Crunchy Bits

Abilities
Each ability in The Shadow of Yesterday has an associated pool, a pool which can be drawn on in order to give a bonus die to use of the ability. This is noted when naming abilities like this: Ability Name (Pool).

Innate Abilities
Every character in this game has three innate abilities: natural reactions and quantifications of the character's physical and mental stability.



Type of ability::Innate Uses Pool::* Summary::*

Other Abilities
While The Shadow of Yesterday has a full setting, and plenty of pre-made abilities and rules that go with that, you should never forget that it's your setting. Story Guides and players are encouraged to make up their own abilities, Secrets, and Keys.

Open abilities follow a few guidelines:


 * They are either innate abilities to a person (Athletics) or things that can be easily learned. Usually, they're both, as in the aforementioned case of Athletics, or Scrapping.


 * They are rather wide in scope, encompassing a field of actions, without being overly broad. Movement is too broad; Climbing Fences is too narrow. Fighting is too broad; Broad-sword Usage is too narrow.


 * They are not specialized knowledge that applies only to a certain people or culture. These are the Species and Cultural Abilities, which are much more narrow in scope.


 * They often overlap with other abilities, which is great. Two abilities may describe different styles of performing similar tasks.

The pre-made open abilities are below. Examine them to get ideas for your own. They've been organized by category. Any character can take abilities from any category, but it may be easier to choose a category or two that define your character and take most of the abilities from them.

Artistic Abilities

 * Freeload (Instinct)
 * Freeload is used to get free meals and shelter. Your character can't really get wealthy using Freeload, but you can manage to survive even if broke, which isn't bad.


 * Create (Instinct)
 * Create is used for painting, sculpting, and other arts where a concrete item is created.


 * Story-tell (Reason)
 * Story-tell is used for creating or telling stories, including ballads.


 * Music (Instinct)
 * Music is used for singing and playing instruments, and represents musical talent, not lyrical talent. Music and Story-tell are often used together to make an effective song.

Craftsman Abilities

 * Haggling (Instinct)
 * Haggling is used to get the best price for goods. In the world of Near, coinage doesn't really exist, and this is used to make sure you get a fair trade in barter, which means it can be used to evaluate the quality and worth of goods as well.


 * Fine Crafts (Reason)
 * Fine Crafts is used for leatherworking, woodworking, and other crafts that require fine manipulation.


 * Rough Crafts (Vigor)
 * Rough Crafts is used for stonecutting, forging, and other crafts that require a great deal of strength.


 * Complex Crafts (Reason)
 * Complex Crafts is used for any task that requires a great deal of steps or mixing of different materials, ranging from building clocks and locks to cooking.

Warrior Abilities

 * First Aid (Reason)
 * First Aid is simple medicine: bandaging cuts, binding broken bones, and washing out wounds. If someone's been physically hurt, this can be used to heal them.


 * Scrapping (Vigor)
 * Untrained fighting is the center of this ability. Fists, feet, daggers, kitchen knifes, table legs, and all sorts of clubbery are usually used in Scrapping.


 * Sense Danger (Instinct)
 * This ability is used to perceive anything that might physically harm your character. It is not a "sixth sense": the danger must be somehow perceivable, if only barely. Here's where you get those cat-like reflexes.


 * Battle (Reason)
 * Battle is the basic skills and tactics known by any military commander. It is used for giving orders in combat and planning attacks, including ambushes.

Illicit Abilities

 * Stealth (Instinct)
 * Stealth is used to sneak up on people, hide from other characters, and conceal objects on your character's body.


 * Theft (Instinct)
 * Theft is used for picking pockets, cutting purses, lockpicking, breaking and entering without being noticed, and safecracking, as well as any other theft-related activity.


 * Deceit (Reason)
 * Deceit is used to fool other characters, including pretending to be someone else, forge a document, or straight-out lie well.


 * Streetwise (Reason)
 * Streetwise is used to know information about the illegal underground, including where to buy illegal things, sell stolen goods, or know who controls organized crime.

Outdoor Abilities

 * Athletics (Vigor)
 * This is a measure of raw physicality and fitness. It is used for running, jumping, swimming, climbing, or any other strength-based task not listed as a separate ability.


 * Aim (Vigor)
 * Aim is used for shooting bows and crossbows and throwing objects.


 * Woodscraft (Reason)
 * Woodscraft is used to track people or animals, know what sorts of plants and animals are present in an area and their properties, as well as set traps.


 * Animal Ken (Instinct)
 * Animal Ken is the social skill for dealing with animals, and is used to deal with domesticated animals or wild ones. Domesticated animals are much easier to control, of course, and this may be used to give them commands. For wild animals, on the other hand, this works about as far as scaring them off, or convincing them not to eat you.

Priestly Abilities

 * Pray (Vigor)
 * Pray is used for meditation, blessing actions, and performing religious rituals. It involves the character's belief that she is connected to something better than her.


 * Counsel (Reason)
 * Counsel is used to bring peace to someone via private conversation, not unlike mental health counseling. It is the spiritual equivalent of First Aid.


 * Discern Truth (Instinct)
 * Discern Truth is used to tell if someone is being honest, or read a person's intentions.


 * Orate (Reason)
 * Orate is used to sway opinion with speech or demagoguery, and is generally used with crowds.

Social Abilities

 * Sway (Instinct)
 * Sway is used to affect individuals through conversation. Unlike Orate, this works better one-on-one, and the character being swayed may not even realize your character's intentions.


 * Savoir-Faire (Instinct)
 * Savoir-Faire is used to act smooth, dance, get a kiss from a lady, and get another character into your character's bedchambers.


 * Etiquette (Reason)
 * Etiquette is used to know your way around a society, including knowing who is important and where to get favors. It is the non-illegal society equivalent of Streetwise.


 * Dueling (Vigor)
 * Dueling is the art of honorable one-on-one battle. Almost every culture has its rituals for physically solving problems, which usually involve a sword.

Ability breadth
If you've ever played another RPG, you might look at Complex Crafts and think, "Why can my master chef character fix clocks?" It's a good question, but the answer is simple: "She can't unless you decide she can." You decide what your character is good at with craft and artistic skills, and if she picks something up later, that's great. You don't have to quantify this: you don't have to write down "cooking" when you take Complex Crafts. Just play your character as you envision her, and if it's thematically interesting for your chef character to fix a clock, go for it.

Secrets
Secrets are special qualities your character has that let her do extraordinary things. They generally work in the following ways:


 * Permanently get a bonus die to a specific use of an ability.
 * Permanently get +1 damage or protection with an ability.
 * Permanently get a minor unusual ability. This ability may require a skill use.
 * Spend one die from a pool to use an ability in an unusual way.
 * Spend two or three dice from a pool to use an ability in a supernatural or powerful unusual way.
 * Spend as many dice from a pool for a scalable effect. If this effect is especially powerful or unusual, it may carry a cost of extra dice.

Most of the Secrets pre-made for The Shadow of Yesterday follow the above guidelines, but not all. Look at the ones below, and examine them for ideas for your own.

Keys
Keys are the motivations, problems, connections, duties, and loyalties that pull on your character. To the player, they're highly important because they generate experience points. Creating new Keys may be easier than new Abilities or Secrets - they follow very simple rules.

A Key must involve a motivation, problem, connection, duty, or loyalty.

Keys come in two types:


 * Motivations. When the motivation is fulfilled in play, gain an experience point. When the motivation is fulfilled against good odds, gain three experience points.
 * Everything else. When the Key comes up in play, gain an experience point. (You can use this three times per session. This applies to all Keys below.) When the Key presents a minor problem, gain two experience points. When it presents a major problem, gain five experience points.

All Keys have a Buyoff, which is a reversal from the Key by the character. All Buyoffs give the character 10 experience points. This Buyoff occurs only when you, the player, wants it to happen: you can lose a battle with the Key of Bloodlust and still keep the Key. If you want your character to undergo a change in her personality, though, adding to the story, you can take this Buyoff by fulfilling it. If you do take the Buyoff, you can never take this Key again.

As always, see the pre-made Keys to get a feel for creating your own.