are the equivalent of physicians or surgeons.

* **Possessed by:** Medical students, paramedics, physicians, psychologists, surgeons
* **Specialties:** Emergency Care, Pathology, Pharmaceuticals, Physical Therapy, Surgery

### ***Roll Results***

* **Dramatic Failure:** Your character has made an improper diagnosis of a patient’s condition and his treatment makes the condition worse. The more serious the condition, the greater the harm. Misdiagnosing a cold instead of a virus might only make the sickness last longer, while improperly treating a gunshot wound may result in infection or death.
* **Failure:** Your character’s diagnosis or treatment has no effect on the patient’s condition.
* **Success:** Your character’s diagnosis and treatment improves the patient’s condition.
* **Exceptional Success:** Your character’s treatment and diagnosis is so effective that the patient’s recovery time is decreased.

## **Occult**

The Occult Skill reflects a character’s knowledge and experience with the world’s various legends and lore about the supernatural. A character with this Skill not only knows the theories, myths and legends of the occult, but can generally discern “fact” from rumor. Characters may come by this Skill in a variety of ways, from oddball college courses to learning legends and myths from the lips of superstitious family members.

* **Possessed by:** Anthropologists, authors, neo-pagans, occult scholars, parapsychologists
* **Specialties:** Cultural Beliefs, Ghosts, Magic, Monsters, Superstitions, Witchcraft

### ***Roll Results***

* **Dramatic Failure:** Your character mistakenly identifies an example of occult phenomena or remembers in- correct information that impacts his decisions for the worse. Depending on the situation, this flawed information could be deadly.
* **Failure:** Your character is unable to identify or re- member any useful facts about the situation at hand.
* **Success:** Your character properly identifies or remembers facts about an example of occult phenomena.
* **Exceptional Success:** Your character is able to identify or answer questions about a particular example of occult phenomena in great detail, possibly recalling extra details that enhance his understanding of the broader situation. Not only does he successfully identify the ancient grimoire, he recalls that only one known copy was believed to exist, and it belonged to a famous occult scholar who reportedly committed suicide.

## **Politics**

Characters possessing this Skill are not only familiar with the way the political process works, they’re experienced with bureaucracies and know exactly who to call in a given situation to get something done. Your character keeps track of who’s in power and how she got there, along with her potential rivals. He has a grasp of the issues of the moment and how they affect the political process, and knows whose palms to grease. It’s possible that your character acquired this Skill by running for political office at some point, or by working on a campaign or as a public servant. Or he could simply be someone who follows the news and understands the money trail.

* **Possessed by:** Bureaucrats, civil servants, journalists, lawyers, lobbyists, politicians
* **Specialties:** Bribery, Elections, Federal, Local, State, Scandals

### ***Roll Results***

* **Dramatic Failure:** Your character has seriously misread the current political or bureaucratic climate. At best, he might find his efforts stonewalled by spiteful civil servants. At worst, he might be arrested for attempted bribery or be caught up in a public spectacle.
* **Failure:** Your character makes no headway in his efforts in the political arena. Perhaps he can’t get the right politician to return his calls or a recent shakeup in an office means he has to work harder to find the right “in.”
* **Success:** Your character achieves his objective.
* **Exceptional Success:** Your character not only gains his objective quickly and efficiently, he makes new friends and associates in the bargain, possibly increasing his chances for success in future endeavors.

## **Science**

This Skill represents your character’s understanding of the physical and natural sciences: biology, chemistry, geology, meteorology, physics. Science is useful not only for understanding how the world works, but it helps characters make the most of the resources at hand to achieve their goals. A character with a strong Science background could describe the chemical process for plating metals, for example, allowing another character with Crafts to make a silver-edged steel sword.

* **Possessed by:** Engineers, scientists, students, teachers, technicians
* **Specialties:** Biology, Chemistry, Geology, Metallurgy, Physics

### ***Roll Results***

* **Dramatic Failure:** Your character fails to remember crucial facts, incorrectly informing his actions with potentially explosive results. He mixes an acid into a base instead of a base into an acid, or otherwise causes his efforts to fail spectacularly.
* **Failure:** Your character is unable to summon the necessary information from memory. It’s on the tip of his tongue, but the formula, chemical or equation eludes him.
* **Success:** Your character is able to summon the necessary knowledge to serve his needs.
* **Exceptional Success:** Your character recalls especially obscure or detailed facts that give him additional options or capabilities with the resources at hand.

# Physical Skills

## Athletics

Athletics encompasses a broad category of physical training, from rock climbing to kayaking to professional sports such as football or hockey. The Athletics Skill can be applied to any action that requires prolonged physical exertion or that demands considerable agility or hand- eye coordination. Examples include climbing a high wall, marching long distances and leaping between rooftops. In combat, the Skill is combined with Dexterity to deter- mine the accuracy of thrown weapons.

* **Possessed by:** Professional athletes, police officers, soldiers, survivalists, physical trainers
* **Specialties:** Acrobatics, Climbing, Kayaking, Long- Distance Running, Sprinting, Swimming, Throwing

### ***Roll Results***

* **Dramatic Failure:** The effort not only fails, but your character injures himself. It might be a sprained muscle or ligament, which inflicts a single point of bashing dam- age. Risky efforts such as climbing up the side of a building or swimming a long distance can have severe repercussions. See the rules on falling and holding one’s breath.
* **Failure:** Your character fails to accomplish the at- tempted action. His throw misses the mark. He doesn’t make it to the far rooftop. In the case of an extended physical action such as climbing or long-distance running, he doesn’t lose ground but does not make any headway, either.
* **Success:** Your character accomplishes the action as planned. His throw hits the mark. He gains on the fleeing, shadowy figure. He catches the falling baby.
* **Exceptional Success:** Your character completes the attempted action with greater efficiency or power than anticipated. A masterful feat of balance and agility makes a rock-climbing attempt much swifter and smoother than expected. He catches the falling baby and her loose pacifier.

## **Brawl**

Brawl defines your character’s prowess at unarmed combat, whether he’s a black belt in karate, a hard-bitten street tough or a college student who’s taken a few self- defense courses. Characters with this Skill know how to hit an opponent, where to hit for maximum effect and how to defend themselves from attack. It can mean using fists, but also elbows, knees, shoulders, head butts wrestling, joint locks and choke holds. Characters with a several dots could be familiar with multiple techniques of unarmed combat. Expertise in such techniques is reflected in the Fighting Style Merits, which are based on Brawl.

* **Possessed by:** Bikers, boxers, gangsters, police officers, soldiers
* **Specialties:** Blocking, Boxing, Dirty Tricks, Grappling, Kung Fu, Throws

### ***Roll Results***

* **Dramatic Failure:** Not only does your character fail to hit his opponent, the attack leaves him wide open for a counterblow. Your character’s Defense or Dodge trait does not apply to the next close-combat attack staged against him.
* **Failure:** Your character’s attack misses its target.
* **Success:** Your character scores a hit against his opponent. See Chapter 7 for details on combat and inflicting damage.
* **Exceptional Success:** Your character lands a particularly powerful blow or hits his opponent in a vital area, increasing damage.
* **Suggested Equipment:** Roll of quarters (+1), brass knuckles (+1), sap gloves (+2)
* **Possible Penalties:** Slippery conditions (-1), bad weather (-1 to -3), extremely confined space (-2), intervening obstacles (-1 to -3), drunk (-2)

## Drive

The Drive Skill allows your character to operate a vehicle under difficult or dangerous conditions. Characters don’t need this Skill simply to drive a car. It’s safe to assume in a modern society that most individuals are familiar with automobiles and the rules of the road. Rather, this trait covers the training or experience necessary to operate at high speeds, to tackle hazardous road conditions and to push a vehicle to the limits of its performance. Drive is the difference between a typical suburban parent with a minivan and a police officer, car thief or racecar driver.

The Skill also applies to piloting and controlling boats; your character’s Drive dots are applied equally to handling boats. In order for your character to be able to pilot a plane, he needs a Pilot Specialty in the Skill. With that, efforts to control a plane call for a Drive-based roll, plus one die for your character’s Pilot Specialty. A character with the Drive Skill who does not possess a Pilot Specialty cannot effectively operate a plane. His efforts to fly are based on Attribute alone, at a -1 untrained penalty.

* **Possessed by:** Car thieves, couriers, delivery drivers, emergency responders, police officers, racecar drivers
* **Specialties:** High-Performance Cars, Motorcycles, Off-Road, Pursuit, Shaking Tails, Stunts

### ***Roll Results***

* **Dramatic Failure:** Your character loses control of the vehicle while attempting a maneuver. If traveling at high speed, a crash occurs, wrecking the vehicle and likely injuring its occupants. If the local terrain presents no convenient obstacles (your character drives on an open a high- way or salt flat), the car flips and rolls for some distance until it comes to a stop. If traveling at low speed, the vehicle sideswipes a parked car or tree, or possibly slides off the road and becomes stuck at the Storyteller’s discretion.
* **Failure:** Your character doesn’t complete his intended maneuver. The direction the vehicle travels (if it goes anywhere at all) is determined by the Storyteller rather than by your character.
* **Success:** Your character completes his intended maneuver.
* **Exceptional Success:** Not only does your character complete his intended maneuver, he gains much more ground than expected. Perhaps he swerves around a sharp corner, drops perfectly into a sudden gap in traffic and shoots down the road.

## **Firearms**

Firearms allows your character to identify, operate and maintain most types of guns, from pistols to rifles to military weapons such as submachine guns, assault rifles and machine guns. This Skill can represent the kind of formal training provided to police and the military, or the basic, hands-on experience common to hunters, criminals and gun enthusiasts. Firearms also applies to using bows. Your character can use guns and bows equally.

* **Possessed by:** Policemen, Military Personnel, Survivalists, Hunters
* **Specialties:** Fast-Draw, Gunsmithing, Pistols, Marksmanship, Revolvers, Shotgu

### ***Roll Results***

* **Dramatic Failure:** The weapon malfunctions in some way or your character accidentally hits a different target (possibly himself). The most common type of dramatic failure is a misfire — the bullet simply does not go off when the trigger is pulled, and your character is free to shoot again in the next turn. Other mechanical failures such as a jam can be cleared in the following turn.
* **Failure:** Your character misses his intended target. The Storyteller determines what, if anything, the bullet actually hits.
* **Success:** Your character hits his intended target.
* **Exceptional Success:** Not only does your character hit the target, he strikes a particularly vital area, magnifying the damage as reflected by your stellar roll.

## **Larceny**

Larceny is a broad Skill that covers everything from picking locks to concealing stolen goods and everything in between. Most characters obtain this Skill the hard way, by committing crimes and often paying the price for their mistakes. Some individuals such as government agents and members of the military receive formal training in bypassing security systems and stealing valuable assets.

* **Possessed by:** Burglars, commandos, government agents, private eyes
* **Specialties:** Concealing Stolen Goods, Lockpicking, Pickpocketing, Security Systems, Safecracking

### ***Roll Results***

* **Dramatic Failure:** Not only does your character fail his attempted action, he reveals himself in the process. He might trip an alarm, wake a guard dog or be spotted with his hand in another person’s pocket.
* **Failure:** Your character doesn’t complete his intended action. His attempt at picking a mark’s pocket comes up empty, or the lock he works on refuses to cooperate.
* **Success:** Your character completes his action with- out arousing any notice or suspicion. He pockets the stolen wallet, slips inside the dark building or plucks the diamond from the nest of laser beams without anyone the wiser.
* **Exceptional Success:** Your character not only completes his action, he does so with exceptional speed and grace, saving precious seconds when time is of the essence. A lock pops open with a simple flick of the wrist, or a security system goes offline with a few quick strokes on the keypad.

## **Stealth**

The Stealth Skill represents a character’s experience or training in avoiding notice, whether by moving silently, making use of cover or blending into a crowd. When attempting to sneak silently through an area or to use the local terrain as concealment, roll [Dexterity + Stealth] . When trying to remain unseen in a crowd, [Wits + Stealth] is appropriate. The Storyteller may make Stealth rolls secretly on your behalf, since your character usually has no way of knowing he’s been noticed until it’s too late. If your character attempts to avoid notice by a group of alert observers, a contested roll versus the observers’ [Wits + Composure] is required.

* **Possessed by:** Criminals, hunters, police officers, private investigators
* **Specialties:** Camouflage, Crowds, Moving in Darkness, Moving in Woods

### ***Roll Results***

* **Dramatic Failure:** Your character not only fails to move stealthily, he does something to actively draw attention to himself. He steps on a branch or a broken bottle, or jostles someone in a crowd who protests loudly and angrily.
* **Failure:** Your character fails to move or act in a stealthy fashion. If potential observers get at least one success on a Wits + Composure roll, your character is busted.
* **Success:** Your character avoids notice if his successes exceed his opponents’.
* **Exceptional Success:** Your character, through a combination of luck and talent, finds just the right circumstances to act virtually without being noticed for the turn. Say, the sudden noisy passage of a truck allows him to dash across an open courtyard under the noses of other- wise alert guards.

## **Survival**

Survival represents your character’s experience or training in “living off the land.” He knows where to find food and shelter, and how to endure harsh environmental conditions. The more capable your character is, the fewer resources he needs in order to prevail. A master survivalist can walk into a forest, desert or mountainous region with little more than a pocketknife and the clothes on his back and survive for weeks if necessary.

Note that Survival is not synonymous with Animal Ken. The former helps your character stay alive in the wilderness, living off the land with whatever sup- plies he has brought with him. The latter involves under- standing animal behavior and interacting directly with animals. Your character could be knowledgeable in creating shelter and gathering plants to eat (Survival), but might know nothing about anticipating the actions of a bear in his camp (Animal Ken).

* **Possessed by:** Explorers, hunters, soldiers, survivalists
* **Specialties:** Foraging, Navigation, Meteorology, Shelter

### ***Roll Results***

* **Dramatic Failure:** Your character has made a false set of assumptions about his environment that puts him in danger. The berries he picks are actually poisonous, the water is full of bacteria or the shelter he pitches is in a dry streambed.
* **Failure:** Your character fails to find the proper resources to fulfill his needs. All the available firewood is wet and the trout line he strings doesn’t catch anything.
* **Success:** Your character finds enough resources to fulfill his needs for the day.
* **Exceptional Success:** Your character man- ages to find enough resources to fulfill his needs so long as he wishes to stay in the area. Perhaps he finds a stream of clear water stocked with trout or happens on a hunter’s cabin with a supply of canned goods.

## **Weaponry**

A blade is often worth far more, as is the skill to use it properly. Melee covers your ability to use hand-to-hand weapons of all forms, from swords and clubs to esoteric martial-arts paraphernalia such as sai or nunchaku. And, of course, there is always the utility of the wooden stake…

* **Possessed by:** Assassins, Gang Members, Martial Artists, Police, Duelists
* **Specialties:** Knives, Swords, Improvised Weaponry Riposte, Disarms

***Roll Results***

* **Dramatic Failure:** You leave yourself completely open for the following turn. It is also possible that in some way or your character accidentally hits a different target (possibly himself). The most common type of dramatic failure is a losing defense and getting knocked down.
* **Failure:** Your character misses his intended target. The Storyteller determines what, if anything, the weapon actually hits.
* **Success:** Your character hits his intended target.
* **Exceptional Success:** Not only does your character hit the target, he strikes a particularly vital area, magnifying the damage as reflected by your stellar roll.

# Social Skills

## Animal Ken

Anticipating and understanding human emotions is one thing, but being able to interpret and recognize the behavior of animals is something else entirely. Your character intuitively grasps or has been trained to read animals to know how they react to situations. The Skill also involves innately understanding how the animal mind operates, and what may appease or enrage beasts. The knack often coincides with a respect for animals, but it could derive from the analytical observation of a lab scientist or from years of abuse inflicted by a callous animal handler.

Animal Ken could be applied to grasp the thoughts or intentions of supernatural animals, if the Storyteller allows. Sometimes these beings have human or greater intelligence and cannot be read by this Skill alone.

* **Possessed by:** Animal rescue workers, hunters, longtime pet owners, park rangers, ranchers, trainers, veterinarians
* **Specialties:** Animal Needs, Imminent Attack, Specific Kind of Animal, Training

### ***Roll Results***

* **Dramatic Failure:** Your character completely misreads an animal’s state, possibly with disastrous results. He may, for example, interpret furiously energetic behavior as playfulness rather than as a warning.
* **Failure:** Your character is unable to gauge the animal’s true state.
* **Success:** Your character has a good read on the animal’s true emotional state.
* **Exceptional Success:** Your character notes enough tell tale clues in the animal’s behavior to gain a detailed understanding of its state. Not only might he recognize that the animal is anxious, but that its offspring are nearby.

## **Empathy**

This Skill represents your character’s intuition for reading people’s emotions. For some, it’s a matter of observing body language and non-verbal cues. Others employ an extraordinary sense that helps them divine a person’s true mood. As the name implies, Empathy also involves the capacity to understand other people’s views and perspectives, whether your character agrees with those positions or not. This is useful in everything from negotiations and crisis counseling to reading faces in a crowd and looking for potential trouble. If a subject actively conceals his emotions or motives, make a contested roll versus the person’s Wits + Subterfuge + equipment.

* **Possessed by:** Counselors, diplomats, entertainers, profilers, psychiatrists, police officers
* **Specialties:** Emotion, Lies, Motives, Personalities

### ***Roll Results***

* **Dramatic Failure:** Your character completely misreads a person’s emotional state, possibly with disastrous results. He may, for example, interpret nervous laughter as genuine, missing the anxiety and potential for violence that clumsy jokes attempt to hide.
* **Failure:** Your character is unable to gauge a subject’s true emotional state.
* **Success:** Your character has a good read on a person’s true emotional state, regardless of whatever front the subject puts up.
* **Exceptional Success:** Your character notes enough tell tale clues in a subject’s behavior to gain a detailed understanding of her emotional state. Not only can he discern, say, that she is being deceptive, but he can tell from her body language that she is afraid of whoever is in the store across the street.

## **Expression**

Expression reflects your character’s training or experience in the art of communication, both to entertain and inform. This Skill covers both the written and spoken word and other forms of entertainment, from journalism to poetry, creative writing to acting, music to dance. Characters can use it to compose written works or to put the right words together at the spur of the moment to deliver a rousing speech or a memorable toast. Used well, Expression can sway others’ opinions or even hold an audience captive.

When composing a poem or writing a novel, roll Wits or Intelligence (depending on whether the work is poetic or factual) + Expression. When reciting to an audience, roll [Presence + Expression]. Playing an instrument involves [Intelligence + Expression] for a known piece, and Wits + Expression for an improvised one. Dance calls for [Dexterity + Expression].

* **Possessed by:** Actors, ballet dancers, journalists, musicians, poets, rock stars, writers
* **Specialties:** Classical Dance, Drama, Exposés, Musical Instrument, Newspaper Articles, Speeches

### ***Roll Results***

* **Dramatic Failure:** Your character’s performance is muddled and confusing. It not only fails to communicate his ideas, but it’s unbearable. If she’s lucky, the fiasco is forgotten quickly. If not, she is the butt of critics’ jokes for some time to come.
* **Failure:** Your character’s performance fails to capture the audience’s interest or attention.
* **Success:** Your character’s performance gets its point across in the manner intended, capturing the audience’s interest.
* **Exceptional Success:** The performance enthralls the audience to the extent that members can think of (or notice) nothing else.
* **Suggested Equipment:** Haute couture (+1), quality musical instrument (+2), supreme-quality musical instrument — a Stradivarius violin (+4 or +5)
* **Possible Penalties:** Unfamiliar audience (-1 to -3), poorly made instrument (-1), foreign audience (-1), irritated audience (-3)

## **Intimidation**

Intimidation is the art and technique of persuading others through the use of fear. Your character can intimidate someone with a show of brute force [Strength + Intimidation], through subtler means such as verbal threats [Manipulation + Intimidation], or simply through menacing body language [Presence + Intimidation]. It can be used to get other people to cooperate (even against their better judgment), back down from a confrontation, or reveal information that they’d rather not share.

* **Possessed by:** Bodyguards, bouncers, gangsters, executives, police officers, soldiers
* **Specialties:** Bluster, Physical Threats, Stare-Downs, Torture, Veiled Threats

### ***Roll Results***

* **Dramatic Failure:** Not only does your character fail to intimidate his intended victim, he invites retaliation. His heavy-handed treatment pushes the victim over the edge and touches off a heated confrontation, or the intimidating gesture backfires dramatically, making your character look ridiculous.
* **Failure:** The victim isn’t impressed and does not co- operate.
* **Success:** Your character overpowers his victim with threats and compels cooperation for the moment.
* **Exceptional Success:** Your character thoroughly awes his victim, asserting himself as the dominant personality for some time. The victim is certain to cooperate in future encounters, if your character can ever find him again.

## **Persuasion**

Persuasion is the art of inspiring or changing minds through logic, charm or sheer, glib fast-talking. Though it can be taught to varying degrees of success, most characters with the Skill possess a natural talent and have honed it over years through trial and error, practicing their delivery until it rolls effortlessly off the tongue. Persuasion is the Skill of convincing others by force of personality alone, making one’s point through carefully chosen words, body language and emotion.

* **Possessed by:** Con artists, executives, generals, lawyers, politicians, salesmen, sexual predators
* **Specialties:** Fast-Talking, Inspiring Troops, Motivational Speeches, Sales Pitches, Seduction

### ***Roll Results***

* **Dramatic Failure:** Your character not only fails to persuade someone, she actively inspires a negative opinion in her subject. Not only does she fail to sell the car, for example, the customer is encouraged to shop elsewhere.
* **Failure:** Your character does not convince her subject.
* **Success:** Your character convinces the subject to accept her assertions.
* **Exceptional Success:** Your character convinces the subject completely, to the extent that the target trusts your character’s opinion implicitly and accepts further assertions on faith. Not only is the customer eager to buy the car, he trusts your character to fill out the terms of the contract and signs without reading them.

## **Socialize**

Socialize reflects your character’s ability to interact with others in a variety of situations, from talking people up at bars to comporting himself with dignity at state dinners. This Skill represents equal parts gregariousness, sensitivity, etiquette and custom. Knowing how to make friends is no less important than understanding how to treat guests in formal situations. Characters with low dots might be naturally entertaining or approachable, but un-schooled in the finer arts of social interaction. Or they could be punctilious with their manners but difficult to approach. Conversely, characters with high dots could have the social graces of a practiced diplomat or raconteur, knowing just what to say and when to say it in any given situation.

* **Possessed by:** Diplomats, entertainers, executives, politicians, salesmen
* **Specialties:** Bar Hopping, Dress Balls, Formal Events, Frat Parties, State Dinners

### ***Roll Results***

* **Dramatic Failure:** Your character embarrasses himself in such a way that others avoid him if possible or treat him with contempt. All further Social rolls made in the scene fail outright.
* **Failure:** Your character doesn’t succeed in winning friends, but he doesn’t embarrass himself, either.
* **Success:** Your character blends effortlessly with the crowd and is accepted by his immediate companions.
* **Exceptional Success:** Your character owns the room. Not only does he win over immediate acquaintances, he’s the life of the party, the person everyone wants to meet.

## **Streetwise**

Characters possessing this Skill know how life on the streets works and are adept at surviving by its harsh rules.

Streetwise characters can gather information, make contacts, buy and sell on the black market, and otherwise make use of the street’s unique resources. The Skill is also important for navigating urban dangers, avoiding the law, and staying on the right side of the wrong people.

* **Possessed by:** Criminals, gangsters, homeless people, private investigators, police officers
* **Specialties:** Black Market, Gangs, Rumors, Under- cover Operations

### ***Roll Results***

* **Dramatic Failure:** Your character completely misreads the situation, committing an error that could have fatal consequences. He might try to sell guns to an undercover cop, he convinces a real gun dealer that he’s a cop, or he flashes the wrong sign to the gangbangers on the corner.
* **Failure:** Your character has no luck hooking up with any of his street associates, or of convincing the locals that he’s legit.
* **Success:** Your character hooks up with someone who can provide what he needs.
* **Exceptional Success:** Not only does your character find someone who can help him, that person turns up at just the right time to provide something quick and cheap.

## **Subterfuge**

Subterfuge is the art of deception. Characters possessing this Skill know how to lie convincingly, and they recognize when they’re being lied to. Subterfuge is used when telling a convincing falsehood, hiding one’s emotions or reactions, or trying to pick up on the same in others. The Skill is most often used to trick other people, but characters also learn it to avoid being tricked them- selves.

* **Possessed by:** Actors, con artists, grifters, lawyers, politicians, teenagers
* **Specialties:** Con Jobs, Hiding Emotions, Lying, Misdirection, Spotting Lies

### ***Roll Results***

* **Dramatic Failure:** Your character utterly fails to conceal the truth from his subject. If he were any more transparent he’d be a window. No further Subterfuge efforts can work on that subject for the remainder of the scene.
* **Failure:** Your character’s deception fails to convince his subject. If the Storyteller agrees, he can still try to lie his way out of the situation through successive attempts.
* **Success:** Your character pulls off the deception with- out a hitch.
* **Exceptional Success:** Not only does your character pull the wool over his subject’s eyes, he wins the victim’s trust and esteem.