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Premade Skills - Base Campaign (Modern World)

A starting Skill list scoped to a modern-world base campaign. Per skills.md, this list is not exhaustive - players and GMs should freely add, split, merge, or rename entries to fit a specific character or campaign. It exists to save table time at character creation, not to fence in what a character can plausibly do.

Broad by design, not narrow: entries here stay wide on purpose - a single point spent training Mechanics should feel like it was worth the character point and the XP that pushed it up a tier, not like it only covers one narrow task. Where a real distinction exists within a broad Skill (a specific science, a specific trade, a specific vehicle class, a specific instrument), that’s flavor a player describes, not a reason to split the Skill itself.

Every Skill below has a Default Element - the Attribute a roll uses unless the player challenges it with a Descriptor. The default reflects the most natural, common way that Skill gets used; it isn’t a hard rule about what the Skill is, just the assumption a roll starts from.

Skills

Skill	Default Element	Definition
Academics	Air	General scholarship, history, and literature.
Acrobatics	Air	Balance, tumbling, and controlled falls.
Animal Handling	Water	Training, calming, and directing animals.
Appraisal	Air	Judging the value and authenticity of goods.
Archery	Air	Bows and crossbows - drawing, aiming, and loosing a mechanically stored-energy ranged weapon. Kept as a distinct niche Skill in a modern setting rather than merged into Firearms, since almost nobody trains it as a byproduct of anything else.
Athletics	Earth	Running, jumping, climbing, and lifting under exertion.
Barter	Fire	Striking favorable trades and deals.
Bribery	Air	Knowing how much, how, and who to pay to get what you want.
Bureaucracy	Air	Navigating institutions, paperwork, permits, and red tape to get things done.
Charm	Fire	Ingratiation and drawing people in.
Combat Driving/Piloting	Air	Operating a vehicle under fire or in a chase, distinct from ordinary Driving/Piloting.
Composition	Water	Writing music, poetry, or stories with real craft.
Computer Use	Air	General computing, software, and programming - distinct from Hacking’s adversarial focus.
Concealment	Water	Hiding objects, caches, or hideouts from a determined search.
Contortion	Air	Fitting through tight spaces and slipping restraints through flexibility.
Cooking	Water	Preparing food, from the everyday to the exceptional.
Crafting	Earth	Building and repairing goods in a chosen trade - covers any material or trade broadly (woodworking, metalworking, and so on) under one roll.
Cryptography	Air	Creating and breaking codes, ciphers, and encryption.
Deception	Water	Lying, bluffing, and fast talk.
Demolitions	Earth	Safely handling, placing, and detonating explosives.
Disguise	Water	Altering appearance to convincingly pass as someone else.
Divination	Moira	Reading omens, portents, and the shape of what’s coming - cards, bones, dreams, and other traditional methods of putting a direct question to fate.
Driving	Air	Operating ground vehicles in ordinary traffic and terrain.
Electronics	Air	Building, repairing, and modifying electronic devices and circuitry.
Engineering	Air	Theoretical and design knowledge of structures and systems.
Escapology	Water	Breaking free of restraints and confined spaces under pressure.
Etiquette	Fire	Navigating social and professional protocol correctly.
Farming	Earth	Cultivating crops and managing livestock.
Finance	Air	Economics, markets, and accounting.
Firearms	Air	Handguns, long guns, and other modern ranged weapons, covered broadly under one Skill.
First Aid	Water	Immediate, field-level treatment - stabilizing, bandaging, CPR.
Fishing	Water	Catching fish by line, net, or spear.
Forgery	Air	Producing convincing fake documents, signatures, IDs, and digital records.
Gaming	Moira	Skill at games of strategy, chance, and wagering - tabletop, esports, or otherwise.
Hacking	Air	Bypassing digital security - accounts, networks, cameras, and devices.
Holistic Medicine	Water	Herbal remedies, folk medicine, and non-clinical healing traditions.
Housekeeping	Earth	Running and maintaining a household efficiently.
Hunting	Moira	Tracking, catching, and field-dressing game - the hunter’s instinct for where the quarry will be, not just the physical stalk.
Improvised Weapons	Water	Fighting effectively with whatever’s at hand - a chair, a bottle, a tire iron - instead of a purpose-built weapon.
Insight	Moira	Reading people, sensing motive and deception - an uncanny read that goes past ordinary empathy, closer to a hunch that turns out right.
Interrogation	Fire	Extracting information from an unwilling subject.
Intimidation	Fire	Coercing others through implied or explicit threat.
Intrigue	Air	Scheming, maneuvering, and reading the undercurrents of institutional or political conflict.
Invention	Air	Designing and building original devices, not just following existing plans.
Investigation	Moira	Following clues at a scene and drawing sound conclusions - the intuitive leap that makes the threads line up, not just methodical logic.
Law	Air	Legal codes, procedure, and precedent.
Leadership	Fire	Commanding respect and rallying others to act.
Linguistics	Air	Learning, translating, and analyzing languages.
Literacy	Air	Reading and writing in a specific language, distinct from speaking it.
Mechanics	Earth	Repair and maintenance of vehicles and machinery.
Medicine	Water	Surgery, diagnosis, and long-term clinical treatment.
Melee Combat	Earth	Bladed, blunt, or improvised weapons at arm’s reach.
Natural World	Water	Knowledge of flora, fauna, ecosystems, and the environment.
Navigation	Moira	Plotting a course and avoiding getting lost, on foot, by vehicle, or otherwise - an uncanny knack for finding the way, not just dead reckoning.
Networking	Fire	Building and leveraging connections in professional, corporate, or elite circles.
Occult	Moira	Esoteric lore, ritual, and the world’s hidden supernatural undercurrent - grounds a character’s understanding of things like Moira, fate, and what a connecting Social/Mental die is actually reaching into. Included by default rather than genre-flagged, since the setting’s fated-heroes premise makes it broadly relevant rather than an opt-in module.
Perception	Water	Noticing details and spotting hidden things.
Performance	Fire	Acting, music, dance, or oratory before an audience, covered broadly under one Skill regardless of discipline.
Persuasion	Fire	Honest argument and diplomacy.
Piloting	Air	Operating aircraft or watercraft, covered broadly under one Skill regardless of vehicle type.
Politics	Air	The workings of governments, agencies, and factions.
Precognition	Moira	A trained, practiced sensitivity to warnings from the threads of fate itself - a step beyond an ordinary hunch, though never a guarantee.
Psychoanalysis	Water	Therapy and treating mental trauma.
Psychology	Water	Understanding minds, motivations, and behavior.
Public Speaking	Fire	Commanding a room and structuring a spoken argument, distinct from theatrical Performance.
Religion	Moira	Theology, doctrine, and religious practice.
Research	Air	Finding information through records, libraries, databases, and open sources - distinct from scene-based Investigation.
Ritual Craft	Moira	Conducting rites, wards, and ceremonies meant to bind, invoke, or appease the supernatural - the hands-on practice of doing the working, distinct from Occult’s theory of what it means.
Science	Air	Broad scientific knowledge, covering any discipline (chemistry, biology, astrophysics, and so on) under one Skill.
Seduction	Fire	Winning someone over through romantic or physical appeal.
Security	Air	Bypassing physical locks, safes, and alarm systems.
Shadowing	Water	Following someone without being noticed.
Signal & Cipher	Air	Radio codes, hand signs, and other non-verbal communication systems.
Sleight of Hand	Air	Pickpocketing, palming, and planting objects unnoticed.
Smuggling	Water	Concealing and moving contraband past scrutiny - including modern screening and customs.
Special Weapons	Context-dependent	An exception to the broad-skill norm: a single specific exotic or restricted-access weapon system (a particular explosive device, a military-grade platform, a supernatural armament). Defined per character as it comes up, not a default anyone starts with - including its Default Element.
Stealth	Air	Moving unseen and unheard.
Stewardship	Air	Managing a budget, staff, property, or organization’s resources.
Streetwise	Moira	Navigating criminal culture, gangs, and underworld contacts - a knack for being in the right place, reading the city’s undercurrents by instinct as much as legwork.
Surveillance	Water	Observing a target or location without being detected - physical stakeouts and technical surveillance (wiretaps, tracking, cameras) alike.
Survival	Earth	Foraging, shelter, and enduring the wilderness.
Swimming	Earth	Moving efficiently and enduring in open water.
Systems Operation	Air	Operating and interpreting complex consoles, sensors, and industrial or vehicle control systems.
Tactics	Air	Planning and directing group action, especially in conflict, without doing the fighting yourself.
Thrown Weapons	Air	Knives, javelins, axes, and other bladed or weighted weapons thrown by hand - a different body mechanic and skillset from Archery’s draw-and-release.
Tracking	Moira	Following physical trails - a nose for which way the trail actually goes, not pure spoor-reading.
Tradecraft	Water	Spy fieldcraft - dead drops, signals, cover identities, evasion, counter-surveillance.
Unarmed Combat	Earth	Brawling, martial arts, and grappling. Also the attacker’s Skill for the Grapple maneuver once rules.md defines one.
Veterinary Medicine	Water	Diagnosing and treating animals.

Everyman Skills

Per skills.md’s Everyman Skills rule, the GM sets this list per campaign - the system doesn’t fix it. This is a suggested starting list for a modern-world base campaign: baseline competence a functional adult in the present day would plausibly have just from living in it, granted free at Tier 2 (Trained). Meant to be trimmed or extended per campaign, not adopted wholesale without a look.

Skill	Why it’s baseline in a modern setting
Athletics	Baseline physical capability - walking, running, carrying, climbing a fence.
Bureaucracy	Everyone in the modern world has filled out a form, called customer service, or dealt with an institution.
Computer Use	Basic literacy with phones, computers, and everyday software is close to universal.
Cooking	Basic ability to feed oneself beyond a microwave.
Driving	Most adults in a modern setting can operate a car.
Etiquette	Enough grasp of ordinary social norms to function in public and at work.
First Aid	Widely taught (school, work, licensing) - bandaging a cut, basic CPR awareness.
Literacy	Reading and writing in one’s native language.
Persuasion	Everyday give-and-take - asking for a favor, making a case, haggling a little.
Streetwise	A working sense of one’s own neighborhood/city - what’s safe, who’s who, where not to go.

Deliberately not included by default: Firearms, Medicine, Hacking, and other Skills that represent real specialized training most people don’t get just by living in modern society - those stay Skills characters actually invest in, not baseline gives.