Skills

Skill Limitations for CG

The following skills are limited at CG as indicated:

  • Law: Paragon Characters only in CG may be gained later by others, this skill may use this in place of Intrigue, Courtesy and Folklore
  • Venery: Avicorse characters only, may be gained by other characters later, this skill can be used in place of flirting and romance
  • Manipulate: City-States only (Maritime, Northern, & Central) in CG, others may gain later, this is used in place of Intrigue
  • Medicine: Kataro Kingdoms/Empire characters only in CG, others may learn later, this is used in place of both first aid and chirurgery
  • Seamanship: Only available to characters from Matora or Valdona in CG, replace boating, used for boating and navigation at sea.
  • Bergatino Kingdoms only (including Paragon States and Kingdoms of Borzia/Calpera): Science, Art Appreciation, Philosophy, High Finances
  • Compound Bow: Sumrov, Eastern Empire, Kataro Empire in CG, others may learn later
  • Great Lance: Eastern Empire in CG, others may learn later
  • Horse Defense: Sumrov in CG only, replaces horsemanship, attack can be sacrificed to make a horse defense roll when attacked, losing the opposed roll indicated the horse takes all the damage instead of the rider, must use a Sumrov mount that has been specially trained for this
  • Tactics: Kataro Kingdoms/Empire characters only in CG, others may learn later, this is used in place of both first battle and strategy.

Skill additions - House Skills:

The following skills are offered uniquely for Valorous Dominion. Note that these skills are relative to house and the management and gaining of commodities.

  • Agronomy: Land management for Agriculture commodity.
  • Husbandry: Animal management for Livestock commodity.
  • Repository: Collection, refinement and distribution of Material commodities.
  • Production: Gathering and manufacturing other commodities into Industrial commodity.
  • Economy: High finance management, high end consumables, import/export of Luxury commodity.

Skills and Vindicti

Note that staff have no idea yet what players may devise in their Vindicti, but be aware some skills may be more beneficial than others. By example, if one was planting poison in some manor at the house of another through means of 'new staff', the Stewardship may come in handy for recognizing the new face and not trusting them. What if it was a bad hunting trip; this could be stewardship for a new huntsperson and suspicion raised, it could be Hunting and knowing the individual laying the trap is not following hunting protocol. Sabotaging a houses livelihood may rely on the appropriate House Skill.

The use of these skills is interpretive to the circumstance.

Skills

An overview of all skills in relation to Valorous Dominion:

Awareness

This skill measures the character’s attentiveness to their surroundings, using both physical senses and the mysterious “sixth sense.” A critical success might reveal extra information (such as the precise location of the bandits hiding in the trees, as opposed to the simple realization that there are bandits there), while a fumbled Awareness roll reveals incorrect information.

Boating

This skill allows a character to handle watercraft, whether
a rowboat, a skiff, or a coracle.

Chirurgery

This ancient practice of healing includes much useful knowledge, such as herbal medicine and bone setting. It also includes superstition, prayer, and generous heaps of misinformation.

Compose

This skill grants the user a chance to create original
musical works or written compositions.

Courtesy

Courtesy is knowledge of court, courts and the ways of the noble class. This includes courtly manners, from etiquette to matters of precedence and table manners

Dancing

This skill measures the character’s ability to move gracefully to music, as well as his knowledge of the many styles of formal dancing done at court. This elegant style of dancing depends primarily on experience and knowledge of forms rather than on agility.

Faerie Lore

Faerie Lore quantifies how much one knows about
the mysterious ways of Visitante and the invisible world of the Other Side. Every character in Valoros is superstitious to some extent and this is expressed by the starting skill value
of 2. This minimum means that all characters know
common legends. Everyone in Matora, by example, knows stories of Marcus the Devout, including visitations at important battles to inspire those fighting for the city.

Falconry

Falcons and hawks can be trained to hunt birds and other small prey. Such sport is the pleasure of nobles, who sometimes spend considerable money to maintain a firstclass
mews . The Falconry skill is used whenever lords and
ladies take birds into the fields to hunt. The skill value indicates how apt the character is at the sport, such as knowing just when to let the bird go, how to call it back, and how to handle it both safely and decorously.

Fashion

Fashion is all about style. What is in this year, and
what is not? How is this worn? When? How much creativity
is allowed? This is important in the northern city states as they are the center of the world in a manner and the trend setters of fashion.

First Aid

First Aid provides immediate medical assistance to wounds. It is actually more reliable than the medieval treatments
to be used later in Chirurgery. Like Chirurgery, the use of this skill is an important and complicated subject. Characters cannot apply First Aid to themselves.

Flirting

Flirting is a courtly skill that can be mastered to convey sensuality and sexuality. It includes use of specific words, tones of voice, expressions, movements, gestures, and attitudes. The primary purpose is to gain the attention of a member of the opposite sex.

Folk Lore

Folk Lore is a knowledge of peasant beliefs and ways of life. It stems from familiarity with the land that has been gained over thousands of years of experience. Folk Lore includes information on many subjects, from such ordinary things as the lore of pigs or local landmarks, all the way to the household herbal cures passed from generation to generation.

Gaming

The Gaming skill allows the user to perform certain types of medieval play effectively and with aplomb, whether in competition or for entertainment. This skill does not include ability in physical sports such as wrestling and jousting, and has nothing to do with them. All types of common gaming, including simpler forms of gambling, are included.

Heraldry

Lords and Ladies ares known by their coat of arms and other indicators of their family. Members of families commonly display arms, such as the two-headed eagle of the Orkney clan. Quite by accident, some coats of arms are similar to one another, making perfect identification difficult.

Successful use of this skill indicates that your character knows the members of the group or family for that coat of arms, or the several most likely holders of those arms. A critical success indicates that the precise person is recognized, as well as the general group.

Hunting

The Hunting skill includes the entire variety of tasks performed during the noble sport of the chase, excluding
weapon skills. Hunting includes knowing what is meant by the different blasts on the horn, for instance, and knowing
whether an animal is a “beast of chase, venery, or vermin.”

Industry

Industry is the work of creating things with ones hands, or the common peasant’s tasks of farming, labor, and craft. This is the creation of any item by profession, whether making barrels, black smithing, being a farmer, or being a professional artist. Its the plying of one's profession to afford a sustainable living.

Intrigue

This skill allows one to know what is going on at court. Everyone has access to gossip, but hard work and clever conversations help to pry out the real facts. The Intrigue skill is needed to know who to ask, when to ask them, what to say to them to learn of a secret, and how to sift truth from lies.

  • Note in Matora, manipulation replaces Intrigue as a cultural standard. More so than prying info out of someone, manipulating them to reveal the info is a cultural norm.

Orate

The art of speaking fluently, with poetic grace and charismatic delivery, is useful in any situation that requires a character to speak, but especially in public.

Play

Everyone appreciates a good tune to wile away the
after-dinner hours. This skill is specific for each individual type of instrument. We have one skill for this, to be used liberally. Most will be good with one instrument and may have a good understanding of instruments in the same family (percussion/stringed/etc.). A virtuoso in music may consider taking Industry as well to represent professional musician. Not the ability to orchestrate is more tied to Compose.

Read

On valorous this is the ability to read and write. We are not tied down to numerous languages (which could eat up a lot of points for someone wishing to become a linguist). If we decide writing is 'ancient' it may be more difficult to read and write, but it is for any and all languages. Up to 6 roll to read simple text. 7-12 can read simple text and some more complicated. 12+ 'College' level for example.

Recognize

Recognize lets you put together clues — a face with a jousting style or some distinctive feature, for example — that help you identify a person. However, you must have reason to recall facts about that person at all. Thus, if you’ve never seen or heard of someone before, even a critical success would not help; it is impossible to use this skill to learn something about a complete stranger.

Religion

This skill quantifies what a character knows concerning
the beliefs, rites, sacred calendar, and practices of a religion. This is specific to the characters chosen religion.

Romance

A Romance roll might be required to know how to approach
a woman for the first time; how to properly avert one’s
eyes; to properly kiss a hand, wrist, elbow, or other part of the body; and, most especially, what is the best type of present to give a lover. For a woman, this skill includes knowing when to refuse an audience, when to accept a tryst, how to say no, how to be “constructively cruel,” how to tell whether entertainment is new or customary, and how a man lies.

Singing

Vocal music pleases all listeners, whether sung in church, in court, or for a lover in a warm summer glade. Professional bards and minstrels wander from court to court with a repertoire of ballads and lays. Noblemen create love poems and romances, and fi nd honor in the title of troubadour. Poorer troubadours perform their own songs, while the richer hire singers, called jongleurs, to perform for them.

Stewardship

This ability to plan, administer, and oversee the keeping
of a household.

Swimming

Swimming is used to move successfully through water.

Tourney

This skill is used to understand the correct procedures, customs, and behavior at that spectacle of chivalrous entertainment known as the tournament. The primary sport of the day is Jousting and the Tournament reigns king/queen.

Cultural Skills

These are specific to certain cultures.

Art Apprec.

The perception and understanding of the value of art beyond the materials from which it is composed. With this skill, the detail and skill of the artist come into play, with out this, the Mona Lisa is paint (graffiti) on wood. Practically it least, there is no value in the message of the Mona Lisa at least, its not a saint, religious figure, king, etc. This is specific to the city states.

High Finances

This is specific to money, including concepts of debt, credit, tax etc. To the rest of the world, giving money to someone else and expecting more in return is usury. In the city states it is an art (unless you don't like the person, then its usury).

Science

The foundations of critical thinking in applied reason. Empirical study and evidence based thinking. Study of the natural world through observation.

Philosophy

The practical application of wisdom and reason. This includes the study of thought, reason and existence.

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