Guardsman Skills
Quaerere Locum (Search Location)
The character can search a crime scene or other location for clues, such as blood stains, dropped items, footprints, etc.
- Chance of Success: 15% + ((Intelligence + Wisdom)/2), +3% per level.
- Bonuses: For multiple characters searching together, roll the highest skill, and add ½ the skill of additional characters.
Quaeritur Persona (Question Person)
The character is skilled in using friendly conversation to draw out information from a (relatively) cooperative person, even information they’re not aware they have.
- Chance of Success: 15% + ((Intelligence + Charisma)/2), +3% per level.
- Bonuses: Plying the subject with alcohol adds +20%
Interrogatio (Interrogation)
The character is skilled in extracting information (or a confession) out of a suspect who is not cooperative, through verbal intimidation.
- Chance of Success: 20% + ((Bardic Voice + Ferocity)/2), +3% per level.
Terrori (Intimidate)
The character uses his physical size and demeanor to intimidate someone who is not cooperative. This can be used to extract information, or to coerce actions. Chance of Success: 10% + (Strength + Ferocity), +3% per level Bonuses: +10% if over 6’ tall, +10% if superhuman STR Penalties:-10% if under 5’ tall
Tormentum (Torture)
The character is skilled in using physical duress to extract information (or a confession) from a suspect who is in their power.
Each hour of torture, the character makes his skill roll. 1/5 of this roll is damage done to the victim (Fatigue, then Body), whether the skill roll succeeds or fails. Particularly heroic subjects (and all Player Characters) get a second chance by rolling a D20. If the roll is less than or equal to their Level, they may refuse to talk, or they may lie. A 20th level character cannot be broken! Chance of Success: 25% + ((Strength + Intelligence + Ferocity)/3), +2% per level Bonuses:
| Item | Bonus |
|---|---|
| Rack | +50% |
| Thumbscrews | +25% |
| Boiling Oil | +10% |
| Hot Irons | +10% |
| Intelligence above 15 | +5% |
| Wisdom above 15 | +5% |
Characters without Torture skill but with equipment may attempt torture at ½ the bonus percentage for the equipment. If the skill roll fails, consult the table:
| Roll | Result | |
|---|---|---|
| 01-25% | = | Victim tells the torturer what he believes the torturer wants to hear. |
| 26-50% | = | Victim passes out. Resume questioning in 1-6 hours when he is fit again. |
| 51-75% | = | Victim seriously injured by “rigorous questioning”: 1-10 points of additional (Body) damage. |
| 76-90% | = | Victim grievously injured by “rigorous questioning”: 1-20 points of additional (Body) damage. |
| 91-100% | = | Victim dies “under the question.” |
- Note 1: Clerical healing will not work to heal damage done by torture.
- Note 2:
- Characters with Alignment 1 or 2 will never use torture.
- Characters with Alignment 3 to 7 will only use torture under especially dire circumstances, such as immediate threats to innocent bystanders
- Characters with Alignment 8 to 13 will only use torture if they believe there is no other way.
- Characters with Alignment 14 or 15 will might find torture distasteful, but will use it when it seems efficient.
- Characters with Alignment 16 or 17 will use torture without hesitation.
- Characters with Alignment 18 or 19 will use torture indiscriminately.
- Characters with Alignment 20 will use torture by preference because they enjoy it.
Question Person is used verbally on a cooperative subject. Interrogation is used verbally on an uncooperative subject. Intimidation is used to physically intimidate a person into cooperation (not limited to information gathering). Torture is used physically on an uncooperative person.
Urbana Haec (City Tracking)
The character is skilled in following tracks, made by people or common (city) animals in a city environment. This can include footprints, blood trails, animal spoor, etc., even questioning bystanders on the street.
- Chance of Success: 10% + Intelligence, +2% per level
Veritas Artis (Verity Craft)
What a modern investigator would call forensic science, but the available techniques are quite limited by comparison. This is the art of interpreting what evidence is discovered, and what it means.
- Chance of Success: (Intelligence + Bardic Voice)/2, +1% per level. (Bardic Voice covers all creativity.)
- Bonuses:Services of an Alchemist: +3%/Level of the Alchemist, if appropriate
- Access to a library of Philosophy (which is to say, scientific knowledge):
| Type | Bonus |
|---|---|
| Small (personal, non-noble): | +10% |
| Medium (noble’s library): | +20% |
| Large (university library): | +30% |
| Imperial Library: | +50% (requires the assistance of a librarian) |
- A specialized library devoted to a specific subject adds +20% within that subject, but is of no use for anything else.
Urbs Astutus (City Shrewdness - Streetwise)
The character is familiar with the seamy side of their part of city, and those who inhabit it. This includes who gambles, and who they gamble with, practitioners of the sub rosa mercatus obscurus (“dark market”) or negotium illicitum (“illegal business”), from untaxed alcohol to fencing stolen goods to trafficking in “ladies of negotiable affection.” It also includes knowledge of how to interact with various denizens of that element of society, whether through bribery, favors, or intimidation. It is fairly specific to the particular ward the character lives and works in; the farther from home, the greater the penalty to the roll.
- Chance of Success: 10% + (Intelligence + Charisma)/2, +3% per level.
- Bonuses:
- +1% per CP/SP/GP (whatever the target’s normal income is measured in) in bribery (only if a successful roll indicates bribery is the right approach)
- +5-25% or more per favor, depending on the nature and importance of the favor (only if a successful roll indicates favors are the right approach)
- + Ferocity score if a successful roll indicates intimidation is the right approach
Penalties: -10% per ward away from home.
Iuris Ratio (Legal Procedure)
Familiarity with the laws of the city, the province, and the empire, and how those laws are enforced. It specifically includes a familiarity with the many overlapping and conflicting jurisdictions that depend on where one is, who one is, and what organization(s) one is a member of. This includes procedures for making arrests, holding suspects who have been arrested, transporting them to court, and how to support the prosecutors during a trial.
- Chance of Success: 10% + Intelligence +3% per level.
- Bonuses: ½ the legal skill of a consulting advocate (in court only)
Library bonuses as per Verity Craft (all law libraries count as specialty libraries). Note: Character must be literate, or have the services of someone who is.
Contacts
Contacts are not skills per se; they are people who are of some use to the character to provide information, equipment, help or even introductions to others. They may be friendly or they may be coerced, but they have something the character does not have direct access to.
Any Guard character will tend to acquire contacts as they gain experience, approximately one per level. Additional contacts can be developed through roleplaying.