Different characters differentiate from one another in what they can do, which in the we represent through skills. Skills are marked with levels, and provide effort points equal to the level of the skill. In addition, skills can be specialised, representing how one fighter is different than another: the first specialises in fighting with a sword and shield, and second specialises in fighting aboard a ship. Specialisation gives an effort point in a specific context that can only be used for a specific action.
| Social | Physical | Intellectual |
|---|---|---|
| Fight | ||
| Ride | ||
| Culture | Culture* | Culture |
| Sail | Sail | |
| Shoot | Shoot* | |
| Stealth | ||
| Athletics | ||
| Legerdemain | Legerdemain | |
| Investigate | Investigate | |
| Trade | Trade | |
| Craft** | ||
| Deceive | ||
| Awareness | Awareness | |
| Etiquette | ||
| Charm | ||
| Profession** | Profession** | Profession** |
| Animal handling | Animal handling* | Animal handling*? |
| Academic knowledge** | ||
| Arcane/occult** | Arcane/occult knowledge** | |
| Religious Lore | Religious Lore |
(*) an asterisk marks that some specialisations of the skill depend on that attribute.
(**) two asterisk marks a skill group that requires a specialisation.
The list below details the different skills. The list is not exhaustive, of course, and players are free to come up with their own skills. The skills are also not exclusive, and many skills overlap.
Each skill is given a general description, what characters may achieve with the skill using socially, intellectually or physically, list of specialisations, list of exclusive specialisations, and for some skills mandatory specialisations.
A specialisation in a skill is a narrow context or application of the skill that players can choose a bonus for, for example, the Lifting specialisation of Athletics can be chosen for an extra action bonus meaning that the player may play two actions when lifting without spending additional effort.
Exclusive specialisations are specialisations that can only be used by characters that had taken them. Characters with the skill but not the specialisation may use it with a severe penalty (-3). Players without the skill cannot use it at all, or with GM discretion, an extreme penalty (-6).
Mandatory specialisations are specialisations required by some skills. They must be chosen when the skill is taken, but do not provide any bonuses, and they are treated as exclusive specialisations. These skills are usually a group of while specialised abilities, such as academic knowledge, a profession or a craft.
Once a character has specialised in a skill, they may acquire a stunt for their specialisation. Activating stunts requires spending Favour rather than Effort. Some stunt mechanics are: adding the skill level to an action like overcome or defend; recover effort as result of taking a consequence which must be used for something related to the skill; take control of an overcomed action, playing it like it was your action; use the skill in situation where it might not normally be used; perform some task that would normally be considered impossible; turn a specific kind of failure into an advantage. Not all stunts succeed automatically and the Guide may require a successful action.