Your Eight Stats
Your character is built on eight stats, each scored 1–10. They describe what you're like at your core — the raw material you work with. Your skills (the things you've learned) sit on top of these, but your stats are who you are.
| Stat | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Power | Strength, physical force, toughness, lifting, grappling, and other acts requiring raw physicality. |
| Speed | Reflexes, coordination, agility, balance, precision, and quick physical reactions. |
| Brains | Reasoning, memory, education, deduction, planning, technical understanding, and learning. |
| Social | Charm, persuasion, intimidation, deception, negotiation, presence, and understanding social situations. |
| Willpower | Discipline, courage, resisting fear, enduring pressure, resisting temptation, and continuing when exhausted or hurt. |
| Senses | Awareness, observation, intuition about the environment, noticing details, tracking, and reacting to things others miss. |
| Heart | Empathy, emotional intelligence, loyalty, compassion, reading emotional needs, and forming genuine connections. |
| Luck | The small pieces of the world nobody controls: coincidence, timing, fortunate mistakes, and terrible breaks. |
Stats are potential, skills are experience
The single most useful distinction in the system: stats describe potential; skills describe experience.
A physically powerful farmer may have Power 8 but Swordsmanship 2. A veteran duelist might have Power 5, Speed 8, and Swordsmanship 9. In a sword fight, the duelist should usually destroy the farmer — because the trained act is decided by the skill, not the raw potential behind it.
Your stats set what your body and mind can do. Your skills point that potential at a real problem you've actually practiced.
The shape of your sheet
Most characters are a mix: a couple of 6s and 7s where they shine, a few 4s and 5s in the ordinary middle, and one or two 2s and 3s that make them human. A character who can't drop below a 5 in anything isn't impressive — they're forgettable. The lows are where the story lives.