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- Embolden (Mental 1, Charisma/Leadership) — The Embolden skill represents
the ability to give an inspirational speech, typically before
battle. Successful use of this skill, at the appropriate time,
allows a character to temporarily raise the base morale of troops,
followers, henchmen or similar allies.
- To use this skill, the character gives a “pep talk” to raise morale.
If a skill check succeeds, the base morale of the character’s
allies is raised by two points. This new morale value is maintained
until the first morale check is failed. When the first morale
check fails, the pep talk has “worn off.” Instead of fleeing or
otherwise “failing,” the allies’ morale simply reverts to its
original value.
- The Embolden skill must be used before going into the conflict.
It cannot be used during combat or other morale-threatening situations.
- Enamor (Mental 1, Charisma/Appearance -2) — This skill allows a character
to trick an NPC into falling in love with him or her. It is more
than the skill of knowing which flowers to send or garments to
wear. The Enamor skill allows the character to study his target
like a thief studies a vault, looking for weak points to exploit.
- Standard use of the Enamor skill takes a week of constant contact
for a susceptible victim, a month or more for a more difficult
target. The DM can allow bonuses to the skill roll for a PC who
is thorough and clever in his research into the victim’s psyche
and who takes extra time, and can assign penalties to one who
spends too little time or makes wrong assumptions.
- At the end of the contact period, the DM rolls the Enamor skill
for the character and compares the results with those listed on
Table 5.4.05
Table 5.4.05: Enamor Skill Results
| Character Lost by 20%+ |
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The victim has been (accidentally) insulted during the romantic
pursuit. The victim may attack the character, may arrange to have
the character assaulted, may pretend to be seduced in order to
cause the character some great harm later, etc. |
| Character Lost by 10-19% |
|
The victim is not interested in the character and may become irritated
with continued pursuit. |
| Character Lost by 1-9% |
|
The victim is flattered but not convinced. The character can start
over with a -10% penalty to his Enamor check or can abandon pursuit,
perhaps leaving behind some hard feelings. |
| Even Roll — Character makes his roll by 0-5% |
|
The victim is flattered but not convinced. The character can start
over or can abandon pursuit with no hard feelings. |
| Character Won by 6-10% |
|
The victim is flattered but not convinced. The character can start
over with a +5% bonus to his Enamor check or can abandon pursuit
with no hard feelings. |
| Character Won by 11-20% |
|
The victim is infatuated by the character but will not change
ethics, goals or loyalties. |
| Character Won by 21-35% |
|
The victim is in love with the character and will help the character
in any way that does not violate important ethics and loyalties |
| Character Won by 36%+ |
|
The victim is madly in love with the character and will abandon
all ethics, goals and loyalties. |
- The DM, at his discretion, can additionally make a Wisdom/Understanding
check for the victim and multiply the result by five to generate
a percentile result. If the victim makes the check by more than
the character made his Enamor skill check, the results are as
for an Even Roll.
- Ironically, the more complete the character’s success, the more
dangerous the situation becomes. A victim who is madly in love
may do everything the character wishes, including betraying state
secrets and turning traitor, but expects the character with the
Enamor skill to be just as much in love. The victim becomes dangerously
jealous of potential rivals (seeing anyone remotely suitable as
a potential rival) and could become murderous if she realizes
she has been duped.
- The relationship built by use of the Enamor skill need not be
a romantic one. Depending on the situation, the relationship might
be a friendship or the winning of some one’s loyalty away from
an enemy.
Although nothing prevents good-aligned characters from learning
the Enamor skill, the first time they ruin a life with it may
be the last time they use it.
- Racial modifiers: Oldanquasti elves can be masters of deception and thus receive
a +5% bonus to their Enamor skill score.
- Engineering (Mental 2, Intelligence/Reason -3) — The character is trained
as a builder of both great and small things. Engineers can prepare
plans for everything from simple machines (catapults, river locks,
grist mills) to large buildings (fortresses, dams). A skill check
is required only when designing something particularly complicated
or unusual. An engineer must still find talented workmen to carry
out his plan, but he is trained to supervise and manage their
work.
- An engineer is also familiar with the principles of siegecraft
and can detect flaws in the defenses of a castle or similar constructions.
He knows how to construct and use siege weapons and machines,
such as catapults, rams and screws. The construction and destruction
of bridges, fortifications and siege craft is valuable skill for
the warrior as well as the scholar.
- Prerequisites: Numeracy (50%) is a prerequisite for Engineering.
- Racial modifiers: Dwarves and gnomes are both known for their engineering abilities
and thus receive a +15% bonus to this skill.
- Etiquette (Mental 1, Charisma/Appearance) — This skill gives the character
a basic understanding of the proper forms of behavior and address
required in many different situations, especially those involving
nobility and persons of rank. Thus, the character will know the
correct title to use when addressing a duke, the proper steps
of ceremony to greet visiting diplomats, gestures to avoid in
the presence of dwarves, etc. For extremely unusual occurrences,
a skill check must be made for the character to know the proper
etiquette for the situation (an imperial visit, for example, is
a sufficiently rare event).
- However, having the character know what is correct and actually
do what is correct are two different matters. The encounters must
still be roleplayed by the character. Knowledge of etiquette does
not give the character protection from a gaffe or faux pas; many
people who know the correct thing still manage to do the exact
opposite.
- In Fälgorna the Etiquette skill only gives specific knowledge
of the customary and proper behavior accepted by a single culture
which must be specified when this skill is taken. For example,
a character who knows human etiquette may not sufficiently understand
the intricacies of dwarven social conduct. A character’s Etiquette
skill regarding cultures other than his own may be penalized by
the DM. The character’s skill score is typically penalized by
-40%.
 
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