Rules:Items

As the player progresses through the game he will gather resources that will then again aid him on his travels. These resources are devided between the tangible, really existing objects, and the intagible, resources in the form of knowledge and skill. From now on the former will be referred to as items and the latter as talents.

Items

Items are just that: stuff to be picked up and used, weapons, armour, potions and the like. They can be carried in the inventory, equipped, put to other use or just thrown away. They come in the following categories:

• Weapons
  anything that can be wielded to inflict damage on an opponent: clubs and knives, axes and swords, bows and crossbows, ...
• Armour
  any form of protective clothing, ranging from simple leather garments to full plate armour.
• Shields
  shields offer additional protection, but restrict the character to using single handed weapons only.
• Other Equippable
  any other items that can be worn by the player, like rings, amulets or tatoos. They will usually provide additional protection or increase certain character stats.
• Unequippable
  items that cannot be worn fall into this category. Amongst those are keys, books, scrolls, runestones, herbs, jewellery and many more. Many of them are ingredients for items that sufficiently talented characters can create with the proper tools.

What kind of items a character can equip is partly defined by that character's stats and partly by his class. Latter is determined through his affiliation with certain factions. Depending on the class, a set of predefined equipment slots are available to take equippable items.

There are many ways to acquire items: they can be bought in shops, given as reward when fulfilling a quest, stolen from NPCs or picked up from fallen opponents. Herbs and other natural ressource can be collected in the wilderness while rare treasures may be found in the various dungeons.

Talents

Talents are special skills that the player has learnt to put to use either by studying hard and practising by himself or under a teacher, or just by him being talented. There is a wide range of talents and some talents are typical or even restricted to a certain race.

Talents are closely related to Character Abilities and fall into one of the following categories:

• Feat
  a special bodily feat that gives certain advantages in combat, such as ambidexterity.
• Move
  a combat move that represents a certain tactic in combat such as strike to stun, sneak attack.
• Song
  a call to natures spirits that will gives the singer short-time powers of birds, beasts or plants (depending on the song)
• Spell
  the caster taps the powers of the elements to harm/alter/control his enemy or heal himself
• Recipe
  this lets the holder brew potions and powders that can be put to various (often unpredictable) uses.
• Invention
  lets the character create a mechanical device given the right tools and components
• Enhancement
  lets the character permanently improve his weapons, shield or armour.
• Rune
  can be inscribed upon items and skin. Runes are triggered by certain events (depending on the rune and place inscribed) and then have effects similiar to spells

All talents may be learned from a teacher. Some talents will be able to be aquired from (nonequippable) items, while for others there are ways of aquiring them without attending a teacher. The following table shows possible sources for talents:

Talent	Source
Feat	-
Move	-
Song	Listening to animal or plant
Spell	Spell Scroll, Spell Book
Recipe	Recipe Scroll, Recipe Book
Invention	Construction Plan
Enhancement	Extensively studying a device
Rune	Runestone

 Examples
 
 If Helas the Half-Elf listens to the Nightingale really carefully he might learn the ‘Song
 Of The Nightingale’  
 
 Gorek the Dwarf can learn the ‘Rune Of Petrification’ from the runestone he found
 
 Tatiana can learn how to build the ‘Catapult’ by studying the device she found in the
 dwarven ruins.

Using talents often comes at a cost. Some talent types require ingredients, others the expending of power. These ingredients can be used up, but must not. Here are suggestions of what these ingedients can be, and which talents cost power:

Talent	Power cost	Ingredients
Feat	rarily	-
Move	rarily	-
Song	yes	-
Spell	yes	-
Recipe	rarily	minerals, gems, animal parts, herbs
Invention	no	depends on device to be created
Enhancement	no	hammer and anvil, metal tools, leather tools, wood tools
Rune	yes	hammer and anvil, tatoo instruments

Again these are just guidelines, and there can be exceptions such as spells that do rquire ingredients, inventions that don’t etc.

 Examples
 
 Bertram needs some wild herbs he can find in the wood or buy at the local herbalist to
 brew his ‘Remedy Potion’
 
 To use her ‘Danse Macabre’ Methila can tap upon her power to perform this amazing
 attack, stunning her opponents by the pure absurdity of the move.
 
 Gern requires two standard crossbows and his toolkit to build the ‘Double Crossbow’ that
 he has just thought up. Obviously, the crossbows will be used up in the process.

Requirements of Items and Talents

No matter how he gets at a talent or item, whether he is tought by a teacher or receives an item in eward, the player must fulfil specific requirements in order to use it.

No talents can be learned just by any novice, they require a certain schooling or inclination. Neither can every item just be picked up and used. Weapons can only properly be used by character with the right training, and using a shield requires some skill aswell.

A talent will have requirements for the player to learn it, and many items will have requiremnts for him to use it. These requiremnts can be a minimum number of ranks of attributes, abilities (mostly) or skills, or a certain race, gender or character level.

There are no rules by which these restrictions must be set, each depending on the certain item or talent. However, there are certain guidelines and every item and talent type will have an attribute or ability typically (although not necessarily) associated with it, as shown in the following table:

Item / Talent	Ability	Attribute
Weapons	melee, ranged	strength, ability
Armour	armour	strength
Shields	shield	strength, ability
Feat	combat feats	agility, strength
Move	combat feats	agility, strength
Song	songs of the birds, beasts and trees	willpower
Spell	earth, air, fire or water magic	willpower
Recipe	alchemy	-
Invention	mechanics	-
Enhancement	weapon or armour improvent	-
Rune	runecraft	willpower

 Examples
 
 Gorek the Runesmith cannot understand the runestone he has found, the ‘Rune Of Petrification’
 requires runecraft rank 3, Gorek only has rank 2. He can keep onto it until he has gained more 
 knowledge of the runecraft and then retry.
 
 Loremaster Chlindas sees that Methila the Eelf is not jet ready to learn the spell ‘Thunderflood’,
 as this requires rank 2 in air magic and rank 1 in water magic, Methila only has one rank in each. 
 Maybe he should teach Methila more of the ways of the winds before she is ready to tackle such a 
 spell.