Skills

All player characters in End of the Line are exceptionally talented individuals, and can be assumed to be reasonably competent at whatever they turn their hands to. Your characters is intelligent, capable and powerful, and would probably equal or best the average human at any field of endeavour save the most specialised (unless hampered by a negative quirk).

However, among the many things that your character is merely very good at there will be a few areas in which they are truly exceptional. All player characters are capable enough combatants that they can ensure the pointy end of the sword goes in the mercenary gate-guard when required. Only a few, however, will be able to drop into the inner sanctum of a guild lieutenant, eliminate his two hand-picked body guards and have a blade to his throat before anyone has time to raise the alarm.

To represent your character’s greatest strengths, you can pick three skills from the following list of ten. Two of these are things at which your character excels, representing a level of skill that most mortals could perhaps achieve with a lifetime of study (and one superior to that of most denizens of the city, save other PCs and the upper echelons of NPCs). The third skill pick represents your characters speciality - their singles greatest area of talent, in which they are capable of astonishing feats, equalled only by similarly skilled characters or several characters of lesser skill in the area working together.

What precisely a skill represents will depend on your power source. There is no “magic” skill - instead characters with the Magic power source will throw fireballs for Aggression, work great healing rituals for “Rejuvenation”, and render themselves silent and invisible for Observation. How successful a use of a skill will be is also dependant on your characters current power level - a Talent based character at an average level of power could cut through a small band of trained assassins using Aggression, but one who has brought themselves up to an ascendant level of power could weave a song of blade and blood through the best part of an army.

With the exception of Talent, the power sources each have a recommended skill. This skill will generally be the one most applicable to augmenting your power through turnsheet actions. You are under no obligation to pick this skill, as there are many routes to power - the recommendation merely aims to highlight the most obvious. Talent characters also get an extra skill, and a second skill upgraded to a key skill, to represent the extra flexibility they gain through not being tied to a specialised way of channeling their power.

The skills presented below aim to cover all fields in which characters in the setting could excel. If you feel something is missing from the list, please email the GM team, and we will be happy to discuss which skill best represents what you want to include in your character, or whether we can modify one of our descriptions to make it fit.

Your character is skilled in the arts of violence. Whether through a mastery of lighting bolts and fireballs, crackling brass claws affixed to your forearms (and the enhanced exoskeleton to use them), or a surpassing talent with blade or fists, you are capable of taking people down in a fight. Quite a lot of people, unless opposed by someone equally skilled.

This will help in any combat situation, especially against NPCs and other denizens of the city. It also significantly increases your chances of breaking through the defences of other PCs, given preparation and a good enough plan.

Your character is skilled at persuading people of their point of view and otherwise impressing them, particularly large groups of people or that nebulous entity known as “the masses”. You could have an amazing talent for public speaking, the ability to conjure fantastic light shows to astonish and delight, or a technological rig that magnifies your voice that it might be heard across a crowded square.

This will help with persuading NPCs only (not PC's) of your point of view, and increasing your standing among the population of the city. This is the recommended skill for the Divinity power source, as it is the most direct way of winning more worshippers.

Your character is skilled at delving deep into mysteries of lore and the mind. Extracting secrets from ancient tomes is the most obvious use of this skill, but it can equally represent meditating on the fundamental nature of the universe, trying to find the one blueprint among the hoard of a fractured genius that doesn’t violate the laws of physics, or conducting scientific experiments.

This will help with finding out secrets arcane, technological and metaphysical, as well as studying artifacts of all of the above. This is the recommended skill for the Magic power source, as it is the most useful for identifying and researching the location of the potent items needed for this power source, as well as learning new ways to use their powers.

Your character is skilled at making things. You could be an architect capable of grand feats of folly or fortification. You could be skilled at enchanting magical items for a specific purpose. You could be capable of applying your technological mastery on a grand scale to create magnificent and revolutionary inventions. Or, as a Divine character, you could be capable of bringing far more specific and complex things into being than others of your ilk.

This will help you in creating things on a scale that goes beyond your own person. This is the recommended skill for the Tech power source, as the application of technology allows marvels to be created that perhaps lie beyond the scope or ken of the other power sources, as well as mass producing technological items for use by others. It is worth noting that Tech characters without this skill will still be able to create and maintain personal enhancements that aid in areas in which they are skilled. They will, however, be less capable of creating things on a grand scale or for the use of others. For example, Batman could be viewed as a tech character without Creation - all of his inventions and gadgets enhance his (and sometimes, his sidekick’s) capabilities in Aggression, Speed and Observation. If, on the other hand, you want to unleash an army of mecha-scorpions on the city at some point, or build tech powered airships to fly around in, you will probably need this skill.

Your character is skilled at healing or repairing things or people. Great healers magical, mundane or divine are the most obvious example of this, mending broken limbs or purging disease, or even deploying the steam-powered healing ray. This skill is also applicable to repairs of buildings or artifacts - you might be able to copy an ancient wrecked ornithopter with Construction, or learn its principles through Research, but if you want to get the thing working again you will need this skill.

This will help you with healing people or repairing objects.

For many of the more powerful individuals in the city, death long ago ceased to be a pressing concern in their own worlds - magic, divine healing or technology sustaining them in a state of perpetual youth. Accidents do, however, happen and a sudden death through random (often the “stabbed five times in the back by assassins” kind of random) chance is always a possibility within the city. Some, therefore, have devoted themselves to the study of reanimating the dead. Ways and means exist to achieve this through all the power sources - even Talented characters can turn back death's veil through the deepest arts of studied medicine. However, it is a very tricky thing to get right, taking either enormous amounts of preparation, especially for powerful individuals.

Bringing a fellow PC back from the death with their personality intact required the use of Ascendant levels of power, and the consent of that PC's player. It will not inherently give you any control over them. Necromancy in a lesser form (to raise an army of zombies, for example) is a much more trivial undertaking

Your character is skilled in athletics and dexterity, and has quick reactions. This can represent something as mundane as phenomenally honed reflexes and muscle control, or similar enhanced by magic or technology. Other routes to success in this area could be the possession of wings of a jetpack, or other technological aids.

This will help with getting into and out of places quickly and quietly, navigating treacherous terrain, and evading pursuit or capture. It can also add to your defences in terms of evading attacks on yourself or your surroundings.

Your character is skilled at keeping an eye on people, finding out what they are up to, and unearthing their secrets. You could be the spymaster, skilled at stealing and interpreting correspondence, you could have a nondescript face, allowing you access to archives and meetings where you have no place, or you could have technological or magical routes to the same. Bionic eyes with a zoom function, spells of invisibility, or even bugging the other guilds meeting room - all of these feed into Observation.

This skill will help you investigate the actions of other PCs, NPCs and goings on in the city. It will not aid in unearthing academic secrets (Research), though can aid in stealing them from others, nor will it aid in delving into the darker, unexplored places within the city and its environs (Exploration), though would help in finding someone who can.

You are skilled at management and organisation of projects and personnel, with a focus on getting things done. Individuals skilled in this area are particularly pried by the guilds - among the denizens of the city, there are vastly more individuals who can lead a force to capture some prime real estate than there are who can organise the occupation, fortification and consolidation of the guild’s hold on it afterwards. This could represent a good head for figures and attention to detail, or it could be something more unusual, such as possession of a Thinking Machine for crunching numbers and organising labour, or magical capability to converse with lieutenants over great distance. It could also represent possession of a large force of worshippers willing to get their hands dirty, or the ability to automate processes, whether through magic or tech.

This skill will aid in all matters organisational, especially working with and against guilds, and in deploying NPC aid. This skill is not required for organising your own group of minions but only for larger groups where several groups of minions for example are involved. It can provide a great help in grand projects using other skills where a large workforce is involved.

You are skilled at exploring the city and its environs. Whether delving into the tunnels and caverns beneath the city, exploring the Dark Forest, or merely trying to find the best restaurant in a district, Exploration will speed your progress and reduce the risks, as well as potentially finding secrets that would be missed by an unskilled character. As well as pure skill, there are plenty of way that magic, divinity or tech can aid with this - infravision to see through walls and obstacles, the ability to temporarily shrink, grow or become intangible, or hormunculi and mechanical bugs to scout ahead.

This skill will aid in exploring the city and environs, delving into its secrets and finding new route around.