Cambridge University Treasure Trap

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General Skills

StandardPC

Skills are listed in the form of "Skill Name (XP cost)"; a description of the skill follows. Some skills have pre-requisites; these are noted in the skill title.

Disabilities

At character creation, you may purchase one (not both) of the following disabilities. They have a negative experience cost, so they will allow you to buy more skills when creating your character.

Non-combatant (-14)

The character is physically weaker than normal and will call nothing by weapon, regardless of what other skills they take.

Frailty (-24)

The character starts with 1 hit on each limb and 2 on the chest and head. They will never be able to do damage with a weapon, no matter what other skills they take (always call nothing). They will be unlikely to be able to run over a distance greater than about the length of a room.

The General Skills

Health (6)

For every four levels of Health, Fitness and Fortitude (in any combination) you gain 2 extra hit points on your chest and head and 1 on each limb. This skill may be bought multiple times.

First Aid (8)

This skill may be taken multiple times. Your level in the skill is the number of times you have bought it. At each level you gain the following abilities:

  1. The ability to recognise wounds on examination: with the call "Recognise Wounds" whilst examining another character, you will be told how many hit points each location has remaining and how much damage it has taken. If you are bleeding to death you should give the number of seconds you've been bleeding on each location to the caller.
  2. The ability to stop a location bleeding with at least ten seconds of appropriate roleplay, which must include tying a bandage physrep of some description to the affected location.
  3. The ability to stop all locations on a person from bleeding with at least ten seconds of appropriate roleplay, which should involve tying at least one bandage physrep to at least one location (and preferably one to each affected location). Also, the ability to call DETECT ALCHEMICAL and DETECT DISEASE on a creature (this call informs you if the creature is under the effect of any alchemical substances or diseases) while examining them.
  4. The ability to raise a location from 0 to 1 with at least thirty seconds of appropriate roleplay, which should involve props suitible for some kind of medical procedure.
  5. The ability to perform significant surgical tasks. Provided with the remains of the limb, may (usually) raise a limb from 'permanently maimed / lost' to 0 with at least five minutes of appropriate roleplay, which should involve props suitable for major surgery. In exceptional circumstances it may be decided that a limb was destroyed and hence you cannot retrieve the remains to perform this procedure, but it is the responsibility of a ref to tell you this before you start or soon after you commence the operation - you do not have to fetch a ref to begin the surgery process. You may also be able to perform other major feats of surgery with this skill, but you should always fetch a ref for that purpose.

    Surgery from First Aid V cannot do everything that is possible in the modern day. Reattaching limbs and restoring hit points is possible in order to reduce the need for people to phyrep missing limbs, and because limb loss is an explicit part of the hit and damage system. However in most other respects, surgery and the understanding of the body is more at pre-enlightenment levels. The main difference between surgery in treasure trap and medieval surgery is that with the various methods of supernatural healing available, there's a much better safety net in case of complications. Through supernatural healing and alchemy, it will often be possible to quickly heal somebody up afterwards, although they may experience other long term effects.

    Things First Aid V can do well include general assistance with childbirth and midwifery up to and including Caesarian section, resetting old broken bones, pulling teeth, removing growths and removing weapons lodged in people.

    Things that are outside the scope of First Aid V include transplanting organs, fixing severely damaged organs and similar complex internal diagnoses and repairs.

    Players may cut subjects up as much as they like with FA V (all the rules above cover is the usefulness of such endeavours), but they should be aware if they have done extreme physical damage such as removing organs or making large openings in people's bodies, First Aid itself may be insufficient to put the subject back together again. There is basically no medical literature on the subject of the internals of the body in living humans (the general approach being 'sew it back together as quickly as possible and hope nothing vital fell out'). In very few places have there been surgeons of sufficient skill, and priests able to provide sufficient healing, to repair the damage from exploratory surgery. Autopsies are in general considered disrepectful to Humact, and so are less widely performed than might be expected.

Evaluate (6)

You are able to discern the rough intrinsic value of an item and have an idea of the market price. The owner of a valuable item will know that it is valuable; otherwise, it's worth five shillings or less on the open market. Get a Ref if you are unsure.

Income (5)

This skill may be bought up to three times, with no double buying penalty at character creation. Your character will receive an extra 5 Shillings at the beginning of each interactive for each time you have bought this skill. A source of this income should be specified; it should not be a source that is already covered by a mechanism somewhere else in these rules (potion selling is the most common example).

Other Language (2)

All starting characters are assumed to be able to speak, read and write Common (English), or the language specified by their racial package if playing a non-human. They are also assumed to have basic numeracy. You may choose to roleplay an illiterate or innumerate character if you wish, this does not require you to buy any special skills nor does it count as a 'disablity' for xp purposes.

After buying the 'other language' skill the character can additionally speak, read and write one other (named) language. This skill may be taken multiple times and is not subject to double-buying penalties. If you wish to buy this skill after character creation, you must find someone to teach you the language. To speak in a foreign language in play, put your finger to your lips whilst speaking and frequently repeat the name of the language you are using throughout your conversation, especially when beginning to speak

Some suggested languages (and these are good suggestions, as they actually exist and will sometimes be useful; other languages can be chosen, but it would be good to have a quick chat to the Ref team about them):

Romish: The logical, precise (but complicated) tongue of the Dwarves, which may be suspiciously similar to Latin.

Quenyar: The flowing language of High Elves, which is likely to be understood by any other elf they meet.

Other elven dialects: Each type of elemental elf has its own specific dialect that has grown up over the years and is somewhat different from the others. They are close enough for two different elemental elves to understand each other, but with a little difficulty (think the difference between American and broad Yorkshire).

Tengwar: The language of magic, a tongue strangely evocative and rich in feeling; all aspiring mages must learn this before they can learn any spells. Spell scrolls are writen in this language, and anyone who knows how to read and speak Tengwar may use them. Elemental Theory includes the knowledge of Tengwar.

Undead Lore (10)

The character has been trained in undead recognition and in the finer points of necromancy; they're probably either a necromancer or a trusted member of an organisation that hunts them (such as the churches of Humact, Azrael and Balance). They will receive a player guide on undead, an OOC briefing from the refs during which they will be shown the likely physreps for undead. They gain the following abilities:

  • Call DETECT UNDEAD at will at a 10m range
  • Call WIDE DETECT UNDEAD at will
  • With a few seconds close examination (more than just a touch), call RECOGNISE UNDEAD

This may represent your calling on an appropriate deity to reveal undead to you, or may simply represent your experience and knowledge of undead - no vocal is necessary, but you may wish to use one in the former case. We advise non-necromancers to wait until it stops moving to do this last one...

Characters who take this skill who are also Spiritually Awakened to any god gain the ability to lay to rest an unresisting target by miracle-length vocal and touch or weapon blow.

Background skill (1)

The character has developed a skill through their profession or activities. The skill may be one picked from the list below, or a suitable alternative created by the character. These skills are intended to be primarily useful in defining a character and possibly on downtime activities. Background skills cannot include skills which have an effect on character game skills and abilities.

This skill may be taken multiple times, either to develop a wider range of skills or to specialise in existing skills.

More specific skills will be assumed to be better-developed than more general skills.

This skill may be taken more than once per level, still at the initial cost of 1XP if the named skill is different each time.

Common background skills have a player guide that you will be provided with on purchasing the skill, which will provide information about the area of expertise of the skill (for example, Alchemy Guild Lore might provide you with a sheet defining the size and location of the Guild, the names of major members and their basic personalities, the organisational structure etc).

Some example background skills are: Musician, Trading, Pirate, Drugs, Flora, Wessex Law, Weaving, Brewing, Bookseller, Durholme Lore and so on. The more specific a skill, the more detailed the information given will be, but it will have correspondingly less breadth. Background skills are specifically things with no mechanical effect, taken in order to give your character reason to talk about something entirely irrelevant to adventuring with authority.