General Skills

Disarm/Set Traps

This skill enables you to set, detect and disarm traps while adventuring, without it a character cannot detect a trap until it triggers. At all levels detection range is Line of Sight to notice Traps, if the player notices the physrep for a Trap then their character has noticed tell-tale signs of it's presence, although they may need to examine more closely to fully Identify them.

The time to set or disarm a Trap is 30 seconds of uninterrupted roleplay, or the time required to successfully interact with the physrep - to actually place the markers, remove the bell or solve the puzzle as appropriate to the physrep - whichever is longer. Any interruption or break will require them to start the time over again.

1. At first level the character may notice the presence of Traps. They may Identify, Set and Disarm Alarms, Bear Traps and Minor Bell Traps.

2. At the second level the character may also Identify, Set & Disarm Moderate Bell Traps.

3. At the third level the character may also Identify, Set & Disarm Major Bell Traps.

For further details on specific Traps and how they work in play see the Traps subpage in the Equipment section.

Disguise

This skill allows you to disguise yourself or another character or creature and make them unrecognisable as themselves. The better your experience in this skill, the better and more complex your disguises become. You can disguise someone else to look like a different person or a different race entirely, but only if you can recognise that race. When disguising someone, remember that large people disguised as small creatures, and vice versa, look quite suspicious. For each level of proficiency there is a disguise kit which you can buy that contains all the bits and pieces to make up ten disguises of that level or below.

The person with the skill must provide a suitable physrep for the disguise.

You can also use disguise as a form of camouflage as an inanimate object (however movement would still be noticed).

Forgery

You require this skill category if you wish to make convincing copies of documents such as letters of credit, wills, bills of sale or any other useful piece of paper. The greater the level of proficiency in this category, the more convincing the forged documents you produce are, and the less likely that they will be recognised as forgeries. You must have at least 1 rank in the relevant skill to make a forgery of that type.

A special forgery kit with materials is required.

Make/Read Maps

With this Skill you can draw fairly accurate maps and charts for your own use or for others. A good quality map of a previously uncharted area can be worth a fair amount of money if you can find a buyer. You can also use this Skill to read maps and charts in order that you can discover your whereabouts or to plan your route on a quest. There is nothing more frustrating than discovering a map that promises a lead to a huge fortune in treasure, only to find that no-one in your group can understand the map. Reading or Making maps involves comprehending symbols, words and numbers and so you cannot learn this Skill unless you already know how to read, write and count, thus LITERACY and NUMERACY must be learnt beforehand.

Numeracy

This skill enables characters to make simple mathematical calculations such as addition, subtraction and the like. However proficient your character becomes in this skill is entirely up to you. Obviously there is no way that you can make your character a mathematical genius unless you are one yourself.

Pick Locks

This skill allows a character to pick almost any lock given time. The time taken to pick a lock is dependent on the complexity of the lock and tools available.

A special lock pick kit is required.

Racial Mutation

The Skill Racial Mutation is included to allow people to play races that do not fit any of the common Racial stereotypes of Elves, Humans, Dwarfs or Goblinoids. It allows people to play strange and different races not often encountered in adventures or even of their own devising, examples include Trolls, Cat people or even Half elementals. A player wishing to play an unusual race is advised to prepare a costume and/or makeup to look sufficiently different than a normal common race. The skill is learned in the first 20 points spent on the character and must be specified at the time of purchase. This skill allows built in abilities or skills to provide them with something that is not quite “normal”. Something that makes them stand out from other creatures, Examples are given on the Player Races page.

Please note that this skill is provided to expand role-playing opportunities and allow unusual creature races and not to allow bonuses for “normal” character races.

Research

When this skill is chosen one of the following categories must be selected, which defines the characters source of information. Characters may only have one category at a time, but may change the category when they purchase a new rank or if they change guild status (joining or leaving a guild for example). While the level of detail of the information should be the same, they may reveal different information as appropriate:

• Guild Scout: information is gathered from active field duty or first hand from those who are.

• Guild Scholar: information is gathered from academic studies in libraries or perhaps laboratory experiments.

• Traveller: information is gathered from far and wide, typically from traders or other travellers.

• Outlaw: information is gained from the black market or those who have reasons to avoid the authorities.

You may ask a few simple questions of the referee at the start of an adventure, provided the answers take no more than a minute or two.

1. Minor - The character may ask a single question.

2. Moderate - They may ask up to 2 questions.

3. Major - They may ask up to 3 questions.

Up to 1 question can be asked with the script writer on the day, everything else needs to be asked by the Wednesday adventure cut off for scriptwriter & Head of Plot to review.

Answers are provided at the beginning of the event which the character is going to play. Answers may be withheld if the character/player is unable to make the event at the Ref / Script Writer’s discretion , until such a time as they can make an event.

This skill also allows adventurers to do research between adventures without restrictions, adventure/plot line specific with the scriptwriter and Head of plot for everything else.

Role-Playing Skills

The following skills are available to characters to allow them to develop their characters. These skills will be of little value during adventures and any advantages they may provide is dependent on the referee's decision during the adventure.

As a rule of thumb, a Role-play skill is not required if the player themselves is proficient, for example if you can play the flute, you would not need the RP skill "Play Flute", but if you could not and wished your character to be able to do so, the RP skill would allow them to "In Character". How you would Phys-rep this depends on the skill, but in the given example, an iPod or similar device playing the tune while you mimed along would be appropriate.

This list below is to provide ideas of skills that can be learnt and is not exhaustive:

Animal Husbandry (Choose Animal), Art (Painting and Drawing), Carpentry, Cooking, Dancing, Direction sense, Economics, Fishing, Gaming (Choose Game), Horse Riding, Hunting, Play Musical Instrument (Choose Instrument), Resist Interrogation, Sailing, Swimming, Interrogation, Tracking.

*Note: This list will be expanded and descriptions in due course.

Lore

This is a subset of Role-playing skills which represent specific learning and knowledge within a specific topic. This is not a replacement for the Recognition skills (or any other existing skills) and won't give combat information on creatures, but may give additional information such as historical events surrounding them for example.

This list below is to provide ideas of skills that can be learnt and is not exhaustive:

History (Lesia, Military, etc), Geography (by Continent, ie Lesia, Khesh, Orlaine etc), Goblin Tribes, Orc Tribes, Fae Courts, Druidic Sects.

Scripts

This skill allows a character to understand the script, hieroglyphs or letters of a language chosen when purchasing the skill. Examples are Scripts-Common, Scripts-Ancient Elven, Scripts-Norse Runes.

Any restrictions or pre-requisites for learning a spoken language are also applied to learning the script, and vice versa.

Speak Language

You may speak a single foreign Language, common tongues are readily available, while more exotic, rare or ancient languages have pre-requisites.

Due to the real difficulties in learning a new language players can use the prefix "In Elven" when they speak in the language (if they speak Elven, otherwise use the correct prefix for the language used).

All characters begin play with Speak-Common and 1 additional Language or Script of their choice (typically Script-Common).

Common Languages

Common, Uruk, Elven, Dwarven, Undercommon, Drow, etc

Rare Languages

Some languages can only learnt if the character knows specific pre-requisite languages. Such as Ancient Elven can only be learnt if the character knows both the Elven language and the Elven script skills.

Any restrictions or pre-requisites for learning a spoken language are also applied to learning the script, and vice versa.

• Ancient Elven - requires Speak-Elven & Scripts-Elven.

• Druidic - Requires a Druidic teacher (only taught to Druids).

• Fae - Requires a Fae teacher. As a special note, there is no Fae script or written language.

Timekeeping

This skill allows the character to estimate the time of day or time elapsed with reasonable accuracy, for example to accurately estimate spell times if the duration is known. You cannot learn this Skill unless you already know how to count, so NUMERACY must be learnt beforehand.