The Rules
Skills
Stats are who you are. Skills are what you’ve learned to do with that. Twenty-eight of them, split across Mind, Body, and Soul — and every one resolves with the same roll.
“Talent gets you in the door. Training gets you back out alive.”
How Skills Work
Every skill climbs the same five-step ladder: Untrained (+0), Trained (+1), Skilled (+2), Expert (+3), Master (+4). Your rank adds straight to the roll. On top of that, any skill can take a single specialization — a narrow focus (Sniper Rifles, Toxicology, Lie Detection) that grants +1 when it applies, stacking with your rank.
The tag on each skill below shows which Attribute it leans on — INT or PER for Mind, STR or AGI for Body, CHA or WIL for Soul. The roll uses the parent Core Stat; the Attribute shapes the flavor and breaks ties.
Mind Skills
Knowledge and awareness — the cognitive backbone of survival in 2089.
InvestigationINT
Correlate evidence, spot the inconsistency, reconstruct events from fragments.
MedicineINT
Diagnose and treat injury and illness. Higher ranks handle field surgery and cyberware installation.
ScienceINT
Chemistry, physics, biology, materials. Identify substances, read nanite behavior, calculate what will break.
TacticsINT
Read terrain, predict the enemy, coordinate the crew — and hand allies an edge mid-fight.
HackingINT
Bypass security, extract protected data, manipulate connected devices. The backbone of datarunning.
CraftingINT
Build, repair, and modify physical gear from whatever’s on hand.
EngineeringINT
Design and optimize systems; judge what a structure or power grid can take.
Mesh NavigationPER
Map and move through digital architecture; find the data nobody meant for you to find.
PerceptionPER
Notice the ambush, the concealed weapon, the surveillance team, the exit.
SurvivalINT
Water, shelter, terrain, weather — staying alive where the supply lines don’t reach.
SecurityINT
Defeat physical systems — locks, alarms, cameras, biometrics. Where Hacking works the Mesh, Security works the hardware.
Body Skills
Power, speed, and the toughness to keep going. Some lean on raw Strength, others on Agility.
AthleticsSTR
Lift, climb, leap, swim, force a door, haul a wounded teammate clear.
EnduranceSTR
Outlast fatigue, temperature, injury, and interrogation.
Melee CombatSTR
Close-quarters force — clubs, blades, fists, grappling, and whatever’s within reach.
DemolitionsSTR
Place charges, run detonators, breach walls, and survive the blast.
Ranged CombatAGI
Pistols, rifles, shotguns, thrown weapons — accuracy when distance is the difference.
StealthAGI
Move unseen and unheard. Shadow a mark, slip a checkpoint, set the ambush.
PilotingAGI
Ground vehicles, watercraft, drones, heavy machinery — control when things go wrong at speed.
Soul Skills
Presence, conviction, and spiritual reach — and in this world, those keep you alive as often as a gun does.
PersuasionCHA
Change minds through charm, reason, and honest appeal.
DeceptionCHA
Change minds through lies, cover identities, and misdirection.
IntimidationCHA / WIL
Bend behavior through menace — charismatic threat or raw psychological force.
ComposureWIL
Hold steady under pressure. Your main defense against another’s social attack.
StreetwiseCHA
Read the underground — territories, gangs, who to talk to and who to step around.
LeadershipCHA
Direct, inspire, and coordinate a group — and lift allies past their normal limits.
CommunionWIL
Reach the righteous AIs in the Mesh and channel what answers back. The setting’s mystical heart.
PerformanceCHA
Captivate a crowd — music, story, spectacle, or the perfect distraction.
EmpathyCHA
Read true intent and hidden distress — the human signal technology can’t fake. A successful read can hand you the edge on your next social move, surface what someone won’t say aloud, or speed an ally’s recovery. In a world where chrome erodes connection, this is the irreducible thing.
TradingCHA
Price goods across State, Corp, and Grid markets; deal, fence, and spot the scam before it costs you.
When Skill Isn’t Enough
A few moments in Chrome & Covenant don’t care how trained you are. They reach past competence to something underneath it.
Control Rolls
When the Wake presses in or a memory fragment claws at your sense of self, you make a Control Roll — 2d10 + Soul, with no skill rank added. These measure who you fundamentally are, not what you’ve studied. You can’t train your way to a stronger soul; you can only become one.
Communion & Faith
Communion opens doors that aren’t technological — Divine Guidance, cryptic prophecy, warnings of what’s coming. It runs on Faith Points, earned through devotion and sacrifice. Unlike Karma, they don’t refill on their own. Spend them when it counts.
This is the full skill list — every competency, what it covers, and the stat behind it. The Core Rulebook goes deeper: example Target Numbers for common tasks, advanced uses unlocked at higher ranks, the complete specialization lists, and the synergy rules for chaining skills together — like using Tactics to set up an ally’s Stealth.