Mental Skills


 * Academics: Academics is a broad-based Skill that represents a character's degree of higher education and general knowledge in the Arts and Humanities - everything from English to history, economics to law. Dots in this Skill do not directly correlate to a given level of education. Your character could have entered a doctorate program but spent more time partying than studying, resulting in low dots. Conversely, a self-taught individual who read voraciously and studied intensively could have high dots without ever earning a diploma.
 * Specialty(ies)
 * Teaching
 * Research
 * Various academic study fields.


 * Computer: Characters possessing this Skill have the necessary training or experience to operate a computer. At high levels (3 or more), a character can create his own computer programs. People with high levels in this Skill are familiar with a variety of programming languages and operating systems.

Note that dots in Computer do not apply to manually fixing or building machines, only to operating them. Construction and repair is the province of the Crafts Skill.
 * Specialty(ies)
 * Algorithms
 * Artificial Intelligence
 * Computation, Binary
 * Computation, Geometric
 * Computation, Quantum
 * Cybernetics
 * Cryptography
 * Data Retrieval
 * Data Structures
 * Databases
 * Graphics
 * Internet Usage
 * Networks
 * Programming
 * Security
 * Systems Architecture
 * Craft: Crafts represents a character's training or experience in creating works of physical art or construction with his hands, from paintings to car engines to classical sculpture. Characters possessing this Skill typically have the knowledge, but not necessarily the tools or facilities to make use of their capabilities. A character might be an exceptional mechanic, for example, but still needs to sweet-talk his boss into opening up the garage after-hours to work on his friend's car.
 * Specialty(ies)
 * Too many possibilities to list here.
 * Investigation: Investigation is the art and science of solving mysteries, examining seemingly disparate evidence to find a connection, answering riddles and overcoming paradoxes. It not only allows your character to get into the head of a killer to grasp his motives or plans, it allows her to look beyond the mundane world to guess at answers to mysterious problems, or to have a "eureka" moment that offers insight into baffling circumstances. Your character might realize that all murder victims have the same digits jumbled in their phone numbers, she might interpret a dream that has striking similarities to events in the real world, or she could recognize why an intruder took the time to paint a room red. Certain individuals such as law-enforcement officers, forensic specialists, scientists and investigators are trained in the art of examination, while others simply develop the knack through years of practice.

Note that Investigation is different from the perception Attribute task. Perception (Wits + Composure or Wits + another Skill) is typically checked when a character could spot something unusual or amiss when she isn't actually looking for it. Investigation-based rolls are typically made when a character actively studies a situation. Dots in Investigation don't give a character sudden insight or capability in the realms of other Skills, however. She can't miraculously identify changing brushstrokes in a painting, for example. That would be the realm of Academics or Crafts. But she might identify how the placement of paintings throughout a house creates a pattern and imparts a message.
 * Specialty(ies)
 * Artifacts
 * Autopsy
 * Body Language
 * Crime Scenes
 * Human Intelligence
 * Puzzles
 * Visual Language
 * Medicine: The Medicine Skill reflects a character's training and expertise in human physiology and how to treat injuries and illness. The trait represents knowledge of human anatomy and basic medical treatments. Characters with a low level in this Skill (01 to 02) often possess only rudimentary first-aid training, while characters with high levels (03+) are the equivalent of physicians or surgeons.
 * Specialty(ies)
 * Anesthesiology: Anesthesia, or anaesthesia (from Greek αν-, an-, "without"; and αἴσθησις, aisthēsis, "sensation"),[1] traditionally meant the condition of having sensation (including the feeling of pain) blocked or temporarily taken away. It is a pharmacologically induced and reversible state of amnesia, analgesia, loss of responsiveness, loss of skeletal muscle reflexes or decreased stress response, or all simultaneously.
 * Anatomy: The study of the physical structure of organisms.
 * Biochemistry: The study of the chemistry taking place in living organisms, especially the structure and function of their chemical components.
 * Biomechanics: The study of the structure and function of biological systems by means of the methods of Mechanics.
 * Biostatistics: The application of statistics to biological fields in the broadest sense. A knowledge of biostatistics is essential in the planning, evaluation, and interpretation of medical research. It is also fundamental to epidemiology and evidence-based medicine.
 * Biophysics: The interdisciplinary science that uses the methods of physics and physical chemistry to study biological systems.
 * Cardiology: Cardiology (from Greek καρδίᾱ, kardiā, "heart"; and -λογία, -logia) is a medical specialty dealing with disorders of the heart (specifically the human heart). The field includes medical diagnosis and treatment of congenital heart defects, coronary artery disease, heart failure, valvular heart disease and electrophysiology. Physicians who specialize in this field of medicine are called cardiologists. Physicians who specialize in cardiac surgery are called cardiac surgeons.
 * Critical Care Medicine: Patients requiring intensive care may require support for instability (hypertension/hypotension), airway or respiratory compromise (such as ventilator support), acute renal failure, potentially lethal cardiac arrhythmias, or the cumulative effects of multiple organ failure, more commonly referred to now as multiple organ dysfunction syndrome. They may also be admitted for intensive/invasive monitoring, such as the crucial hours after major surgery when deemed too unstable to transfer to a less intensively monitored unit.
 * Cytology: The microscopic study of individual cells.
 * Dietetics: The practical study of the relationship of food and drink to health and disease, especially in determining an optimal diet. Medical nutrition therapy is done by dietitians and is prescribed for diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, weight and eating disorders, allergies, malnutrition, and neoplastic diseases.
 * Embryology: The study of the early development of organisms.
 * Endocrinology: The study of hormones and their effect throughout the body of animals.
 * Epidemiology: The study of the demographics of disease processes, and includes, but is not limited to, the study of epidemics.
 * Gastroenterology: Gastroenterology (MeSH heading) is a branch of medicine focused on the digestive system and its disorders. The name is a combination of three Ancient Greek words gaster (gen.: gastros) (stomach), enteron (intestine), and logos (reason).
 * Genetics: The study of genes, and their role in biological inheritance.
 * Geriatrics: Geriatrics or geriatric medicine is a sub-specialty of internal medicine and family medicine that focuses on health care of elderly people. It aims to promote health by preventing and treating diseases and disabilities in older adults. There is no set age at which patients may be under the care of a geriatrician or geriatric physician, a physician who specializes in the care of elderly people. Rather, this decision is determined by the individual patient's needs, and the availability of a specialist.
 * Gynaecology: The medical practice dealing with the health of the female reproductive system (uterus, vagina, and ovaries). Literally, outside medicine, it means "the science of women". Its counterpart is andrology, which deals with medical issues specific to the male reproductive system.
 * Haematology: Hematology, also spelled haematology (from the Greek ‘αἷμα haima "blood" and -λoγία), is the study of blood, the blood-forming organs, and blood diseases. Hematology includes the study of etiology, diagnosis, treatment, prognosis, and prevention of blood diseases that affect the production of blood and its components, such as blood cells, hemoglobin, blood proteins, and the mechanism of coagulation. The laboratory work that goes into the study of blood is frequently performed by a medical technologist. Hematologists also conduct studies in oncology—the medical treatment of cancer.
 * Hepatology: Hepatology is the branch of medicine that incorporates the study of liver, gallbladder, biliary tree, and pancreas as well as management of their disorders. Etymologically the word Hepatology is formed of ancient Greek hepar(ηπαρ) or hepato-(ηπατο-) meaning 'liver' and suffix -logia(-λογια) meaning 'word' or 'speech'. Although traditionally considered a sub-specialty of gastroenterology, rapid expansion has led in some countries to doctors specializing solely on this area, who are called hepatologists.
 * Histology: The study of the structures of biological tissues by light microscopy, electron microscopy and immunohistochemistry.
 * Immunology: The study of the immune system, which includes the innate and adaptive immune system in humans, for example.
 * Infectious Disease: Infectious diseases, also known as transmissible diseases or communicable diseases comprise clinically evident illness (i.e., characteristic medical signs and/or symptoms of disease) resulting from the infection, presence and growth of pathogenic biological agents in an individual host organism. In certain cases, infectious diseases may be asymptomatic for much or even all of their course in a given host. In the latter case, the disease may only be defined as a "disease" (which by definition means an illness) in hosts who secondarily become ill after contact with an asymptomatic carrier. An infection is not synonymous with an infectious disease, as some infections do not cause illness in a host.
 * Medical Physics: The study of the applications of physics principles in medicine.
 * Microbiology: The study of microorganisms, including protozoa, bacteria, fungi, and viruses.
 * Molecular Biology: The study of molecular underpinnings of the process of replication, transcription and translation of the genetic material.
 * Nephrology: Nephrology (from Greek νεφρός – nephros, "kidney", combined with the suffix -logy, "the study of") is a specialty of medicine and pediatrics that concerns itself with the study of normal kidney function, kidney problems, the treatment of kidney problems and renal replacement therapy (dialysis and kidney transplantation). Systemic conditions that affect the kidneys (such as diabetes and autoimmune disease) and systemic problems that occur as a result of kidney problems (such as renal osteodystrophy and hypertension) are also studied in nephrology. A physician who has undertaken additional training to become an expert in nephrology may call themselves a nephrologist or renal physician.
 * Neurology: Neurology (from Greek νεῦρον, neuron, "nerve" + the suffix -λογία, '-logia', "study of") is a medical specialty dealing with disorders of the nervous system. To be specific, neurology deals with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of disease involving the central and peripheral nervous system; or equivalently, the autonomic nervous systems and the somatic nervous systems, including their coverings, blood vessels, and all effector tissue, such as muscle.
 * Nutrition Science: The theoretical study of the relationship of food and drink to health and disease, especially in determining an optimal diet. Medical nutrition therapy is done by dietitians and is prescribed for diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, weight and eating disorders, allergies, malnutrition, and neoplastic diseases.
 * Obstetrics: Obstetrics (from the Latin obstare, "to stand by") is the medical specialty dealing with the care of all women's reproductive tracts and their children during pregnancy (prenatal period), childbirth and the postnatal period. Many obstetricians are also gynecologists, meaning they perform in both specialties.
 * Oncology: Oncology (from the Ancient Greek onkos (ὄγκος), meaning bulk, mass, or tumor, and the suffix -logy (-λογία), meaning "study of") is a branch of medicine that deals with cancer. A medical professional who practices oncology is an oncologist.
 * Pediatrics: Pediatrics (or paediatrics) is the branch of medicine that deals with the medical care of infants, children, and adolescents. A medical practitioner who specializes in this area is known as a pediatrician, or paediatrician. The word pediatrics and its cognates mean healer of children; they derive from two Greek words: παῖς (pais = child) and ἰατρός (iatros = doctor or healer).
 * Pathology: The study of disease—the causes, course, progression and resolution thereof.
 * Pharmacology: The study of drugs and their actions.
 * Photobiology: The study of the interactions between non-ionizing radiation and living organisms.
 * Physiology: The study of the normal functioning of the body and the underlying regulatory mechanisms.
 * Psychiatry: Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of mental disorders. These include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities.
 * Pulmonology/Pneumology/Respirology: Pulmonology is the medical specialty dealing with disease involving the respiratory tract. The term is derived from the Latin word pulmō, pulmonis ("lung") and the Greek -λογία, -logia. Pulmonology is also occasionally referred to as pneumology, from the Greek πνεύμων ("lung") and -λογία, -logia, and sometimes also respirology.
 * Radiobiology: The study of the interactions between ionizing radiation and living organisms.
 * Radiology: Radiology is a medical specialty that employs the use of imaging to both diagnose and treat disease visualised within the human body. Radiologists use an array of imaging technologies (such as X-ray radiography, ultrasound, computed tomography (CT), nuclear medicine, positron emission tomography (PET) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to diagnose or treat diseases.
 * Rheumatology: Rheumatology (Greek ρεύμα, rheuma, river) is a sub-specialty in internal medicine and pediatrics, devoted to diagnosis and therapy of rheumatic diseases. Clinicians who specialize in rheumatology are called Rheumatologists. Rheumatologists deal mainly with clinical problems involving joints, soft tissues, autoimmune diseases, vasculitis, and heritable connective tissue disorders.
 * Sleep Medicine: Sleep medicine is a medical specialty or subspecialty devoted to the diagnosis and therapy of sleep disturbances and disorders.
 * Toxicology: The study of hazardous effects of drugs and poisons.
 * Veterinary Medicine: The branch of science that deals with the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of disease, disorder and injury in animals. The scope of veterinary medicine is wide, covering all animal species, both domesticated and wild, with a wide range of conditions which can affect different species.
 * Occult: The Occult Skill reflects a character's knowledge and experience with the world's various legends and lore about the supernatural. A character with this Skill not only knows the theories, myths and legends of the occult, but can generally discern "fact" from rumor. Characters may come by this Skill in a variety of ways, from oddball college courses to learning legends and myths from the lips of superstitious family members.
 * Specialty(ies)
 * Specific Cultural Beliefs
 * Specific Supernatural Beings
 * Specific Types of Sorcery
 * Superstitions
 * Politics: Characters possessing this Skill are not only familiar with the way the political process works, they're experienced with bureaucracies and know exactly who to call in a given situation to get something done. Your character keeps track of who's in power and how she got there, along with her potential rivals. He has a grasp of the issues of the moment and how they affect the political process, and knows whose palms to grease. It's possible that your character acquired this Skill by running for political office at some point, or by working on a campaign or as a public servant. Or he could simply be someone who follows the news and understands the money trail.
 * Specialty(ies)
 * Bribery
 * Elections
 * Scandals
 * Specific Cultural/Social Group
 * Specific Commercial Group
 * Specific Economic Group
 * Specific Political Group
 * Religion: Characters possessing this Skill are educated in the proper rituals and demonstrations of the multitude of deities that oversee their culture. This is not occult knowledge, but rather a familiarity with the widely available (and greatly complicated) tales of religion and understanding of its proper practice in the setting, domestic and foreign.
 * Specialty(ies)
 * Doctrine
 * Omens
 * Pantheon
 * Rituals & Ceremonies
 * Theology
 * Science: This Skill represents your character's understanding of the sciences. Science is useful not only for understanding how the world works, but it helps characters make the most of the resources at hand to achieve their goals. A character with a strong Science background could describe the chemical process for plating metals, for example, allowing another character with Crafts to make a silver-edged steel sword.
 * Specialty(ies)
 * Archaeology: The study of human activity in the past, primarily through the recovery and analysis of the material culture and environmental data that they have left behind, which includes artifacts, architecture, biofacts and cultural landscapes.
 * Biology: Biology is the branch of natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines.
 * Botany: Botany involves the scientific study of plant life. Botany covers a wide range of scientific disciplines including structure, growth, reproduction, metabolism, development, diseases, chemical properties, and evolutionary relationships among taxonomic groups.
 * Chemistry: Chemistry (the etymology of the word has been much disputed) is the science of matter and the changes it undergoes. The science of matter is also addressed by physics, but while physics takes a more general and fundamental approach, chemistry is more specialized, being concerned with the composition, behavior (or reaction), structure, and properties of matter, as well as the changes it undergoes during chemical reactions. It is a physical science which studies various substances, atoms, molecules, and matter (especially carbon based); biochemistry, the study of substances found in biological organisms; physical chemistry, the study of chemical processes using physical concepts such as thermodynamics and quantum mechanics; and analytical chemistry, the analysis of material samples to gain an understanding of their chemical composition and structure.
 * Civil Law: Civil law is the branch of law dealing with disputes between individuals or organizations, in which compensation may be awarded to the victim. For instance, if a car crash victim claims damages against the driver for loss or injury sustained in an accident, this will be a civil law case.
 * Comparative Politics: Comparative politics is a field and a method used in political science, characterized by an empirical approach based on the comparative method. In other words comparative politics is the study of the domestic politics, political institutions, and conflicts of countries.
 * Constitutional And Administrative Law: Constitutional and administrative law govern the affairs of the state. Constitutional law concerns both the relationships between the executive, legislature and judiciary and the human rights or civil liberties of individuals against the state.
 * Contract Law: Contract law concerns enforceable promises, and can be summed up in the Latin phrase pacta sunt servanda (agreements must be kept). In common law jurisdictions, three key elements to the creation of a contract are necessary: offer and acceptance, consideration and the intention to create legal relations.
 * Criminal Law: Criminal law, also known as penal law, pertains to crimes and punishment. It thus regulates the definition of and penalties for offences found to have a sufficiently deleterious social impact but, in itself, makes no moral judgment on an offender nor imposes restrictions on society that physically prevents people from committing a crime in the first place. Investigating, apprehending, charging, and trying suspected offenders is regulated by the law of criminal procedure. The paradigm case of a crime lies in the proof, beyond reasonable doubt, that a person is guilty of two things. First, the accused must commit an act which is deemed by society to be criminal, or actus reus (guilty act). Second, the accused must have the requisite malicious intent to do a criminal act, or mens rea (guilty mind).
 * Cultural Anthropology: The study of cultural variation among humans, collecting data about the impact of global economic and political processes on local cultural realities. Anthropologists use a variety of methods, including participant observation, interviews and surveys. Their research is often called fieldwork because it involves the anthropologist spending an extended period of time at the research location.
 * Ecology: Ecology (from Greek: οἶκος, "house"; -λογία, "study of") is the scientific study of the relationships that living organisms have with each other and with their abiotic environment. Topics of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount (biomass), number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems.
 * Geology: Geology (from the Greek γῆ, gê, "earth" and λόγος, logos, "study") is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change.
 * International Relations: The study of relationships among countries, the roles of sovereign states, inter-governmental organizations (IGO), international non-governmental organizations (INGO), non-governmental organizations (NGO), and multinational corporations (MNC). International relations is an academic and a public policy field, and so can be positive and normative, because it analyzes and formulates the foreign policy of a given State.
 * Linguistics: Linguistics investigates the cognitive and social aspects of human language. The field is divided into areas that focus on aspects of the linguistic signal, such as syntax (the study of the rules that govern the structure of sentences), semantics (the study of meaning), morphology (the study of the structure of words), phonetics (the study of speech sounds) and phonology (the study of the abstract sound system of a particular language).
 * Logic: The formal systematic study of the principles of valid inference and correct reasoning. Logic is used in most intellectual activities, but is studied primarily in the disciplines of philosophy, mathematics, semantics, and computer science. Logic examines general forms which arguments may take, which forms are valid, and which are fallacies.
 * Macroeconomics: Macroeconomics (from the Greek prefix makro- meaning "large" and economics) is a branch of economics dealing with the performance, structure, behavior, and decision-making of an economy as a whole, rather than individual markets. Macroeconomists study aggregated indicators such as GDP, unemployment rates, and price indices to understand how the whole economy functions. Macroeconomists develop models that explain the relationship between such factors as national income, output, consumption, unemployment, inflation, savings, investment, international trade and international finance.
 * Mathematics: The abstract study of topics encompassing quantity, structure, space, change, and other properties; it has no generally accepted definition. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proof. When mathematical structures are good models of real phenomena, then mathematical reasoning can provide insight or predictions about nature.
 * Meteorology: Meteorology is the interdisciplinary scientific study of the atmosphere. Studies in the field stretch back millennia, though significant progress in meteorology did not occur until the 18th century. The 19th century saw breakthroughs occur after observing networks developed across several countries. After the development of the computer in the latter half of the 20th century, breakthroughs in weather forecasting were achieved.
 * Microeconomics: Microeconomics (from Greek prefix mikro- meaning "small" and economics) is a branch of economics that studies the behavior of individual households and firms in making decisions on the allocation of limited resources. Typically, it applies to markets where goods or services are bought and sold. Microeconomics examines how these decisions and behaviors affect the supply and demand for goods and services, which determines prices, and how prices, in turn, determine the quantity supplied and quantity demanded of goods and services.
 * Oceanology: Oceanology, or marine science, is the branch of Earth science that studies the ocean. It covers a wide range of topics, including marine organisms and ecosystem dynamics; ocean currents, waves, and geophysical fluid dynamics; plate tectonics and the geology of the sea floor; and fluxes of various chemical substances and physical properties within the ocean and across its boundaries.
 * Political Philosophy: The study of such topics as politics, liberty, justice, property, rights, law, and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what they are, why (or even if) they are needed, what, if anything, makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it should take and why, what the law is, and what duties citizens owe to a legitimate government, if any, and when it may be legitimately overthrown, if ever.
 * Physics: Physics (from Ancient Greek: φύσις physis "nature") is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.
 * Psychology: Psychology is an academic and applied field involving the study of behavior and mental processes. Psychology also refers to the application of such knowledge to various spheres of human activity, including problems of individuals' daily lives and the treatment of mental illness. The word psychology comes from the ancient Greek ψυχή, psyche ("soul", "mind") and logy, study.
 * Public International Law: Public international law concerns relationships between sovereign nations. The sources for public international law development are custom, practice and treaties between sovereign nations, such as the Geneva Conventions.
 * Sociology: The systematic study of society and human social action. The meaning of the word comes from the suffix "-ology" which means "study of," derived from Greek, and the stem "soci-" which is from the Latin word socius, meaning "companion", or society in general.
 * Zoology: Zoology /zoʊˈɒlədʒi/, occasionally spelled zoölogy, is the branch of biology that relates to the animal kingdom, including the structure, embryology, evolution, classification, habits, and distribution of all animals, both living and extinct. The term is derived from Ancient Greek ζῷον (zōon, "animal") + λόγος (logos, "knowledge").
 * Warfare: This Skill represents a character’s understanding, gained by education, experience or just innate sense, of large-scale tactical maneuvers. Warfare is useful when planning for a battle (to assign troops well, to read the lay of the land for potential advantages and trouble spots and to predict enemy movements) and when attempting to read the flow of events during open conflict. A character with a high rating in Warfare is unlikely to walk into a trap in battle, and is more likely to adopt the right response to a change in circumstances amidst the din and chaos of war.

Warfare does not just represent the ability to gain objectives in war — it is the ability to gain those objectives while incurring a minimum of losses on one’s side and inflicting a maximum of casualties on the enemy. Any good soldier can take an objective with overwhelming force. It takes a great one to achieve the same goal with an under-powered force and avoid losing any subordinates in the process.
 * Speciality(ies)
 * Asymmetrical Warfare
 * Individual Combat
 * Large Unit Operations
 * Night Operations
 * Stealth Operations
 * Small Unit Operations
 * Special Operations
 * Various Specific Tactics
 * Various Terrain Types
 * Various Weather Conditions

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