What Skills Are
Skills represent a character’s ability to perform certain tasks.
Each Skill encompasses a wide area of activities related to the Skill title.
Characters’ Skills are rated by Levels from 0 (no training) to 6 (legendary training).
| Skill Level | Proficiency |
| 0 | Untrained |
| 1 | Novice |
| 2 | Apprentice |
| 3 | Journeyman |
| 4 | Master |
| 5 | Grand Master |
| 6 | Arch Master |
The higher a character’s Skill Level the more dice that character gets to roll.
How Skills Are Used
The most basic, everyday activities don’t require Skill rolls.
For example, your character can dress or undress himself or herself, fetch clean water from a well, cook a simple meal, and perform unskilled labor (like digging or moving firewood) without making a Skill roll.
When an activity presents some level of risk, or is beyond the scope of mundane living, the gamemaster may require a character to make a Skill roll.
First, the gamemaster decides which Skill applies to the activity.
Then, the gamemaster sets a Target Number (ranging from 1 to 4+) for the activity.
This Target Number is the number the character must meet or beat to be successful.
The character rolls 1D for each of his or her Skill levels in the applicable Skill.
If the total number of successes achieved by the Skill roll meet or beat the Target Number, the attempt succeeds. If the total number of success are less, the attempt fails.
In either case, the gamemaster decides what happens as a result.
Interpretation
Much about Skills—as other aspects of this game—is left to the interpretation of the players and gamemaster.
What follows is not an exhaustive description of all the possible uses of Skills.
Participants are encouraged to openly discuss which Skills apply to which situations and make modifications based on their circumstances and preferences.
Physique Group Skills
Physique Skills relate to your character’s physical body.
These Skills govern his or her strength, mobility, and endurance.
Agility
This Skill is used by characters to perform feats of agility such as gymnastics, maintaining balance on precarious surfaces, front and back flips, and tumbling.
Athletics
Athletics determines how much weight a character can lift, or how fast he or she can run, how far he or she can swim, or how far he or she can jump or climb.
This Skill relates to any physically demanding task.
Melee
This Skill is used by characters to make melee attacks with melee weapons including bare fists and kicks, knives and daggers, swords, spears, clubs, maces, axes, etc.
Ranged
Ranged is used by characters to make ranged attacked with ranged weapons including sling and stone, darts, javelins, bows, and crossbows.
Stamina
This Skill determines how much physical punishment a character can endure.
A Stamina roll is made to resist the ill effects of long physical exertion, alcohol, poison, illness and disease, and any other physical malady.
Stealth
Stealth is used by characters to hide their actions.
This Skill allows a character to hide, sneak, conceal objects, camouflage objects, or otherwise remain undetected.
Stealth Skill rolls are made in opposition to Perception Skill rolls made by observers.
Intellect Group Skills
Intellect Skills relate to your character’s mental faculties.
These Skills govern his or her ingenuity, knowledge, and wisdom.
Academics
This Skill measures your character’s formal learning and the totality of known facts he or she has retained.
An Academics roll may be used to recall information related to the arts, sciences, history, religion, politics, commerce, literature, or any other field of study that is taught in schools or learned from books.
Craft/Mend
Craft/Mend is used to create new objects and structures and repair existing ones.
This Skill covers all manner of objects and structures including armor, buildings, hand tools, vehicles, weapons, and more.
Generally, a character can only make a Craft/Mend roll related to his or her own profession.
Languages
This Skill rates a character’s ability to speak foreign languages as well as his or her oral presentation in his or her native language.
Medicine
Medicine is used to treat wounds, injuries, and illnesses.
Your character must have access to needed tools (bandages, ointments, herbs, etc.) to perform this Skill.
Perception
This Skill determines the sharpness and accuracy of your character’s five senses.
Perception Skill rolls can be made to gather information about the environment, to detect physical deceits, disguises, or traps, or in opposition to Stealth Skill rolls made by others.
Pilot
Pilot allows a character to steer and manage waterborne vessels of all sizes.
Survival
Survival is used by a character to forage for food and water, hunt local wildlife, navigate overland, avoid natural hazards, and otherwise get along while living in the wilderness.
Trade
This Skill measures your character’s capacity to earn a living from a trade.
A Trade roll may be used to test his or her knowledge of a particular trade, its practitioners, its procedures, the local market for the goods or services provided by that trade, and how much money he or she can make over the course of a single day for practicing that trade.
When a character makes Trade roll, he or she makes it in relation to his or her own profession.
Warfare
This Skill measures your character’s knowledge of battle, military tradition and history, tactics, and the deployment, transport, and use of siege engines such as catapults, scorpions, rams, and trebuchets.
Charisma Group Skills
Charisma Skills relate to your character’s social presence.
These Skills govern his or her charm, persuasiveness, and attunement to others.
Artistry
Artistry is used to create expressive works including live performances.
This Skill pertains to comedy, dance, drama, drawing, music, painting, sculpture, etc. The products of this Skill have no practical value, but are esteemed only for their expressive, cultural, and artistic value.
Command
This Skill is used by a character to lead others in a group endeavor.
Command rolls are made to lead troops into battle, coordinate a ship’s crew, manage a team of artisans, etc.
Investigate
Investigate is used by a character to gather information about a person, place, or event by finding clues, interviewing others, and piecing together facts to form a coherent explanation of events.
Persuade
Persuade allows a character to convince others of his or her point of view.
This Skill is made in opposition to another person’s Willpower Skill roll to determine if that person is convinced by the character’s arguments, or in opposition to another person’s Persuade Skill roll in the case of a debate between parties before an audience who must determine which side prevails.
Ride/Team
This Skill is used by a character to ride animals or steer and control animal-driven vehicles (carts, chariots, sleds, wagons, etc.).
Willpower
Willpower determines how well a character can resist mental effects such as fear, temptation, addiction, greed, and so on. Willpower Skill rolls are also made in opposition to Persuade Skill rolls.
Magic Group Skills
Magic governs a character’s ability to touch the natural powers that underpin the universe.
These Skills allow a character to gain access to Spells: manifestations of supernatural power.
Alchemy
Alchemy allows a character to change the physical makeup of physical matter, bending its qualities and appearance according his or her will.
Sorcery
This Skill—often viewed in a negative light by non-sorcerers—allows a character to manifest natural power in brief, powerful, and often damaging ways to alter the world irreversibly.
Weirding
Weirding allows a character to see distant events, persons, or places (distant in both time and space) as well as to glean hidden information that is concealed from the mundane senses.