Skills

Skills

Skills are suggestions for things your character is well trained in. You are free to invent new areas of specialization with the assistance of your GM.

When your character's skill would apply to a roll, add it to your target number. If you fail the test, mark a point of experience by the skill.

See Character Creation / Skills for details on your starting skills.

Skill Levels

This table maps a character's points in a skill to an in-world description of their expertise. Some skills may grant in-world benefits for being above a certain level of training.

Skill List

The below descriptions of skills are not comprehensive, use your judgement or ask a GM for whether a skill would apply to an action. Skills can be further expanded by learning Talents.

Shine

Oration

• Tell a good story, make a convincing argument, give a speech.
• To convince someone important of something, you may test Oration. On a success, you know what the target needs to hear or be given to accept your argument.

Music and Dance

• Perform in front of others for rituals, money, gifts, or favor.
• Small communities will generally provide food and drink in exchange for performance. Larger ones might pay D10 coins or more for well-known or particularly impressive performances.

Bartering

• Haggle for goods.
• A successful Bartering test reduces all prices of a merchant by 25% and increases the price of your sold goods by 25% as long as a small gift or offering is made to the merchant.

Carousing

• Eat, drink, smoke, cook, and make merry. Live the good life.
• You may test Carousing to learn rumors during a festive gathering. Ask the GM or roll on the table below:
  1. A trainer in a skill.
  2. A terrible beast.
  3. Salacious gossip about a person in power.
  4. A powerful magic-user.
  5. A fabulous treasure.
  6. A dangerous place.
• You may make a Carousing test during recovery or downtime. On a success, begin your next adventure with an additional D4 HP that last until first depleted.

Wits

Woodcraft

• Track, hunt, trap, gather, and fish. Understand plants and animals.
• A successful Woodcraft test over six hours forages enough food to feed D4 people. Half in sparse environs and double in lush ones.
• You may test Woodcraft to track a creature. Conditions (such as time passed, muddy trails, or an intervening dust storm) may increase or decrease the difficulty of the test.

History

• Remember the past through stories, songs, and legends.
• A successful History test can be used to answer to one of the following questions:
  • Which people lived here?
  • What famous event took place here?
  • What danger befell people traveling these lands?
  • What treasures can be found here?
  • What magic is at work here?
  • Who is the most legendary figure to come from these lands?

Cultures

• Recall details about other peoples and places in Kuyama.
• A successful Cultures test can answer one of the following questions:
  • Who has the power here?
  • Where can I find something in this settlement?
  • How can I blend in?
  • What is one thing that will delight or enrage someone from this place?
  • What is forbidden here?
  • What is worshipped here?

Crafting

• Create, repair, or disassemble worked goods.
• You may test Crafting to repair a broken item during a day of recovery or downtime.
• Constructing new items typically takes tools, half of the price of the item in materials, plus at least a day of work per 10 coins of the item's value.
• Creating ad-hoc tools and items may take as little as an hour, but such goods are typically only good for a single use or very specific function.

Science

• Understand physics and mathematics, perform alchemy, create gadgets.
• You may test Science to draw up plans for later implementation using other skills (such as Crafting). This takes at least an hour. Having plans grants advantage on relevant rolls.
• For other uses of Science, see Alchemy.

Medicine

• Treat wounds and sickness, understand anatomy.
• You may test Medicine to restore D6 HP to a Dying ally. Doing so takes 2 actions and bandages.
• You may test Medicine to treat a poison or disease with a bundle of healing herbs.

Grit

Brawling

• Punch, wrestle, kick, bite, claw, choke.
• Test Brawling during combat to wound your enemy.
• When you exert to Entangle your enemy while Brawling, exert with advantage.

Axes and Clubs

• Swing brutal and bludgeoning weapons.
• Test Axes and Clubs during combat to wound your enemy.
• Axes and Clubs often have the Smash trait (see Gambits).

Athletics

• Climb, swim, jump, sprint, balance.
• You may test Athletics to perform an exceptional feat of skill or endurance, or to avoid hazards during combat.
• Chases are often resolved with an Athletics test.
• An average Kuyaman can: climb a rope 30 meters, swim a mile, jump across a 5 meter gap, hike 25km in a day, and hold their breath for a minute. Anything beyond this may require an Athletics test.

Quick

Spears and Staves

• Wield hafted weapons.
• Test Spears and Staves during combat to wound your enemy.
• Spears and Staves often have the Topple trait (see Gambits).

Knives and Swords

• Stab and slash with precision.
• Test Knives and Swords during combat to wound your enemy.
• Knives often have the Vicious trait (see Gambits).
• Swords often have the Disarm trait (see Gambits).

Guns and Bows

• Draw, aim, fire, reload.
• Test Guns and Bows during combat to wound your enemy.
• Guns often have the Brutal trait (see Gambits).
• Bows often have the Pinpoint trait (see Gambits).

Horsemanship

• Ride well, tend to your mount, rope a calf.
• You may test Horsemanship to push your mount through hazards, or to double their speed for as long as they can sustain it.
• Test Horsemanship to stop a stampede or soothe a distressed beast.

Boating

• Manage vessels large and small on the water.
• You may test Boating to navigate a craft through poor weather, difficult conditions, or to out-maneuver another craft.
• You may test Boating to repair a watercraft or construct one out of reeds, redwood, or oak given materials, expertise, and time.
• A successful Boating test answers one of the following questions about the conditions in the upcoming 6 hours:
  • Will it be windy, stormy, foggy, or clear?
  • Will there be rain or snow?
  • What direction will the wind blow?
  • How is the tide moving?
  • Will the water be rough or calm?

Sneaking

• Walk softly, pick a pocket, make an item disappear.
• Test Sneaking when you want to be undetected. If someone is looking for you, adjust the result by their Difficulty.
• Test Sneaking to lift a palm-sized item undetected.
• Test Sneaking to circumvent locks on doors, chests, or windows.

Spirit

Prayer

• Invoke the blessings of beings from the Upper World.
• You may pray for guidance in uncertain situations. This typically takes at least an hour. If you succeed, you receive a sign from a patron spirit helping you with your decision.
• For other uses of Prayer, see Prayer.

Astrology

• Navigate, see the present, and predict the future through the stars.
• You may use Astrology to navigate. A successful test may tell you one of the following pieces of information:
  • The cardinal directions.
  • The direction of the nearest river, lake, mountain, or sea.
  • Your distance from the last place you recovered or a well-known landmark.
• For other uses of Astrology, see Astrology.

Shape-changing

• Alter your physical form.
• With a Shape-changing test, you may modify your appearance in subtle ways - such as changing your hair length, eye color, or adding a birth mark.
• For other uses of Shape-changing, see Shape-changing.

Conjuring

• Channel and reshape the energy of the Lower World.
• You may test Conjuration to draw the attention of malevolent beings of the Lower World onto a hapless subject. This takes two actions. Choose one of the following effects:
  • Stumbling: When the target next moves, they must succeed a Quick test or fall prone.
  • Clumsy: The target must succeed a Grit test when they next use a weapon or device. On a failure, they drop it.
  • Forgetful: The subject rolls their next Wits or Spirit test with disadvantage.
  • On a critical failure of your Conjuring test, you are exhausted.
• For other uses of Conjuring, see Conjuring.

Magical Skills

Magical skills (marked in italics) require talents or spells to use to full effect, simply being trained in their practice is not enough to unleash their full potential.

Being skilled in a school of magic or science grants minor cosmetic abilities - like the ability to make a puff of air with conjuring or lengthen your nails with shape-changing. To perform true feats of magic you need the associated Talents.

Learning Skills

A character who is untrained at a skill may seek out a teacher. If they impress their teacher (by coin or by deed) and spend a few days in tutelage, they become trained in the skill and gain a point in it.

Your skill advances as normal.

Advancing Skills

Every time you fail a skill roll, mark a point of experience next to that skill. At the end of the session, pick three skills with experience and roll a D20 for each. If you roll less than your experience in the skill, increase your skill by one (to a maximum of 10) and reset your experience for that skill.

You may also train your skills with a teacher of a higher rank than you. Pick a skill, and spend a few days training (with appropriate compensation to the teacher). At the end of your training, test your skill modified by the Difficulty of your teacher. If you succeed, you gain a point and your skill experience resets. On a critical success, gain two points instead (up to a maximum of your teacher's skill). On a failure, gain a point of skill experience as normal. On a critical failure, that teacher cannot or will not teach you further.

Javier DeMain is training under the legendary Mayapura (a Daunting knife-sage). He currently has a Swords and Knives skill of 6. He spends a week in her tutelage. At the end, he makes a Daunting Swords and Knives roll. On a success, his Swords and Knives advances to 7 and his skill failures reset.

Faster Advancement

The normal rate of advancement will be fairly slow - it will take several sessions for characters to gain even one point in a skill, though it is likely they will gain approximately a point each session.

For faster advancement, roll on 4 or 5 skills at the end of the session, or roll a D12 instead of a D20 for advancement.

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