List of Skills

This is a list of all Skills seen in Worth the Candle.

Confirmed Skills

Air Magic

Associated Stats: at least one Mental

Virtues

• Air Magic 10, Currents: In addition to your normal sense of air temperature, pressure, and composition, you are able to sense and manipulate the direction of air movement. This direction is subject to (and must act against) normal fluid dynamics and your normal range.

Description: Weak magic. Among other unknown uses, allows the user to suffocate people

History: Mentioned by Juniper as one of the only things that could still defeat him with maxxed out Still Magic. OP

Alchemy

Associated Stats: at least one Mental

Virtues

• Alchemy 10, Equivalent Exchange: You instantly know the answer to any questions of stoichiometry.

Description: Just the game layer's name for "mundane" chemistry. although Aerb chemisty is more complicated thanks to the existence of magic. Reimer considered it fairly good, as long as you had other skills that synergised well and/or access to expensive magical materials. Chlorine triflouride was way beyond Juniper's skill level, but he was able to make and employ it anyway thanks to Earth knowledge.

History: Included in Juniper's character sheet to take advantage of his higher MEN as part of the Respec. By chapter 196, at the end of Book VIII, Juniper had reached 34 Alchemy as a result of his efforts creating chlorine triflouride to fight Onion. He was forced to sacrifice the skill for extra points to fight Perisev.

Analysis

Associated Stats: at least one Mental, no Social stats

Virtues

• Analysis 20, Flow State: Allows you to enter into an analytical flow state, which temporarily doubles working memory with respect to the subject of analysis, halves the penalties for thirst, hunger, and exhaustion, and increases the chance of a Brilliant Insight by five percent per hour (compounding).
• Combo Virtue: Narrow Expertise: When you first obtain this virtue, determine a subject matter. When using skills within the subject matter, double your effective skill. When using untrained skills within your subject matter, treat your effective skill level as twenty. You retain your subject matter even if you lose this virtue, though you lose all bonuses until it is reacquired.

Description: Seemingly improves analytical thought.

History: Unlocked by Juniper while trying to figure out which of their enemies sold them out to the Abswifth and later to discern Fallatehr's actions and motivations. Moral Agency Tripartite Talks Included on Juniper's character sheet in the Respec to take advantage of his higher MEN, in part to take advantage of the synergy between Research, Analysis, and Logic, and quickly reached the soft cap of 20 via amateur training.

Synergies: Research, Analysis, and Logic form a trio with associated combo Virtues.

Appraisal

History: Noted by Juniper as part of a group of potential utility/profession skills. ^{In Which Juniper Stares At His Character Sheet, Again}

Art

Associated Stats: CHA,?

Description: Used in conjunction with skin magic, required to inscribe new tattoos.^{[citation needed]}

History: Unlocked by Juniper while practicing Skin Magic with a tattoo gun. ^{Plot Relevant} Juniper lowered the skill as a test to see what would happen, but it proved useless because Fenn was sharing her own moderate skill at Art with him via Symbiosis. Juniper later removed the skill from his Character Sheet, deeming it flavor, not utility. ^{In Which Juniper Stares At His Character Sheet, Again}

Athletics

Associated Stats: at least one Physical

Virtues

• Athletics 20, Long Distance Runner: For the purposes of calculating fatigue, you may consider your pace three categories slower than it is, to a minimum of “Standing Still”. Eliminates the penalty for performing unskilled actions while running.

Description: Improves stamina, speed and posture while running or walking briskly. [2]

History: Unlocked by Juniper while running away from Zombies. ^{Taking the Fall} Leveled up to 15 while preparing for the trek to Caer Laga. Later unlocked Long Distance Runner while escaping Larkspur. ^{Desert Course Strategic Reserves} One of Fenn' skills, which got considerably boosted as the story progressed via Twinned Souls.

Blood Magic

Associated Stats: at least one Mental

Virtues

• Blood Magic 20, Hypertension: Doubles blood volume and (as a consequence) increases blood pressure. Eliminates the penalties for high blood pressure. Allows conscious and subconscious control of blood pressure.
• Blood Magic 40, Flow Control:  Your blood is now configured into a 'blood mass' which you can independently control, with every drop of blood controllable so long as it's part of the contiguous blood mass. Connection to your blood does not decay so long as it's a part of the blood mass, no matter how far from your body it is. This virtue does not grant you extra power to control your blood, except as provided by the lack of connection decay.
  Synergies: Vibration magic can help Blood Mages by manipulating their heartbeat. Many Blood Mages learn climbing, dancing and music because they have some overlap (in terms of agility, rhythm and bodily awareness.)

Bone Magic

Associated Stats: KNO, something Mental

Bows

Associated Stats: ???, WIS

Virtues

• Bows 20, Steady Aim:  Completely eliminates the penalty for firing a bow while moving. Halves the penalty for firing a bow under pressure or duress. Triples the amount of time you can hold a bow at maximum draw.

Description: Improves skill with bows.

History: Unlocked by Juniper after touching Fenn's bow. ^Montage! As one of Fenn's highest skills, she granted Juniper middling skill with it regardless of his stats through Symbiosis. Used on several occasions as an easily leveled up skill to drain with Soul Slip. ^{The Mouth of a Long River The Veil of the World}

Carapace Magic

Description: Seemingly the counterpart to Skin Magic for species with carapaces.

History: Mentioned in Essentialism's virtues. ^{The Princess and the Pea}

Climbing

Description: Presumably increases the user's ability to climb.

History: One of Amaryllis' skills, which got considerably boosted as the story progressed via Twinned Souls. By Ch 155, her Climbing skill had increased to the point where Juniper's bonus from Symbiosis - half her skill - was in the 30s. This made it arguably his single highest skill, even though he didn't have the Climbing skill on his character sheet.

Comedy

Virtues

• Comedy 10, Class Clown: You may increase the speed of your wit at the expense of its comedic efficiency, up to double your base wit and half your base comedic efficiency. Take half as much damage from physical humor, so long as it’s actually funny.

Description: Improves comedic skills, including sarcasm and wit.

History: Unlocked by Juniper while speaking to Amaryllis for the first time. ^{Solely Responsible}

Dancing

Description: Improves dancing ability.

History: Seemingly one of the skills Amaryllis shares with June with Symbiosis; she trained in music and dance as part of her Blood Magic training, because it helps people get in tune with the the rhythm of their heartbeat. Thanks to Twinned Souls, she estimated her Dancing skill was in the 30s as of Ch 140.

Debate

Associated Stats: KNO, CHA

Virtues

• Debate 10, Shifting Sands: Removes the penalty for reframing facts and figures in the middle of a debate, so long as all raw information was memorized beforehand.

Description: Improves Juniper's ability to win debates. Catered toward structured debates with two sides and facts and figures assembled.

History: Unlocked by Juniper while justifying his decisions regarding the rearrangement of his Character Sheet. ^{The Long Night}

Deception

Associated Stats: POI (joint primary stat - lying), ?

Description: Gestalt of Lying and Stealth. Improves Juniper's ability to deceive others through speech or actions, as well as his stealth.

History: Though Gestalting is excluded, Juniper was able to unlock the (already Gestalted) skill while trying to be stealthy. ^Thickenings The game layer later forced Juniper to divide the skill into Lying and Stealth while committing the changes to his soul. ^{In Which Juniper Stares At His Character Sheet, Again}

Dodge

Associated Stats: at least one Physical, INS

Virtues

• Dodge 20, Thaumic Dodger: Eliminates the penalty for dodging magic, magical effects, entads, entad effects, and any supplemental physics which would appear magical to The Layman.
• Dodge 40, Lightfoot: When dodging, if it is necessary to move in order to dodge, you may move, even if you would not otherwise have the time or speed to do so. You are limited to your normal movement speed for any given dodge.
• Dodge 60, Retroactive Avoidance: If some unknown or seemingly innocuous effect hits you and is revealed to be harmful within five minutes of the hit, you may retroactively decide to attempt to have dodged it, altering reality with no trace or memory other than the knowledge this virtue was invoked.
• Dodge 80, Displacement: When you successfully dodge, you can designate someone or something else as the target, so long as they are not the attacker or source of the effect you are dodging. The attack is made against them as though they were standing in your place. If successful, reality will be altered such that the attack was always against the target for redirection. Such an attack must be possible: if it is not, the dodged attack is simply dodged.
• Dodge 100, Star Body: Your dodges can transcend space and even time. No dodge is strictly impossible. The maximum cumulative penalty to any dodge cannot make any dodge worse than a 50% chance.

Description: Improves Juniper's chance to dodge attacks.

History: Unlocked by Juniper while dodging a Zombie's attack. ^Thickenings

Dual Wield

Associated Stats: at least one Physical

Virtues

• Dual Wield 10, Ambidexterity: You no longer have a dominant hand. Removes the penalty for attacking with an off-hand, because you don’t have an off-hand anymore. You have no natural preference for which hand to use.

Description: Improves Juniper's fighting ability while using both hands.

History: Unlocked by Juniper while holding a pistol in each hand, just to see how it felt. ^Reaver

Engineering

Associated Stats: CUN, some other Mental stat

Virtues

• Engineering 10, Material Analysis: Allows you to see weak points in materials, to within the first order of sensorium expansion. No visible effect, possibly disabled by Verisim Mode.
• Engineering 30, Runtime Analysis: Without actually running or using a piece of equipment or structure, you can make a number of determinations about how it would perform. These analyses include, but are not limited to: revolutions per minute, energy efficiency, carrying capacity, lift, thrust, wattage, and thaums. You must be able to adequately sense the equipment or structure in use to make these determinations, to within one degree of reasonableness.

Description: Improves Juniper's ability to build stuff.

History: Unlocked while crafting a sled to drag Amaryllis through the desert. ^{Desert Course} Later used to craft a rocket glider to escape Caer Laga. ^{Rocket Man}

Essentialism

Associated Stats: WIS, KNO^{[citation needed]}

Virtues

• Essentialism 20, Soul Slip: Allows you to make new modifications and alterations within the soul. Allows you to alter that which had been unalterable.
• Essentialism 40, Soul Sight: Grants a visual representation of souls, each with a unique color, which can be distinguished with acuity beyond the limits of the eye. Applies to both the soul and any magic which interfaces with a soul in some meaningful way.
• Essentialism 60, Soul Saturation: Knowledge of your soul allows it to fully suffuse you, giving a number of benefits to a wide variety of magic. Your blood works as an infusion for the purposes of pustule magic. You can use your blood as though it were magical ink (4ζ/mL) for the purposes of ink magic. Your bones are considered wood for the purposes of wood magic. Required connective power for plants is reduced by half. You may retract your soul from your extremities for the purposes of bypassing wards. Any magic items or magics which limit projection or application to your eyes, hands, feet, or mouth, can instead be projected or applied from any part of your body. Your skin and/or carapace is treated as though it were skin and/or carapace for the purposes of skin magic and carapace magic, whichever is more beneficial. Runes may be written on your skin as though it were prepared vellum. More benefits apply in specific exclusion zones: consult the manual for more detail.
• Essentialism 80, Soul Scaphism: You can carve out parts of other people to use for your own purposes. Any benefits are temporary; any costs are permanent.
• Essentialism 100, Soul Symbiote: Double your effective skill in Bone Magic, Blood Magic, Skin Magic, Carapace Magic, Pustule Magic, and the flower magic aspect of Horticulture, up to a cap of 75. Double your effective connection to any magical item which interfaces with your soul, unless doing so has associated maluses. Increase your skill with any specialty or subschool of magic that uses the soul by 20 points, up to a cap of 50.

Description: Also known as soul magic, allows Juniper to see and edit people's Souls (including his own) through physical contact or through Companion bonds, if they're high enough. Modifications range from stats to personal values to appearance, though values will drift to their starting point after some time has passed. Allows Juniper to rearrange his Character Sheet and swap in skills from the full list every few levels. After Soul Slip, allows Juniper to move skill points around, (at a price) and a limited number of stat points.

History: Taught to Juniper by Fallatehr Whiteshell after his rescue from the Amoureux Penitentiary on Sulid Isle. ^{The Chemical History of a Candle}

Fire Magic

Description: Has a 1% chance to be unlocked when burned alive. Unknown use.

History: One of the skills considered by Juniper during downtime at the Isle of Poran. ^{The One-Hand Warder}

Flattery

Virtues

• Flattery 10, Silver Tongue: Reduces the penalty for insincere flattery by twenty-five percent. When flattering in a language you are not fluent in, your penalty is halved. When flattering a group, the Forer effect is doubled.

Description: Improves ability to flatter other people.

History: Unlocked by Juniper while praising Fenn's bow. ^{A Winding Course} As of Ch 172, Juniper was getting an effective skill of 20+ from Symbiosis; in part for this reason, it was dropped from his own character sheet along with his other social skills.

Foraging

History: Noted by Juniper as part of a group of potential arts-and-crafts skills usually taken for roleplaying purposes. ^{In Which Juniper Stares At His Character Sheet, Again}

Forgery

Description: One of the skills possessed by Fenn. Increases the ability to forge documents.

History: Used by Fenn to forge the papers required to board the Lion's Tail. ^{Aboard the Lion's Tail}

Gem Magic

Associated Stats: at least one Mental

Virtues

• Gem Magic 10, Gem Appraisal:  Two minutes of close examination of a gem allows you to determine its carat, color, cut, and clarity of a gemstone, to within 1% of the actual values. If you have specialist tools available, this examination takes thirty seconds instead.
• Gem Magic 30, In The Rough: Uncut gems may be used as though they were cut, with the number, shape, and symmetry of the facets determined by you at time of use. When you hold an uncut gem, you are aware of all the ways in which it could be cut.
• Gem Magic 50, Fractured Brilliance: You are no longer constrained by the gem for the purposes of determining number of projectiles. Instead, when you use a gem, you may choose to emit any number of projectiles with their properties as determined by the gems, with mental strain proportional to the number of projectiles. Similarly, you can elect to use a gem at lower power with lower strain.

Description: Requires the use of gemstones, each color causing a different offensive effect (for example, pure blue sapphires emit fifty homing projectiles in a spread of 180 degrees, while pure red gems merely emit force). Intuits targets automatically without the user's input or awareness.  Depletes a Mental Exhaustion meter, which when depletes the user's general ability to concentrate a well as use gem magic.^{[citation needed]}

Synergies: Optics is known to have synergies with Gem Magic. Vibration Magic of a level where they can manipulate light has applications involving the kinetic light of Gem Magic.

History: Unlocked by Juniper after reading The Commoner's Guide to Gem Magic^{. Plot Relevant} Later used to slay a multitude of Tuung during the descent to Kuum Doona. ^{Down and Out}

Gold Magic

Associated Stats: CUN, POI

Heavy Armor

Virtues

• Heavy Armor 20, Thaumic Defense: When wearing heavy armor, add half your skill to any defense rolls made to defend against magical attacks, attacks using magical effects, entad attacks, or attacks using entad effects, even when this is unreasonable.
• Heavy Armor 40, Solid Craftsmanship: Your heavy armor is considered twice as dense, twice as hard, and twice as durable, where such properties would be beneficial. Your heavy armor has no weak spots, though it may still have the usual gaps in its defense. Embellishments and ornamentation on your heavy armor never count against you.
• Heavy Armor 60, Immovable Rock: While wearing heavy armor, you are able to resist ninety percent of forced movement. Missiles which impact your heavy armor do not impart any momentum, so long as they do no damage. You do not take fall damage while wearing heavy armor.
• Heavy Armor 80, Adaptable Armor: You do not suffer any penalties for wearing heavy armor meant for another species. All heavy armor resizes and refits to your body, even if it would not naturally do so.
• Heavy Armor 100, Armor Synthesis: You do not suffer any penalties whatsoever for wearing any heavy armor. Heavy armor you wear is inviolable.

Description: Improves the effects of wearing what the Game Layer considers Heavy Armor.

History: Added by Juniper during the rearrangement of his Character Sheet to provide survivability. ^{In Which Juniper Stares At His Character Sheet, Again}

Horticulture

Virtues

• Horticulture 20, Green Thumb: When you roll on the plant health chart, reroll any result lower than half your Horticulture. This reroll is done before modifiers are applied. If subsequent rolls are also lower than half your Horticulture, continue rerolling until you obtain a result higher than half your Horticulture, or until the roll history suffers from buffer overflow.

Description: Also known as flower magic. Establishes some kind of empathic link between the user and the seeds they plant and nurture. Once a plant has grown, each of its buds can be used to cause somewhat unpredictable effects.^{[citation needed]}

History: Unlocked by Juniper after foraging some plants for him and Amaryllis to eat. ^{Twenty Questions} Later properly taught to Juniper by Oorang Solace. ^{A Tiptoe Through the Tulips}

Improvised Weapons

Associated Stats: at least one Physical

Virtues

• Improvised Weapons 10, Structural Assessment: You can hold improvised weapons in such a way that they’re three times less likely to break, to within one degree of reasonableness. Halves reduced durability maluses from all weapons.

Description: Improves the ability to wield improvised weaponry.

History: Unlocked by Juniper after using a greeting card rack as a weapon. ^{Taking the Fall}

Ink Magic

Associated Stats: at least one Mental

Description: Allows the user to create unique magic items, similar to entads but weaker and temporary, from thin air based on their creativity. Creating items with Ink Magic is moderately time consuming. The items created are called ‘neks’ colloquially or ‘monads’ formally; Juniper nicknamed them 'inktads'. The more creative the concept for the item, the more powerful it can be (up to a limit set by skill and ink potency), and the longer it will last; sufficiently boring, straightforward items may not function at all.

Ink magic requires consuming magical inks. It's possible to neutralize an Ink Mage by pumping their stomach for ink. Each ink is a "color" in the Ink Mage's "palette", representing a broad theme, concept, or prompt. More powerful inks increase the maximum potential power (i-factor) of their creations, but don't offer any benefit to an unskilled practitioner, only increase the ceiling.

Synergies: Part of a "construction cluster" with associated Combo Virtues that includes Rune Magic, Star Magic, Steel Magic, and Ink Magic, possibly others.

History: Mentioned in Essentialism's virtues. ^{In Which Juniper Stares At His Character Sheet, Again} Unlocked by Juniper as part of the Respec.^Respec Although his results were outclassed by real entads, he used it to equip numerous Tuung guards, to equip himself when stripped of gear on an Anglecynn black site, and to create a backup weapon in Alvion's Vambrace. He tried to use it to create a counter for Shia LaBeouf but was unable to think of one creative enough in time. He spent a lot of time preparing specialized magic items for the Doris Finch and Necrolaborum Exclusion Zones, none of which proved useful. Juniper wrote extensive notes on his approach to Ink Magic, magic items, and creativity.

Virtues

• Ink Magic 10, Burnout Resistance: If you would suffer two or more levels of creative exhaustion, suffer one less instead. If any effect removes one or more levels of creative exhaustion, it removes one more than it normally would.

Intimidation

Description: Improves Juniper's ability to intimidate an enemy.

History: Unlocked by Juniper on purpose by critically failing to intimidate Amaryllis. ^{Twenty Questions} Later used by Juniper to intimidate the tattoo mage Zeke into revealing the passphrase for Amaryllis' sabotaged tattoo. ^Fears

Language

Associated Stats: KNO, CHA

Description: Improves Juniper's ability to learn languages, though it seemingly requires naturally reaching some fluency in a second language for the skill to get past level 1 and start working fully.^Depths  Afterwards, massively increases the speed and efficiency of learning languages, with each level representing a language fully learned. ^{Uskine Nervedah}

History: Unlocked by Juniper while discussing Fenn with Grak in Groglir. ^Depths Later used to learn Kindeh at the Infinite Library. ^{Uskine Nervedah}

Leadership

History: Noted by Juniper as part of a group of potential utility/profession skills. ^{In Which Juniper Stares At His Character Sheet, Again}

Library Magic

Associated Stats: KNO, INS

Virtues

• Library Magic 10, Open Book: You gain an intuitive sense of all schema-relevant metrics in any book you handle.
• Library Magic 30, Bookish Instinct: Through focused meditation, you can learn the qualities of the book you’re looking for, so long as it exists within the library, and so long as the quality is part of the current schema. The more qualities of the book you know, the easier it is to learn more. If multiple books have the specified qualities, you will learn how many books there are with those qualities, and may meditate to distinguish them.

Description: Allows Juniper to develop an innate understanding of the Infinite Library's organization and schemas, helping him find specific books in it.

History: Unlocked and developed with the help of Raven at the Infinite Library^{. An Open Book}

Light Armor

History: Noted by Juniper as part of a handful of armor skills, but ignored in favor of Medium Armor, Heavy Armor and Unarmored. ^{In Which Juniper Stares At His Character Sheet, Again}

Livestock

History: Never unlocked and eventually swapped out of Juniper's Character Sheet. ^{In Which Juniper Stares At His Character Sheet, Again}

Logic

Associated Stats: something uner MEN; no social component

Virtues

• Logic 20, Contradiction: If anyone presents a logically inconsistent argument to you, or an argument which is inconsistent with the facts as you know them, you will instantly and firmly be aware of this, even if you do not remember the specifics.
• Combo Virtue, Narrow Expertise: When you first obtain this virtue, determine a subject matter. When using skills within the subject matter, double your effective skill. When using untrained skills within your subject matter, treat your effective skill level as twenty. You retain your subject matter even if you lose this virtue, though you lose all bonuses until it is reacquired. Juniper selected multi-magic combinations as his subject matter by reading a few books on the subject.

Synergies: Research, Analysis, and Logic form a trio with associated combo Virtues.

History: Added to Juniper's character sheet to take advantage of his higher MEN as part of the Respec, in part to take advantage of the synergy between Research, Analysis, and Logic, and quickly reached the soft cap of 20 via amateur training.

Logistics

Associated Stats: something Mental

History: Noted by Juniper as part of a group of potential utility/profession skills. ^{In Which Juniper Stares At His Character Sheet, Again} Added to Juniper's character sheet to take advantage of his higher MEN as part of the Respec, and quickly reached the soft cap of 20 via amateur training.

Lying

Associated Stats: POI (probably), ???

Virtues

• Lying 10, Lesser Deceiver: You will no longer forget the details of a lie, unless you wish to. Take half the usual self-consistency penalty when telling improvised lies.

Description: Improves Juniper's ability to lie without being caught.

History: Split from Deception after the rearrangement of Juniper's Character Sheet, serving the same social functions Deception did in the past. ^{In Which Juniper Stares At His Character Sheet, Again} Fenn shares half her score in this skill with Juniper via Symbiosis, making his score somewhat useless (her score in Lying, as of Ch 66, is in the mid-30s.)

Management

History: Noted by Juniper as part of a group of potential utility/profession skills. ^{In Which Juniper Stares At His Character Sheet, Again}

Mathematics

Associated Stats: something uner MEN

Virtues

• Mathematics 10, Arithmetic:  You can do simple arithmetic with two operands instantly and without thinking about it. You can count any number of objects instantly, so long as you can see them.

History: Noted by Juniper as part of a group of potential utility/profession skills. ^{In Which Juniper Stares At His Character Sheet, Again} Later theorized as a skill that might synergize with Library Magic. ^Schemata

Medicine

Virtues

• Medicine 10, Triage:  When presented with multiple patients and/or multiple traumas, you will know the proper order to treat them in according to the metric of your choice (choose between quality-adjusted life-years, most people living, or their personal value to you).

History: Highly recommended by Amaryllis.  ^{Immanentizing the Eschaton}

Medium Armor

Virtues

• Medium Armor 10, Balanced Armor: Your medium armor counts as heavy armor for obtaining the benefits of Heavy Armor virtues or bonuses, and light armor for obtaining the benefits of Light Armor virtues or bonuses. Afflictions and maluses are unaffected. It may count as light armor, medium armor, and heavy armor at the same time.

Description: Improves the effects of wearing what the Game Layer considers Medium Armor.

History: Added by Juniper during the rearrangement of his Character Sheet to provide survivability. ^{In Which Juniper Stares At His Character Sheet, Again}

Music

Associated Stats: CHA, ?

History: Unlocked by Juniper by singing Blackbird while trying to unlock new skills. Juniper later removed the skill from his Character Sheet, deeming it flavor, not utility. ^{In Which Juniper Stares At His Character Sheet, Again} Seemingly one of the skills Amaryllis shares with June with Symbiosis; she trained in music and dance as part of her Blood Magic training, because it helps people get in tune with the the rhythm of their heartbeat.

One-handed Weapons

Associated Stats: at least one Physical

Virtues

• One-Handed Weapons 20, Monkey Grip: Eliminates the penalty for using a weapon of a larger than usual size, to within one degree of reasonableness. This applies to N-handed weapons as well, so long as N >= 1.
• One-Handed Weapons 40, Riposter: When you successfully parry an attack using a one-handed weapon, you can immediately make an attack without the usual combat penalties, and in half the time the original attack took, if that’s faster than your normal attack.
• One-Handed Weapons 60, Off-handed: When wielding a one-handed weapon, using non-weapon items in your off-hand(s) can be done as easily as if you had both (or all) hands available, even when this is unreasonable. This applies to shields. For the purposes of this virtue, pistols and other one-handed ranged weapons are considered one-handed weapons.
• One-Handed Weapons 80, Diamond Blade: One-handed weapons you wield never break or dull, even if they would do so due to magic, magical effects, entads, or entad effects, though they may still suffer other conditions and effects. Your one-handed weapons do twice as much damage when they hit.
• One-Handed Weapons 100, One With the Blade: Using a one-handed weapon, including moving while using one, never fatigues you. While holding a one-handed weapon, you will not feel hunger, thirst, or the need to sleep, though you may still accrue afflictions. While in a fight where you are using a one-handed weapon, you do not suffer the maluses for any physical injuries sustained, even if they would otherwise be fatal (though these attacks still do damage, and you can still die by dropping to 0 HP).

Description: Improves Juniper's skill with one-handed weapons.

History: Unlocked by Juniper after holding a rusted machete. ^{Taking the Fall}

Optics

Virtues

• Optics 20, Clarity: When you hold or touch, directly or indirectly, a lens or prism of any kind, you can alter its properties (e.g. altering focal point, concavity, refractive index, thickness). Any alterations you make will revert once you are no longer holding or touching the lens or prism. This includes biological lens, e.g. in the eye. Alterations must be physically possible.

History: Added to Juniper's character sheet to take advantage of a known synergy with Gem Magic as part of the Respec, and quickly reached the soft cap of 20 via amateur training.

Parry

Associated Stats: SPD, INS

Virtues

• Parry 20, Prescient Blade: You take half the normal penalty to parry bullets, arrows, or other missile weapons. These attacks still do damage to your blade as normal.
• Parry 40, Prophetic Blade: For the purposes of parrying, any weapon you have accessible is considered drawn, even when it’s sheathed. This includes improvised weapons. You can parry even attacks that you are not aware of. Once parried, you are aware of them.
• Parry 60, Mass Parry: You suffer no penalties for parrying multiple projectiles or attacks, no matter how many of them there are or how many directions they’re coming from, no matter how unreasonable this would be.
• Parry 80, Reflective Parry: When you parry a projectile, you can redirect it back at the attacker or source. Use half your parry skill as the attack bonus. The redirected projectile travels at half the original speed.
• Parry 100, Godly Deflection: You no longer suffer size penalties for parrying projectiles, objects, or attacks. For the purposes of parrying, what you consider to be a projectile, object, or attack is expanded by two degrees of reasonableness. Parrying never damages your weapon.
• Nascent Blade-bound (lvl 10 + Two-Handed Weapons lvl 10): Unknown effect.
• Neophyte Blade-bound (lvl 20 + Two-Handed Weapons lvl 20): You have unlocked the ability to bond with a melee weapon, given a few minutes of meditation. You may only bond with one weapon at a time. When wielding a bonded weapon, double your effective skill with it, double your chance to parry, and you may cut with it as though it were twice as sharp.
• Combo Virtue, Journeyman Blade-Bound: You have double the effective attributes for the purposes of skills or checks related to using your bonded weapon. If your bonded weapon is a rate-limited entad, double its rate; otherwise, double the entad effects, if beneficial.
• Combo Virtue, Master Blade-Bound: While using your bound weapon, you gain a multiplier to speed equal to one twentieth your skill with it, to a maximum of five times faster. You can be one degree less reasonable when determining what you can do with your bonded weapon, including entad effects or properties, if it’s an entad.
• Combo Virtue, Grandmaster Blade-Bound: Your bonded weapon is infinitely sharp (unless it is sheathed). It is capable of cutting as though it were a two-dimensional plane for the purposes of friction, but as though it were any acute angle of blade for the purposes of separating cut material. Your bonded weapon can cut inviolable materials.

Description: Increases Juniper's ability to parry incoming attacks with a weapon.

History: Accidentally unlocked after Juniper's sword got in the way of a bullet. ^Reaver

Passion Magic

Associated Stats: at least one Mental

Virtues

• Passion Magic 20, Passionate: You may split one complex emotion into two smaller ones for the purposes of passion magic expression. These can be used in tandem with the normal penalties for doing two things at once.

Description: A discipline of magic taught at Ink and Ardor, fallen out of favor in preference for more consistent magics. Wide spectrum of effects determined almost solely by the mood and emotion of the mage.

History: Learned about from the book Uskine Nervedah. ^{Uskine Nervedah}

Piloting

History: Noted by Juniper as part of a group of potential transportation skills. ^{In Which Juniper Stares At His Character Sheet, Again}

Pistols

Associated Stats: SPD, ?

Description: Improves Juniper's skill with pistols.

History: Unlocked by Juniper after being handed a weapon by Cypress. ^{Solely Responsible}

Pustule Magic

Description: Allows the user to grow growths on their skin that cause a multitude of effects, from passively assisting in translation, to launching fireballs at enemies, and even regeneration from otherwise killing blows. ^{[citation needed]}

Synergies: The Essentialism 60 virtue Soul Saturation makes the Soul Mage's blood "work [...] as an infusion for the purposes of pustule magic", while the Spirit 70 virtue Spirituality improves the user's connections with their pustules.^{[citation needed]}

History: Used against Juniper by pustule mages in the final battle against Larkspur and the descent into the Boundless Pit. ^{Copse and Robbers Down and Out}

Research

Associated Stats: at least one Mental, no Social stats

Virtues

• Research 10, Organizational Efficiency: When you research anything, you are capable of holding in your head the location of all previous sorted or filed materials, so long as no one else has moved them. No special organizational schema is required for this, you simply know where everything is.
• Combo Virtue, Narrow Expertise: When you first obtain this virtue, determine a subject matter. When using skills within the subject matter, double your effective skill. When using untrained skills within your subject matter, treat your effective skill level as twenty. You retain your subject matter even if you lose this virtue, though you lose all bonuses until it is reacquired. Juniper selected multi-magic combinations as his subject matter by reading a few books on the subject.

Synergies: Research, Analysis, and Logic form a trio with associated combo Virtues.

History: Added to Juniper's character sheet to take advantage of his higher MEN as part of the Respec, in part to take advantage of the synergy between Research, Analysis, and Logic, and quickly reached the soft cap of 20 via amateur training.

Repair

Associated Stats: something Mental,

History: Added to Juniper's character sheet to take advantage of his higher MEN as part of the Respec,

Revision Magic

Description: Allows the user to reverse the flow of time and undo injuries and events, as well as breaking down objects into component parts. Requires being revised backwards by a year in order to get unlocked, including memories.

History: Learned about by Juniper from a book while in Silmar City. ^{A Winding Course} Aumann employed a revision mage to heal his injuries, Colwin Hearst, but he was ultimately stabbed through the head by Amaryllis, an injury he couldn't reverse back from. ^Tenth

Riding

History: Noted by Juniper as part of a group of potential transportation skills. ^{In Which Juniper Stares At His Character Sheet, Again}

Rifles

Associated Stats: CUN, ???

Virtues

• Rifles 20, Compensator: You automatically compensate for bullet drop and wind speed, even when gravitational constant, distance to target, wind speed, and wind direction are not known (or unknowable) to you. Halves the penalty for shooting at a moving target.

Description: Improves Juniper's ability to wield rifles.

History: Unlocked by Juniper after picking up a rifle shortly before getting on the Soulcycle for the first time. ^{Cold Comfort}

Romance

Description: Seemingly improves Juniper's social skills when it comes to romantic endeavors.

History: Unlocked by Juniper after talking to Cypress for the first time. ^Thickenings

Rune Magic

Description: Among other unknown uses, can be used to create wearable runes that absorb, store, and/or redirect energy, but they must be placed at proper points on custom equipment as part of a modular kit and will only work for that purpose. One of the most flexible magics; but it requires access to a Runeforge, time, and materials in order to craft the equipment; and the runes and parts will suffer from wear and tear or risk overloading the more energy is run through them.^{[citation needed]} The Essentialism virtue Soul Saturation allows runes to be "written on your skin as though it were prepared vellum", which may suggest that rune mages have some kind of ability to scribe scrolls.^{[speculation]} Importantly, the rune-encrusted spikes used to bottle souls are the product of rune magic; the only other method of keeping people from the Hells costs 100,000 obols and requires a week of advance notice.

Rune Magic is heavily regulated, in part to avoid risking the moral catastrophe of having soul bottling excluded.

Synergies: Synergizes extremely well with Still Magic and Star Magic. Rune mages tend to base their designs on pre-existing patterns, which limits the potential for multi-mages.Notes II Star Magic can empower a Rune Mage's constructs, both via the tension in an extradimensional space (which could in turn be reinforced with runework) and via portals to energy-rich planes such as the Plane of Fire. However, in practice combining the two is fairly rare, perhaps because the two fields are so different and few have the requisite knowledge of both. Part of a "construction cluster" with associated Combo Virtues: Rune Magic, Star Magic, Steel Magic, and Ink Magic, possibly others.

History: Harold's most recent attempt to end the world made use of rune magic, and took place at the Lexian runeforge. He was barely stopped by Uniquities in the middle of his ritual. Somehow used by Amaryllis in the Doomed Timeline to drop ten thousand pounds of antimatter onto Celestar's surface. Uskine Nervedah Mentioned in Oberlin's lecture about the natural enemies of Vibration magic. Good Vibrations Used by a mage in glowing rune armor, but instantly brought down by Juniper. Added to Juniper's character sheet as part of the first respec. RespecOn the Merits of Oblivion A rune mage attempted to use a powerful green beam weapon agaist Shia LaBeouf, but only succeeded in kiling Juniper and several others after Shia killed them, forcing Juniper to reset using unicorn magic. Finally unlocked by June bribing his way into a runeforge as an apprentice. He also figured out the secret of the rune bomb - converting energy into antimatter rather than matter, which can then generate more energy in a chain reaction. The armour he created was designed to convert incoming damage into light, either directly upwards or at an enemy.RuninationIn theory this allowed him to withstand immense amounts of damage, but not enough to handle Fel Seed. Rune Magic was excluded while Juniper was dead, after an antimatter rune bomb was dropped on Fel Seed to free his soul; prompting a last-ditch plan to rescue him from the Hells.

Sailing

History: Noted by Juniper as part of a group of potential transportation skills. ^{In Which Juniper Stares At His Character Sheet, Again}

Shields

Virtues

• Shields 10, Bulwark: Shields you hold are twice as durable. If a force acts on your shield to move you, you will move only half the usual distance, with the reduction capped at ten feet of movement negated.

Description: Improves the effects of using shields.

History: Added by Juniper during the rearrangement of his Character Sheet to provide survivability. ^{In Which Juniper Stares At His Character Sheet, Again}

Shotguns

History: Never unlocked and eventually swapped out of Juniper's Character Sheet. ^{In Which Juniper Stares At His Character Sheet, Again}

Skin Magic

Associated Stats: KNO, ?

Virtues

• Skin Magic 10, Shifting Skin: Allows you to freely move and rotate tattoos around your skin with a thought, even when you cannot feel your skin. Perception of the location of tattoos is added to your sensorium. You no longer take a penalty for inexperience when in a contest to move tattoos.

Description: Also known as tattoo magic. Allows Juniper to inscribe specific magical tattoos on his skin, which grant or cause different effects on Juniper and the world, as well as moving those tattoos around on the surface of his skin. The ability to inscribe complex tattoos is capped by Juniper's Art skill. Currently excluded.

History: Unlocked by Juniper after having the Fool's Choker placed on him by Leonold Pavran. ^{Life of the Party}

Smithing

History: Never unlocked and eventually swapped out of Juniper's Character Sheet^{. In Which Juniper Stares At His Character Sheet, Again}

Spirit

Associated Stats: both Mental

Virtues

• Spirit 10, Threadbare: When analyzing a thread, you gain information on which threads it has historically had some connection with, which aspects of the soul it has connected with, and a sense of historic thread size.
• Spirit 30, Multithreading: Your thread utilization capacity is twice as high, though this cannot act as a flat increase on thread speed. Thread allocation works as before and is automatic.
• Spirit 50, Thread Priority: You may designate certain threads as high priority threads, which will be utilized first, taking precedence over competing threads. Rampant threads will automatically be set to low priority. Thread allocation otherwise works as before and is automatic.
• Spirit 70, Spirituality: You gain supernatural control of your spirit, giving you a number of benefits to a wide variety of magic. Emotions can be initiated and stopped at-will for the purposes of passion magic with no associated qualia. Amount of mental strain is divided by your skill in Gem Magic for the purposes of gem magic. Branches receive a bonus to their Wilson score prior to rank calculation for the purposes of Tree Magic. When doing Accounting, you can hold any number of numbers in your head simultaneously (though you are still limited as usual for the purposes of calculation). Connections (Horticulture, Pustule Magic, etc.) have their decay halved and gains doubled. More benefits apply in specific exclusion zones: consult the manual for more detail.
• Spirit 90, Spiritual Amplification: When using any skill, treat your effective skill as being ten percent higher, rounded down, before any other modifiers. This applies only to raw skill, not including environmental modifiers, circumstance bonuses, entad bonuses, magical or pseudo-magical enhancement, or other bonuses or modifiers.
• Spirit 100, The Loom: You have a full understanding of the history of any and all spirits you view, including historic changes to those spirits. You may alter a person’s spirit to any state its has been in before. You are completely immune to memes and antimemes that only affect the spirit, and are immune to the spirit effects of memes and antimemes that affect multiple aspects of your being.

Description: A counterpart to Essentialism, also known as spirit magic. Allows Juniper to alter "threads" with a variety of functions in people's souls.

History: Practiced by a rare few masters historically, including Vervain and Uther (who, naturally, surpassed his teachers). Used by Uther to protect his team from the Outer Reaches. Uther did his best to eradicate it, hoping that it would die with him, and it did. Unlocked by Juniper at the Infinite Library after reading about its use in the lost text Uskine Nervedah. ^{Uskine Nervedah} Later used to nullify a memetic agent in his soul, ^{Safe Mode} telepathically battle Harold, and copy Speculator Masters' protection against the antimemetic effects of the Outer Reaches.^{[citation needed]}

Star Magic

Description: Star Magic is based around creating and fabricating designs, based on magical formulae, your location on Aerb and the positions of the stars, which then cause planar or spatial effects. Most Star Mages use special lenses called fak and lep glass to quantify the stellar hues, although this isn't strictly necessary, just helpful.

• The most basic Star Mage "spell", a Base Prismatic Expansion, will create an extradimensional divot in a surface over the course of about two hours when correctly calculated and drawn, and lasts only as long as the stars stay aligned. Given enough time and paint, it's possible to use Star Magic to collapse a building.
• Star Mages are the only ones who can reach the Ethereal Plane, which requires holding the correct Star Magic pattern in your head.
• Portals or micro-portals can be opened to the Plane of Blood, Plane of Flesh, Plane of Fire, etc.; however, opening planar portals that a person can pass through intact is incredibly hard. Opening elemental portals at all is very difficult, and takes long enough that the portal must be "untethered" to prevent it from collapsing when the stars change. In at least some cases, they require constant maintenance from Star Mages to remain open. The elemental planes are different "distances" from Aerb, generally correlating with how useful they are, with the Plane of Blood being one of the more accessible "crappy" ones, the Plane of Flesh also being relatively near, while the Plane of Gold is beyond known reach. Even so, a navigable portal to the Plane of Blood took a huge team of Dorises over 8 years, and required a large 3D array etched with complex markings. If the markings holding a portal open are destroyed, it vanishes harmlessly.
• Star Magic is also employed to map the planes. The Star Dorises were able to map out the fact that each plane had a corresponding Dorris Finch Exclusion Zone decades before they ever reached one.
• At great expense, it's possible to create rooms that are bigger on the inside with Star Magic, but they usually need to be heavily reinforced because collapses can be very dangerous, with everything inside returning to full size and spilling out; any openings to the outside also need to be designed very carefully. Similarly, Juniper was able to create a "subspace assembly" to hold some of his rune-forged equipment, worn on his back, and he acquired a construct that let him effectively carry a Mome Rath bone around for the Fel Seed fight at great expense.
• A group of Star Mages could be employed to help transport a very large object, such as the corpse of Mome Rath.
• Star Magic can manipulate the planar boundary with the Hells to make possession easier.
• Classified Star Magic techniques exist which can augment Infernoscopes enough to see directly into the Omega Hell.
• Uther employed Star Magic beyond any seen before or since to seperate the rogue plane of Xoltle from Aerb.
• Reimer speculated based on the games he played with June that high-level Star Magic could compresses travel time dramatically and reach "a lot of places that it’s really helpful to be able to go to", in addition to the more basic uses. However, he admitted the exact details changed between games, and some of these effects were seemingly not available to real-life Star Mages.

Synergies: Star Magic could empower a Rune Mage's constructs, both via the tension in an extradimensional space (which could in turn be reinforced with runework) and via portals to energy-rich planes such as the Plane of Fire. However, in practice combining the two was fairly rare, perhaps because the two fields were so different. Part of a "construction cluster" with associated Combo Virtues that includes Rune Magic, Star Magic, Steel Magic, and Ink Magic, possibly others.

History: One of the 8 known magics Uther mastered, he employed it when rescuing Raven from the daydream-plane of Xoltle late in his reign. In 17 FE, he defeated a clan of Star Mages who were helping to raise a brood of dragons on food from the Plane of Flesh. The Second Empire once attempted a major push for resource extraction from the closer Elemental Planes, to little success; flesh mining was the most effective, but the produce was low-quality and upkeep costs considerable. Harold once employed Star Mages in one of his cults to create a planar depression in Five Spires and summon demons, and was eventually stopped by Uniquities. Juniper read about Star Magic in the book A Tour of the Elemental Planes. Used by a faction of Doris Finch to open a portal to the Plane of Blood, resulting in Blood God Doris. One of the Star Mage Dorises taught it to Juniper. Juniper worked with a team offscreen to build a portal to the Plane of Flesh to feed Necrolaborum. Star Magic was one of the tools required to open the gateway to the Long Stairs in Fel Seed's domain.

Stealth

Virtues

• Stealth 20, Light Foot:  When moving silently, reduce your sound by 10 dB, to a minimum of 0 dB. When attempting not to be seen, reduce your visual contrast by half. When attempting to not be smelled, reduce your odor by one rank. You take half the normal penalty for stealth checks against forms of perception which are unknown to you.

Description: Improves Juniper's ability to avoid detection

History: Split from Deception after the rearrangement of Juniper's Character Sheet. ^{In Which Juniper Stares At His Character Sheet, Again} Fenn shares half her score in this skill with Juniper via Symbiosis, making his score somewhat useless.

Steel Magic

Description: Allows the user to create stone structures and buildings out of hand-forged steel models. ^{[citation needed]}

Synergies: Part of a "construction cluster" with associated Combo Virtues that includes Rune Magic, Star Magic, Steel Magic, and Ink Magic, possibly others.

History: One of the 8 known magics Uther mastered. Noted to be used in the construction of several massive structures, such as the walls of Silmar City. ^{Making Magic} Never unlocked and eventually swapped out of Juniper's Character Sheet. ^{In Which Juniper Stares At His Character Sheet, Again} 

Still Magic

Associated Stats: both Mental

Virtues

• Still Magic 20, Proportional Halting: If the change you are attempting to still exceeds your current maximum capacity, the object/force/concept will be stilled proportional to your Still Magic level or to your current maximum capacity, whichever is greater, over the common stilling interval.
• Still Magic 40, Instinctive Halting: So long as you’re not stilling beyond your capacity, still magic will be applied automatically to any and all effects when it would be beneficial to you. For more information on intent and volition, see LUK rules. This effect applies only when you are conscious.
• Still Magic 60, Partial Stilling: Removes the penalty for attempting to still a single part of an object. Doubles the damage dealt to objects by stopping or slowing only half of them.
• Still Magic 80, Still Soul: You can still any changes to your soul, including natural ones. When contesting an entad, roll against its i-level with a multiplier for reasonableness. When contesting a skill use, follow normal contest rules. For other cases, consult your Dungeon Master.
• Still Magic 100, Meta Stilling: You can still any game effect with a duration.

Description: Users of still magic can bring things to a halt through direct contact, such as bullets about to penetrate their skin. Though it's mostly a defensive magic, a still mage can also kill by stopping the enemy's heart. Some people can shrug the effect off.^{[citation needed]}

Synergies: Vibration Magic help Still Mages to Still waves of various kinds.

History: Juniper, Grak and Fenn faced and defeated a still mage while climbing Aumann's tower. ^{Be Still My Heart} The Uniquities team sent to capture Valencia contained a still mage, who was defeated by a blood ward. ^{The Adventures of Valencia the Red} Juniper kind of broke the game using Meta Stilling on several occasions, since it applied to effects that boosted Still Magic.^{[citation needed]} One of the 8 known magics Uther mastered.

Tailoring

History: Noted by Juniper as part of a group of potential arts-and-crafts skills usually taken for roleplaying purposes. ^{In Which Juniper Stares At His Character Sheet, Again}

Thrown Weapons

Associated Stats: at least one Physical

Virtues

• Thrown Weapons 10, Range Finder: Doubles your accuracy when determining distance. Take half the normal penalty for lack of references when attempting to determine how far away something is.
• Thrown Weapons 30, Boomerang: Thrown weapons can hit additional targets, even if they otherwise couldn’t. Reduce your initial attack bonus by 25% for each additional target. A target cannot be hit more than once in an attack chain in this way. All weapons you throw have the returning property.
• Thrown Weapons 50, Richoshot: You can bounce thrown weapons off surfaces without respect to normal physics, up to three times in a row. Weapons bounced in this way do not have to follow the angles dictated by physics, the weapon does not lose speed, and you do not have to have clear sight to secondary surfaces or the target. Attacks made in this way provide a ten percent surprise bonus to attack, because this is stupid and should not work.
• Thrown Weapons 70, Multithrow: When you throw a weapon, you can throw as many duplicates or near-duplicates of that weapon as you have available, making a separate attack roll for each.
• Thrown Weapons 90, Megathrow: When you throw weapons, you are no longer subject to penalties for size or weight, so long as you can physically lift and maneuver them.
• Thrown Weapons 100, Throw Me To The Moon: You can throw anything you can get your hands on, including enemies, teammates, and yourself.

Description: Improves Juniper's ability to throw weapons.

History: Unlocked by Juniper after being handed a Void Grenade. ^{Cold Comfort} He was forced to sacrifice the skill for extra points to fight Perisev.

Tree Magic

Description: A mysterious form of magic unknown to the public, or the Party for that matter. Amaryllis speculated it might, paradoxically, be the same form of magic invented by Juniper for the Arches campaign during his time on Aerb. Although the Party never confirmed it, this was correct. It also had something to do with Thargox. It centered around invisible trees which grew out of the heads of the practitioners (called Salvers in the Arches campaign), inhabited by fairies which they needed to entertain in exchange for magical assistance. Effects they could create included healing and magical attacks. They're controlled through mental commands, and sending them outside the user's line-of-sight is harder. Behind the scenes, Juniper intended them as a metaphor for an online community. Each Salver had a specific Compulsion they needed to fulfill to keep their fairies satisfied.

Synergies: the Spirit 70 Virtue "Spirituality" granted the following cryptic benefit (among others): "Branches receive a bonus to their Wilson score prior to rank calculation".

History: One of the skills added during Juniper's rearrangement of his Character Sheet. Unknown use. ^{In Which Juniper Stares At His Character Sheet, Again} Amaryllis and Juniper brainstormed various possibilities and ways to unlock it together. Included under the Respec just to be safe, although given it's unknown purpose, this was a subject of some debate.

Two-Handed Weapons

Associated Stats: at least one Physical

Virtues

• Two-Handed Weapons 20, Lunge Striker: Eliminates the maneuverability penalty for all reach weapons. Eliminates the penalty for striking at close range with reach weapons. Allows you to more quickly cover ground when moving in short bursts and in a fighting stance.
• Two-Handed Weapons 40, Heavy Swings: Your attacks with two-handed weapons generate twice as much force, multiplying the energy put into them. This does not always mean that they will do twice as much damage, depending on the circumstances of the attack.
• Two-Handed Weapons 60, Weapon Shield: When using a two-handed weapon, you may block with it as though it were a shield, using either your skill in Shields or half of your Two-Handed Weapons skill, whichever is higher. This shield is not considered a parry, and does not interfere with normal use of the weapon.
• Two-Handed Weapons 80, Thaum Breaker: Any two-handed weapon you wield is wardproof. When you attack a creature or object with magical defenses using a two-handed weapon, ignore those defenses.
• Two-Handed Weapons 100, Total Commitment: When wielding a two-handed weapon, you can choose to not use two hands, but rather, your entire body, spirit, and soul. If you choose to do so, you can take no other actions (including talking) aside from using your two-handed weapon (you can parry, but not dodge, and weapon shield, but not shield). If you stay in this state for two minutes of combat, you may make an attack that automatically succeeds, with maximum possible damage, and your selection of injuries from the injury chart. The two minutes must be continuous. You may leave the state at any time. If you attack in this way, you must wait one week to enter this state again.
• Nascent Blade-bound (lvl 10 + Parry lvl 10): Unknown effect.
• Neophyte Blade-bound (lvl 20 + Parry lvl 20): You have unlocked the ability to bond with a melee weapon, given a few minutes of meditation. You may only bond with one weapon at a time. When wielding a bonded weapon, double your effective skill with it, double your chance to parry, and you may cut with it as though it were twice as sharp.
• Combo Virtue, Journeyman Blade-Bound: You have double the effective attributes for the purposes of skills or checks related to using your bonded weapon. If your bonded weapon is a rate-limited entad, double its rate; otherwise, double the entad effects, if beneficial.
• Combo Virtue, Master Blade-Bound: While using your bound weapon, you gain a multiplier to speed equal to one twentieth your skill with it, to a maximum of five times faster. You can be one degree less reasonable when determining what you can do with your bonded weapon, including entad effects or properties, if it’s an entad.
• Combo Virtue, Grandmaster Blade-Bound: Your bonded weapon is infinitely sharp (unless it is sheathed). It is capable of cutting as though it were a two-dimensional plane for the purposes of friction, but as though it were any acute angle of blade for the purposes of separating cut material. Your bonded weapon can cut inviolable materials.

Description: Improves Juniper's skill with two-handed weapons.

History: Unlocked by Juniper at some point before their trek to Caer Laga. ^Siege

Unarmed Combat

Associated Stats: at least one Physical

Virtues

• Unarmed Combat 10, Hardened Knuckles: Lessens the toll that unarmed combat takes on you. Does not actually increase the hardness of your knuckles as measured by indentation or scratch tests.
• Unarmed Combat 30, Hardened Fists: You suffer none of the usual durability, pain, or injury penalties for using your hands, feet, elbows, etc. in combat, even if they are not your primary weapons. You will never suffer any affliction from attacking using your body, though you may still suffer afflictions while defending.
• Unarmed Combat 50, Penetrating Punches: Armor, including natural armor, is half as effective against your unarmed attacks. When attacking objects, you may consider your unarmed attacks piercing, bludgeoning, or slashing, though not more than one at a time.
• Unarmed Combat 70, Weapon Emulation: Your unarmed attacks may be considered weapons when it would be beneficial for them to be so. Also, your unarmed attacks may be considered short-range melee weapons (e.g. daggers) for the purposes of entads, magical effects, or pseudomagical effects, even when this would be unreasonable. Further, your unarmed attacks may be considered specific weapons, even exotic ones, even when this would be completely unreasonable.
• Unarmed Combat 90, Ghost Hand: Your unarmed attacks no longer require direct physical contact, instead working even when executed up to several inches away from the target. You take no penalties for not actually touching your target when using unarmed attacks. This effect can be used to completely negate armor, including natural armor.
• Unarmed Combat 100, Pressure Points: Your unarmed attacks can be used to strike directly at the soul, disabling body parts on a critical hit. In lieu of dealing damage to an opponent with an unarmed attack, you may instead damage their soul. This effect bypasses any abilities that would normally prevent damage.
• Monkish Warrior (Unarmored lvl 20): While unarmed and unarmored, you may parry attacks as though you held a weapon, dodge at twice your effective skill, and automatically re-roll injuries if they are in the lowest five percent of outcomes (you keep any lower rolls).
• Combo Virtue, Monkish Master: While unarmed and unarmored, you no longer suffer falling damage, can run on water, can run on walls, jump twice as high/far, and double your effective SPD. You instantly master any unarmed fighting styles or maneuvers you spend five uninterrupted minutes watching.
• Combo Virtue, Monkish Grandmaster: While unarmed and unarmored, you may use your Unarmed or Unarmored skill, whichever is higher, for any roll that would use PHY or a PHY attribute. Double your effective PHY.
• Combo Virtue, Monkish Ascendant: While unarmed and unarmored, your body, soul, and spirit are inviolable, except as necessary to carry out useful or beneficial functions.

Description: Improves Juniper's unarmed combat skills.

History: Unlocked by Juniper while kicking a zombie. ^{Taking the Fall}

Unarmored

Associated Stats: SPD, ?

Virtues

• Unarmored 10, Hardened Skin: Lessens the toll that physical damage in combat takes on you. Slightly increases natural healing. Increases force required to break skin.
• Unarmored 30, Glancing Blow: While unarmored, add a bonus to injury rolls equal to your unarmored skill. While unarmored, you can ignore one physical injury affliction, changing which is ignored whenever you would like.
• Unarmored 50, Ghost Body: While unarmored, attacks which hit your body no longer make physical contact for the purposes of contact damage or effects, whether magical or otherwise, even if those attacks still do damage.
• Unarmored 70, A Body in Motion: Attempts to net, ensnare, grapple, or otherwise restrain you have a 50% chance to fail (after dodge attempts), and are twice as easy to escape if they don’t fail. For purposes of dodging, you move twice as fast while unarmored.
• Unarmored 90, Bodily Stasis: You heal from injuries and wounds at one hundred times the normal speed. You need one hundredth the water, air, and food you normally would.
• Unarmored 100, Perfected Body: Your skin is as hard as steel. While unarmored, you gain a twenty percent bonus to all defensive rolls, including dodge, parry, entad defense rolls, and magical defense rolls. If this would result in a total defense bonus below fifty, raise it to fifty instead.
• Monkish Warrior (Unarmored Combat lvl 20): While unarmed and unarmored, you may parry attacks as though you held a weapon, dodge at twice your effective skill, and automatically re-roll injuries if they are in the lowest five percent of outcomes (you keep any lower rolls).
• Combo Virtue, Monkish Master: While unarmed and unarmored, you no longer suffer falling damage, can run on water, can run on walls, jump twice as high/far, and double your effective SPD. You instantly master any unarmed fighting styles or maneuvers you spend five uninterrupted minutes watching.
• Combo Virtue, Monkish Grandmaster: While unarmed and unarmored, you may use your Unarmed or Unarmored skill, whichever is higher, for any roll that would use PHY or a PHY attribute. Double your effective PHY.
• Combo Virtue, Monkish Ascendant: While unarmed and unarmored, your body, soul, and spirit are inviolable, except as necessary to carry out useful or beneficial functions.

Description: Improves defense while wearing no armor.

History: Added by Juniper during the rearrangement of his Character Sheet to provide survivability. ^{In Which Juniper Stares At His Character Sheet, Again} As one of Fenn's highest skills, she granted Juniper middling skill with it regardless of his stats via Symbiosis.

Velocity Magic

Description: Magic almost entirely focused on producing effects such as increased reaction times and speed. Unlock conditions require moving faster than anyone before without magical assistance. ^{[citation needed]}

History: One of the skills considered by Juniper during downtime at the Isle of Poran. ^{The One-Hand Warder}

Vibrational Magic

Associated Stats: both Mental

Virtues

• Vibrational Magic 10, Biorhythms: You are in tune with the natural cycles of your body and capable of altering them at the expense of breath, either temporarily or on a permanent basis. This virtue does not prevent any ill effects from e.g. loss of breath or loss of sleep.
• Vibrational Magic 30, Spectra: You can expend breath to apply the sensory aspects of vibrational magic to a wider range of vibrations, including the entire electromagnetic spectrum and everything covered under warder's sight. Breath cost of these extra senses is based on time used, doubling each minute of use.

Description: Can be unlocked by being tapped on the head from a magic item controlled by the Athenaeum of Sound and Silence.

Synergies: Can help Still Mages to Still waves of various kinds, and help Blood Mages by manipulating their heartbeat; if they reach a level where they can manipulate light, that has synergies with the kinetic light of Gem Magic.

History: One of the skills considered by Juniper during downtime at the Isle of Poran. ^{The One-Hand Warder}

Warding

Description: Warding creates areas of generalized, rules-based, countermagic. "Magic" includes abstract categories and concepts, like blood or bones or water or even velocity due to the consideration of latent magic.^{[citation needed]}

History: Grak's greatest skill, developed after training in the Athenaeum of Barriers. ^{Weik Handum} One of the 8 known magics Uther mastered.

Water Magic

Associated Stats: at least one Mental

Virtues

• Hydromancer, 10: If you can sense the water around you, you have an intuitive understanding of what the weather will be like and how it can be affected by changes to the water content of the air and movement of vaporized water.

Description: Bloodline magic. Helps "deal with storms". Allows the user to weakly control and sense large amounts of water, including weather manipulation and sensing large groups of people.^{[citation needed]}

History: One of the skills considered by Juniper during downtime at the Isle of Poran. ^{The One-Hand Warder} Juniper has been waiting for a teacher, who's been unavoidably delayed by a storm. ^Holding

Weaving

History: Noted by Juniper as part of a group of potential arts-and-crafts skills usually taken for roleplaying purposes. In Which Juniper Stares At His Character Sheet, Again

Woodworking

Description: Described by Reimer (from memory) as an especially poorly-designed skill which improved carving, carpentry etc. SkeweredVirtues

• 100: Notably broken, the capstone for woodworking allowed you to make literally anything out of wood, according to Reimer's recollections. Skewered

History: Never unlocked and eventually swapped out of Juniper's Character Sheet. In Which Juniper Stares At His Character Sheet, Again

Deprecated Skills

Butterfly Magic

Description: Excluded magic. Allowed users to alter probabilities by releasing butterflies at specific times and places to attain the effects they wanted.

History: Explained to Juniper by Raven. A Cypress Waits

Carrolism

Description: Deprecated skill of unknown use.

History: Mentioned by Juniper as an excluded skill. The Veil of the World

Chronomancy

History: One of the 8 known magics Uther mastered, but excluded in the modern day.

Conjoinery

Description: Phenomenological magic of unknown use.

History: Mentioned by Juniper as an excluded skill. The Veil of the World Later mentioned by the Urquhart Stone. Good VibrationsOne of the 8 known magics Uther mastered.

Constriction Magic

Description: Deprecated magic (Exclusion #18) of unknown use.

History: Noticed by Juniper as an excluded potential skill in his soul. In Which Juniper Stares At His Character Sheet, Again

Custom

Description: Deprecated skill (Exclusion #17). Likely a way to create and use skills beyond the available 256.

History: Noticed by Juniper as an excluded potential skill in his soul. In Which Juniper Stares At His Character Sheet, Again

Ex Nihilo

Description: Deprecated skill (Exclusion #216) of unknown use.

History: Noticed by Juniper as an excluded potential skill in his soul. In Which Juniper Stares At His Character Sheet, Again

Funnel magic

Description: Deprecated skill of unknown use.

History: Mentioned by Juniper as an excluded skill. The Veil of the World

Glass Magic

Description: Deprecated magic (Exclusion #112) of unknown use. Excluded to the Glassy Fields Exclusion Zone.

History: Noticed by Juniper as an excluded potential skill in his soul. In Which Juniper Stares At His Character Sheet, Again

Groove Casting

Description: Excluded magic which involved shaping energy, growing more effective with repeated use as the "grooves" wore down, which can be worked on while doing other tasks. Somewhat comparable to rune Magic. Obscure and of limited use even before it was Excluded, except to the longest-lived species. A bit on the lethal side. Synergized well with Dibbling, which could provide energy to channel into Grooves. Cooldown

History: Learned by Raven Masters and used during her stint as a vigilante under the Second Empire, prior to it's exclusion.Cooldown Noticed by Juniper as a depreciated potential skill (Exclusion #217) in his soul of then-unknown function. In Which Juniper Stares At His Character Sheet, Again

Ice Magic

Virtues

Description: Deprecated magic (Exclusion #16) of unknown use. Presumably related to the Invasion of the Ice Wizards on 4FE.

History: Noticed by Juniper as an excluded potential skill in his soul. In Which Juniper Stares At His Character Sheet, Again Juniper continues to muse on the skill later, theorizing Uther Penndraig was involved in the exclusion after he slayed the Ice Wizards. Grayscales

Illusion Magic

Description: Excluded magic. While within the confines of its Exclusion Zone near Boastre Vino, allows the user to fake input for any senses the user is aware of, including touch, proprioception and pain. Among many unexplained limitations, illusions can't cross a certain threshold of intensity, and they apparently fade after the victim is fully aware of the trick.

History: Used by Speculator Masters to attack Juniper's Party at the Athenaeum of Speculation and Scrutiny. The Veil of the World

Mentalism

History: Unknown potential skill, briefly considered by Juniper to be the excluded magic used by Speculator Masters (which was eventually revealed to be illusion magic). The Veil of the World

Psionics

History: Unknown potential skill, briefly considered by Juniper to be the excluded magic used by Speculator Masters (which was eventually revealed to be illusion magic). The Veil of the World

Uniqulomancy

Description: Deprecated skill of unknown use.

History: Mentioned by Juniper as an excluded skill. The Veil of the World

Possible Skills

Automatic Rifles

Speculated to exist by Juniper on the basis of existing firearms skills.

Bloodline Magic

An excluded magic that "acts on a person’s bloodline", not to be confused with the general concept of bloodline magics like Water Magic (or with the Blood Magic technique of the same name). "Pretty much no one knows about" it, but it's mentioned in Juniper's notes. Presumably, the same excluded magic mentioned by Raven that "Esclin Tearheart threatened to destroy the whole of dwarvenkind through a bloodline attack" using on one of her more obscure adventures with Uther, which could be used to "kill a man by weaving a spell and punching his father hard enough" before it was quietly excluded to an unknown location.

Dibbling

Description: Excluded magic, which drew upon the abstract concepts of earth/ground for a variety of effects, mostly similar to Wards but faster and short-term. Lethal, and synergized well with Groove Casting because you could Dibble for energy and channel it into Grooves. Cooldown

History: Learned by Raven Masters and used during her stint as a vigilante under the Second Empire, prior to it's exclusion.Cooldown Mentioned by the Urquhart Stone's simulacrum of Uther Penndraig as an example of a "metaphorical" magic. Good Vibrations

Diplomacy

History: Theorized by Juniper to be one of Amaryllis' skills. Place Your Figs

Feng Shui

Description: Phenomenological magic of unknown use.Good Vibrations Implied to have allowed for arranging furniture in such a way that it "would make you focused and revitalized", but been excluded at some point after the Second Empire.

History: Mentioned by the Urquhart Stone's simulacrum of Uther Penndraig.Good Vibrations Raven mentioned it as an example of the more magic-rich era that was the Second Empire.

Gray Magic

Description: An excluded magic inspired in some way by The Picture of Dorian Gray.

History: Mentioned in passing in Amaryllis' notes. Notes

Mining

Speculated to exist by Juniper given the existence of the Horticulture skill.

Sand Magic

Description: Among other unknown uses, allows sand mages to create Time Chambers.

History: Mentioned by Bethel as the origin of her Time Chamber. Immanentizing the Eschaton

Wood Magic

Description: Channels the residual life-force of wood, especially certain rare woods. Can be used to shape wood into weapons and armor, or create explosions of growth etc in combat.

History: Mentioned by Masters and Amaryllis as related to trees. Notes The Veil of the WorldOne of the 8 known magics Uther mastered. Generally made obsolete by the march of technology and over-harvesting by the Second Empire.

Redaction Magic

History: Excluded magic which Raven compared DM schenanigans to, albeit not on the same scale.Medieval Stasis

==References==