Using your skills

Some skills do more than add to a roll: they let you do something. This page explains those uses: slipping past a creature in the dark, stealing, feinting, threatening, treating wounds and poison, making arrows, whittling a better bow, and foraging for food. Most are used from the abilities menu (a). Where a section says “the benefits table”, it means the table under What skills give.

Slipping past

Most creatures see a few cells into any darkness (darkvision), so standing unlit beside one is no hiding place by itself. But the first time a creature that is not hunting you would see you only by its darkvision, it does not notice you at once. That means your cell is too dark for its eyes: no lantern, no fire, no sky lighting you. You get one try to slip past it.

It is a contest with the same dice on both sides. You roll 2d12 plus your Dexterity modifier plus what your Stealth gives (the benefits table). The creature rolls 2d12 plus its Willpower modifier plus its Spot, if it has any. A tie is yours. A roll of 2 always fails and a roll of 24 always succeeds. Your edge is the difference between the two sides:

A creature you slipped past stays blind to you for 60 turns at most.

• Unseen: it does not see you while you stay in the dark. It goes about its business, walks past, or comes to look into the footsteps it heard and arrives beside you none the wiser. It has not seen you, so your first blow at it is a sneak attack. It notices you when you step into light it can see by (or light your lantern), when you attack it or anything else while it can see you, when it is hurt, or when the time in the table has passed.
• Seen: it hunts you as any creature would. You get no second try until it gives up the hunt.

Nothing tells you which it was: a creature that did not notice you gives no sign. Creatures never slip past you.

Stealing

If you are trained in Steal (thieves are), Steal is in your abilities menu. Choose it, then a direction, and you try to lift something from whoever stands there. You can steal only from someone you see who is not hostile to you: a peaceful villager, a shopkeeper, a creature that leaves you alone. It takes a turn whatever happens.

Whether you go unnoticed is a contest with the same dice on both sides. You roll 2d12 plus your Dexterity modifier plus what your Steal skill gives (the benefits table). Your victim rolls 2d12 plus their Willpower modifier. A tie is yours. A roll of 2 always fails and a roll of 24 always succeeds. Only the difference between the two sides matters, your edge:

• Unnoticed: you take one stack of what they carry in their pack, all of it, such as a whole purse. You never see what someone carries in their pack, so you do not choose: your fingers find something. What they wear or hold in their hands stays where it is. If their pack is empty, you come away empty-handed (“You find nothing to take from the gardener.”), and they notice nothing all the same.
• Caught: they turn on you and come after you, for good (“The kobold catches you stealing and turns on you!”). A shopkeeper who catches you is as outraged as a robbed one. The shop trades no more, and whatever you had not paid for counts as stolen (see Shops).

Stealing from a shopkeeper takes from their purse, never from the shop floor. What lies in a shop is for sale, and taking it out without paying is theft by the shop’s own rules. A shopkeeper whose purse you lifted unnoticed still trades with you, but cannot pay for what you sell.

You may try as often as you like. Someone who caught you stays angry, and that is the price.

Feinting

If you are trained in Bluff, Feint is in your abilities menu. Choose it, then a direction, and you make a false move at whoever stands there. It must be a creature you see, hostile to you, with a mind to fool. Skeletons, spirits, and animated things (those without vitals) do not count. Otherwise the feint is refused and takes no time. A feint takes a turn.

The foe rolls 2d12 plus its Willpower modifier against the difficulty below, plus your Presence modifier, plus what your Bluff adds (the benefits table).

• If it falls short: “The kobold falls for it.” It is surprised, and its next action does not end that. So your next blow finds it flat-footed, with sneak dice if you have them. Its second action, like its first, costs it extra time, and ends the surprise. A foe quick enough to act twice before you do has recovered by the time you strike.
• Otherwise: “The kobold is not fooled.” The turn is spent.

For a thief, a feint counts as an attack on that creature. A feint it falls for gives one opening. Any feint, made or not, makes the creature your mark: feinting at a new foe loses the openings you had.

The foe rolls 2d12 + its Willpower modifier against 10 + your Presence modifier + what Bluff adds; short of it, it is Surprised.

You may feint as often as you like. Half of your feints train Bluff, whatever comes of them. There is no talking your way out of being caught stealing. A lie is for the fight, or for getting past a party on the road before it comes to a fight (Talk your way past).

Intimidating

If you are trained in Intimidate, Intimidate is in your abilities menu. Choose it, then a place you see (with the aiming cursor), and you threaten whoever stands there. It must be a creature hostile to you, within reach, with a heart that can quail. Skeletons, spirits, and animated things (those without vitals) do not count. Otherwise the threat is refused and takes no time. A threat takes a turn and is spoken aloud: those around you hear a voice.

It is the War cry’s check, at one foe. If the foe hears you and sees you, it rolls 2d12 plus its Willpower modifier against the difficulty below, plus your Strength modifier, plus what your Intimidate adds (the benefits table). If it falls short, it is frightened and runs from you, a few moments per degree. How many degrees depends on your skill: a little Intimidate frightens a foe for a moment, a great deal frightens it as long as a war cry does. A foe that does not hear or see you pays you no heed, and the turn is spent all the same.

Within 6 cells; the check is 10 + your Strength modifier + what Intimidate adds.

You may threaten as often as you like. Every threat trains Intimidate, whatever comes of it.

Treating yourself

If you are trained in Heal (priests, witches, druids, and paladins are), Heal is in your abilities menu, under Skills. It treats your bleeding, your poison, and a disease that shows. A disease you have caught but that has not shown yet is unknown to you, so you cannot treat it.

It treats an ally of yours standing beside you the same way, from the start: you know your own allies’ hurts, and they are listed after yours (“Your wolf’s bleeding”). With nothing to treat, it is greyed out: “nothing to treat”. With more than one thing, it asks which. “Sickness” is a disease you cannot name yet.

The try uses your Intelligence and your skill. The difficulty depends on the patient’s ailment. Every try takes about a quarter of a minute, whatever comes of it, and makes no noise.

A try is a check (see Diseases): 2d12 plus your Intelligence modifier plus what your Heal skill gives (the benefits table), against the difficulty below. A roll of 2 always fails and a roll of 24 always succeeds.

• Bleeding: the difficulty is 6 plus 2 for each degree of bleeding. If you make it, you bind the wound and the bleeding stops (“You bind the wound.”). If you fail: “The blood still runs.” You may try again at once, as often as you like.
• Poison: the difficulty is 8 plus 1 for each degree. If you make it, you draw out some of the poison and it is a degree weaker (“You draw out some of the poison.”). If you fail: “The poison will not come out.” You may try again at once, as often as you like.
• A disease: the difficulty is the disease’s own. If you make it, you ease it (“You ease the filth fever somewhat.”). It counts as one of the checks in a row that shake the disease off, but never the last one, so treating never cures it by itself. A disease that never goes away by itself, or one a single won check from going, instead takes a full interval from your try before it next gets worse. If you fail: “You can do no more for the filth fever.” You may try again at once.

Professions

Alchemy, Metalcraft, and Woodcraft are professions: crafts with a list of recipes, the things you can make or do with them. Each has one row in the abilities menu, in the skill’s place among the Skills: Alchemy…, Metalcraft…, and Woodcraft…. The row opens the profession’s list. Alchemy’s recipes are potions, brewed from herbs by those trained in it (see Brewing potions).

You know a recipe by your skill, not by learning it. Every recipe needs its skill: if you are not trained in it, you have no list and can make none of its recipes. Among them:

• Metalcraft: Temper, a metal weapon or armour made finer at an anvil (see Forges).
• Woodcraft: Arrows and Crossbow bolts for your bow or crossbow (see Fletching), Sling stones (see Making things by hand), and Whittle, a wooden weapon made finer with a knife (see Whittling).

Those trained in Metalcraft also forge weapons at an anvil from metal stock, and those trained in Woodcraft make knives, spears, clubs, staves, armour, and clothes by hand from wood, bone, flint, and hides (see Crafting).

Jewelcraft is a profession too, but only for those trained in it: its row, Jewelcraft…, holds Cut, which cuts a loose gem (see Gem cutting), Set, which sets a cut gem in an item (see Setting a gem), and rings and amulets (see Making jewellery).

Each row says what the recipe takes, such as “a metal weapon or armour, an anvil, about 10 minutes”. A recipe you cannot make now is greyed out with the reason: “no anvil beside you”, “no knife”, “no bow ready”. Choose a recipe by its letter, or move to it and press Enter.

Fletching

Making arrows and bolts needs Woodcraft. Arrows and Crossbow bolts are recipes on the Woodcraft… list (see Professions). You need:

• a knife, in your pack or wielded. A dagger or a stiletto will do, or anything else of the Daggers and knives skill; a short sword will not.
• a bow ready for arrows, a crossbow for bolts.
• a billet of wood for the shafts, unless you are in a forest, a dense forest, or a swamp, where you cut them from the trees.
• a head for each arrow, if you want them to last (below).

Without them the list greys the recipe out: “no knife”, “no bow ready”, “no wood to hand”.

You choose the head first:

• Arrowheads a smith has forged: one for each arrow, and the arrow takes the arrowhead’s metal.
• A bone shard or a block of flint (or obsidian, horn, ivory, and the like): one heads a whole batch, and the arrows take its material. Flint-headed arrows strike as flint does.
• None: a sharpened shaft. These brittle arrows fly, but break on any hit.

Arrows of different heads and woods are different goods: they do not stack together.

A batch takes ten minutes. Something coming into view, or anything else that would wake you from a rest, stops the work: the time is spent, and nothing else. A batch that runs its full time rolls a check on your Dexterity, helped by your Woodcraft, and the result decides how much of the count you get. If you are trained in Woodcraft, it earns a training mark for every finished batch. Fletch as often as you like: the time is the price.

A ranger’s Fletcher makes this far quicker and surer, and rangers start with a knife. But even a ranger’s arrows need heads not to be brittle.

Whittling

With a knife carried, those trained in Woodcraft can improve a wooden weapon the way an anvil improves a metal one. Whittle is a recipe on the Woodcraft… list, beside the arrows (see Professions). It is greyed out with “no knife” if you have none.

Choose a weapon, a missile weapon, or a shield whose main part is wood: bows, crossbows, staves, clubs. An attempt takes ten minutes. Something coming into view stops it; then the item is untouched and the attempt does not count.

The rules are those of tempering, item for item:

• A successful attempt gives one improvement (Fine, Marvellous, Masterwork) in something the item has.
• A failed one damages it and takes all its improvements away.
• A damaged item is mended or destroyed.
• Every attempt is harder than the last, for the item’s whole life. So one item has one state, however it was worked.

The check is 2d12 plus your Dexterity modifier, what Woodcraft gives, and what talents add to Dexterity checks, against 13 plus 2 for every attempt ever made on the item. The odds are those of the forge table. Woodcraft’s second benefit is +8 at 100 and +12 at 200. If you are trained in Woodcraft, it earns a training mark for every finished attempt.

Foraging

If you are trained in Survival (berserkers, druids, rangers, and lizardfolk are), Forage is in your abilities menu. Choose it, and you spend a while searching the land around you for something to eat.

You can forage only in the wild: on the overworld, on open land, in woods, on the hills, or in the marshes, or in the local area of such a cell (an area forages like its cell on the overworld). You cannot forage on a road, in water or on ice, in a town, or in a dungeon. There the menu greys Forage out (“not usable here”).

A forage takes ten minutes. Something coming into view, or anything else that would wake you from a rest, stops it, and a forage cut short finds nothing. One that runs its full time finds food with the land’s chance below, plus what your Survival gives (the benefits table: up to 30 more). Then one of the land’s finds is picked by the shares shown, and you gather a few of it, fresh, into your pack (“You gather 2 handfuls of berries.”). Otherwise: “You find nothing worth eating.” Either way, your Survival may earn a training mark.

If you are also trained in Herbalism, a forage that finds something may find a herb besides: one of the land’s herbs below, picked by the shares shown (“Your eye for herbs finds an angelica root besides.”). The chance is 25 % at 0, 60 % at 100, and 80 % at 200. Land with no herbs gives none. A forage trains Herbalism one time in four, whatever it finds.

A forage takes 10 minutes.

What you find is ordinary food (see Hunger). Berries and mushrooms spoil within days, hazelnuts keep for months, and an angelica root cures diseases. Forage as often as you like, in the same spot too: the time is the price.

See also: Abilities, Skills, and Crafting.