Skills

Skills are mundane things a character can learn to do, as opposed to abilities, which are magical. A skill is something that is actively used, that is applied, rather than a lore, which is knowledge someone has.

They can range from things as common as cooking and cleaning to those as rare as brain surgery and designing the large hadron collider. Some skills can be had by any character, though what is common may differ by time, place, and socioeconomic status.

Default Stats

If a character tries to use a skill they don't have, the skill will default to a base stat with penalties based on how hard something is to do without training. For example, if a character has never shot a gun before and has no training in firearms, they will roll AWA-6 to shoot one. If they try to cook an egg, it will be AWA-1. If they try to pick a basic lock, it will be PRO-3, but a complicated lock would have a higher difficulty. If they try to dance a dance they've never danced before, it would be ATH with penalties varying by dance. If they tried brain surgery with no relevant training, it would be PRO and ATH both -12, but if they are a heart surgeon trying brain surgery, it might be -6 instead. Relevant training can always reduce difficulties, so make your GM's life a living hell by making a pitch. Maybe you will convince them driving skill is relevant to pitching a no-hitter in major league baseball, and maybe they'll increase the penalties because you asked an annoying question. You never know till you try <3

Basic Skills

For most campaigns, there will be a small list of Basic Skills, such as cooking, cleaning, survival, first aid (or its era-equivalent), and so on. Some skills that are common in one place or time may be rarer in others. For example, hunting is common in the early days of mortality, but rare in contemporary times. Having these skills requires no justification in backstory, but not having them might.

Common Skills

Common skills would be skills that are available to most characters without justifying it in their backstory. These are skills that would be commonly used in a given time and place, but that not everyone would have. Just most. For example, many people in the cities of 16th century Europe learned to sing as a way to pass the time, but not everyone did. In the late 20th century, many but not all people had some experience with computers or driving cars. In the late 19th century, many knew how to ride a horse. But not nearly everyone.

Professional Skills

All characters will have skills related to their primary Occupation. These skills will vary depending on what occupation they choose, but they will be justified by their choice of occupation. For example, someone who is a kind of thief will have various thieving skills, such as pickpocketing, lockpicking, casing a target, etc. A brain surgeon will have a score in brain surgery, and a ballet dancer will have a score in ballet dancing. These skills may be mentioned in the Occupation pages, but you can always make a pitch for something you feel is relevant.

Uncommon Skills

Uncommon skills are skills that are either relatively rare or simply not tied to the character's occupation, but that you want the character to have. These must be justified in backstory somehow. For example, if you want your brain surgeon to have ballet dancing as a skill, you have to come up wth part of their backstory that explains it (they took ballet as a child and go on the weekends to practice). Uncommon skills are often from hobbies, past occupations, side gigs, or odd circumstances.

Specific Skills

Specific skills are skills only possible to certain species or extremely specific circumstances, but that are non-magical or only magically assisted. Some examples might include flight acrobatics for flying species, solar fishing for species who can magically survive on the surface of the sun but whose fishing skill is otherwise mundane, or deep-sea mining done by people who are of a deep sea species or have magical tech that allows this but use mundane skills to do it. These always must be justified in the backstory.

Scores and Difficulties

Every skill will have a score. They work on a similar scale to stats, but they are adjusted because they are not innate.

This is how difficulties are determined as well. If the task is something a professional at the skill could do easily, it will be six below professional level. If it is something that would challenge them but is still possible, it will be equal to professional level. This pattern continues: 9 below is nearly impossible to fail, 6 below is very easy, 3 below is standard, equal is challenging, 3 above is very difficult, 6 above is extremely difficult, and 9 above is nearly impossible.

If something is more than 9 below or 9 above in difficulty, it is sometimes good to roll anyway to determine how great the success is or how bad the failure is, to determine consequences, but it is not necessary.

For most skill rolls, a tie means qualified success, normal success means basic completion, special success means the task is completed with a little extra added on, exceptional is nearly perfect, and critical success means truly perfect. Normal failure means it's possible to try again but it needs more attention or work, special failure means a major gap or misunderstanding or something wrong, exceptional failure means the attempt fails to the point that trying again without changing something significant is futile, and critical failure means the attempt breaks or ruins something.

Score	Description
1-3	Untrained and guessing
4-6	Untrained but educated guessing
7-9	Just learning
10-12	Journeyman
13-15	Professional
16-18	Elite
19-21	Best mortal alive at the skill
22-24	Best mortal at the skill to ever live
25-42	Supernaturally skilled
43+	Beyond mortal possibility