Reference
Skills
Thirty-two skills, in five groups. Nothing is locked behind a class — you train what you use, and a character who mines, smiths and fights is simply a character who has done all three.
Combat
12 skillsHitting things, and surviving being hit back. Most of these train themselves simply by being used, which means your fighting style decides what you get good at whether you planned it or not.
Swordsmanship
The blade line — and the finishing blow that ends a wounded fight early.
Fencing
The precise line — fast weapons that leave things bleeding.
Macing
The blunt line — heavy weapons that stun what they land on.
Archery
Bows and crossbows — damage from further away than anything can reach.
Wrestling
What you are using when you are holding nothing at all.
Tactics
The damage multiplier sitting behind every weapon you swing.
Parrying
Turning a blow aside with a shield or a two-handed weapon.
Healing
Bandages, and how much of your health they actually give back.
Anatomy
The quiet skill that makes every bandage worth more.
Musicianship
Whether the song you meant to play is the song that comes out.
Peacemaking
Playing something calm enough that the monster forgets to swing.
Discordance
Playing something bad enough that the monster fights worse for it.
Harvesting
5 skillsEverything that comes out of the ground, the water or a carcass. These are the skills that feed every craft in the game, and the ones you can leave running while you do something else.
Mining
Swing a pickaxe at a rock face for ore, and the odd thing living behind it.
Lumberjacking
Fell trees for logs, the raw half of every bow, board and bench.
Fishing
Cast off a dock for fish, and occasionally something with a cork in it.
Begging
Ask townsfolk for spell reagents, and wear out your welcome doing it.
Camping
Skin what you kill, for the leather every bandage and bag is cut from.
Crafting
9 skillsTurning what you gathered into something worth having. Each of these wants a tool in hand and materials in your pack, and each pays back a different part of the game.
Blacksmithing
Beat ingots into weapons, armour and the benches other crafters need.
Carpentry
Turn boards into bows, staves and the fixtures that furnish a house.
Tinkering
Make the tools every other skill needs, including your own.
Alchemy
Brew reagents into potions, from cures to the genuinely powerful.
Tailoring
Cut leather into bandages, bags, cloaks and a tamer’s tackle.
Inscription
Press boards into parchment, and parchment into a better spellbook.
Cooking
Turn a raw catch into food that actually restores something.
Item Identification
Read an unknown weapon to learn what it really is.
Cartography
Decode the treasure maps that fishing and tracking turn up.
Magic
4 skillsSpells, the mana behind them, and the skills that make both land harder. The most expensive way to fight and, once it is running, the most decisive.
Misc
8 skillsThe skills that fit nowhere else — locks, tracks, hiding, and the three that deal with the creatures of the world rather than the loot they drop.
Lockpicking
Opening what is locked, from practice locks to treasure chests.
Hiding
Making yourself harder to notice, and easier to walk away from.
Tracking
Reading the ground for what passed by — and what it left behind.
Forensic Evaluation
Reading old murders and old butchery out of the ground beneath a town.
Animal Lore
Studying dungeon creatures until you know them by heart.
Animal Taming
Coaxing wild creatures into walking with you.
Herding
Fighting alongside a companion until the two of you work as one.
Taste Identification
Knowing what is in the cup, and getting more out of it.