Your characters skills are the core of the game, and you would be wise to have at least one.

There is wide scope for character description with skills - you can be a playwright with a smooth tongue (Orator), a knowledge-seeker who travels the world (Anthropology) or the head of a large and innovative company (Administration).

The higher the skill level, the better you are at it, and the greater the XP cost.

When you buy a skill, you get a free specialization. For each skill, several specializations are suggested, but you are free to make up your own.

Below are the main skill with examples of what you can do at each level.

Note, the examples given are general guidelines of things that are likely to succeed at each level. Success is not guaranteed, and there is nothing stopping you from undertaking monumental actions with a low score.

This skill represents investigation into the unknown. It governs how good you are at dealing with other cultures and their traditions, dialects and customs. It makes you a reasonable ambassador when dealing with outsiders, navigating through their tombs and knowing which of their artifacts are valuable. It also makes you the first port of call if someone finds a Thing and they don't know what it does.

Combine Anthropology with Investigation to be a regular Jounalist.

Example Specialisations: Funeral Rites, First Contact, Jungle Delving, Heiroglyphs, Tomb Raiding

You Get Things Done. You can organize people, from a household to a factory to a government. Its not very flashy, but admin is what stops people dying at a manic field hospital, and what turns a pile of spare parts into a factory.

This skill is particularly useful when it comes to trading. A good administrator is needed to turn a trade agreement into a trade route. Equally, your talents can be turned to disrupting trade.

Combine Administration with Oration and you are a one man propaganda machine.

Example Specialisations: Industry, Lawmaking, Bureaucracy, Trade Routes

The art of designing structures for various purposes, from simple shacks and huts to massive fortresses, as well as civil engineering projects like sewers, canals and roads. Civil Engineers will be in high demand for making the Colonies a better place. When mass-producing inventions, clothes, potions and so on, civil studies will come in very handy for putting together all the machinery required.

Combine Civil and Technological Studies to create truly huge devices, such as the good ol' death cannon.

Example Specialisations: Fortresses, Bridges, Wonders of the World, Catapults.

Its a dangerous world out there. This skill is about anything that involves physically hurting or protecting others. Expect to wrestle bears, but not to take on armies single handed. With an army at your back, however, you could make all the difference.

Combine fighting with some Anthropology and you've got the set up for an adventurer.

Example Specialisations: Pointy sticks, Brawling, Mounted Combat, Dirty Fighting, Defensive Fighting

Through earthworks, trench-digging, studying ley-lines and mechanical calculations you can alter the path and health of the fragments.

Geomancers are always in demand, and essential for maintaining the Colonies. At their most basic level, geomancers can divert the course of fragments or siphon the life force from another fragments to extend its lifespan. More unique uses for fragments are always in development however.

Combine Geomancy with Technology or Civil Studies to make devices or structures that let others manipulate fragments.

Example specialisations: Aggresive Geomancy, Fragment Stabilising, Projectile Creation.

You are adept at following paper trails, asking the right questions and persuading people to give you the right answers. Obviously, you need a paper trail to follow, or money to bribe people with, however given the right resources you can generally root out some very sensitive information.

Unless you have some subterfuge as well, people will tend to know you are investigating them. You do, however, know how to create false leads and misinformation.

Combine Investigation with Administration and a dash of Subterfuge, and you have the makings of a spy network.

Infiltration, Gossip, Footprint Analysis, Feeding false information.

You are a tinkerer with living things, from stitching up wounds to midwifery, from herbal remedies to poisons. Natural studies also incorporates knowledge of animals, and the properties of crystals. This is the skill of doctors, rangers, and mad scientists.

Combine Natural Studies with Fighting to be a Ranger, capable of surviving indefinitely in the wild.

Example Specialisations: Poisons, Healing, Midwifery, Forensic investigation

Talking to people. Covers speeches, seduction, fast-talking, and anything else that involves influencing people with the power of words. This does not make people have to listen to you.

Use this to make someone famous or infamous. To spread lies and rumors

Example Specialisations: Lies, Sweet-Talk, Scandalmongering.

You understand the art of the unseen. You know how to move around without being spotted, and how to remain anonymous in a crowd. This is the skill of thieves, and saboteurs. Subterfuge is not just about disguising yourself. It can also incorporates smuggling, and legerdemain.

Combine Subterfuge with Fighting and you would make a killer assassin.

Example Specialisations: Shadowing, Breaking and Entering, Evasion, Assassination, Sabotage, Smuggling

You understand how lead troops, whether in a committed campaign or a lightning raid. This includes seeing your soldiers fed and armed, but is very specifically about managing soldiers and a different to the Administration skill. Strategy is also good for setting up effective guard patrols

Combining Strategy with Civil Studies will make your troops masters of trench warfare. Combine it with Subterfuge to be regular Guerillas.

Example Specialisations: Long Campaigns, Defense, Desert Fighting, Guerrilla Warfare

You are good with gadgets, devices and technology in general. You can design and create new machines, inventions and technology, as well as reverse-engineer or understand existing technology.

Combine Technology with Anthropology to be an expert trap disarming tomb raider.

Example Specialisations: Resource Gathering Equipment, Storm Power, Weapons, Material Science, Armour, Traps