Hello Travellers!

We are thrilled to share another big piece of the puzzle that makes the core of our game design in Book of Travels - skills! This has been one of our focal points as of late and now were ready to offer a deep dive into their function in the game, shedding some light on what makes them special compared to other RPGs and how they look and behave. Firstly it's important to keep in mind that were trying to build a roleplay experience that challenges many of the norms and structures that fans of the genre are taking for granted. Its our hope that what you read here will shed light on our philosophy regarding skills and that youll be as excited about them as we are!

The four types of skills and the four winds

In order to start explaining something as complex an RPG skill system, we need to begin with the foundation. There are four types of skills that your character can learn. Knots, Teas, Abilities and Passives. They each have different tones, uses and gameplay orientation. What all skills share is that they are not all tailored to boost your stats or give you obvious advantages. Many skills are just ways for you to express your character and to use for roleplaying purposes in social situations.

Knots

The tying of knots is a magical practice in the game world and allows for a variety of wondrous effects and functions. The time it takes to tie a knot depends on its complexity, but after untying it, the effects of knotspells are often direct.

Teas

If the knots are the scrolls then teas are the magic potions of our world. Deeply rooted in the culture of the world, the brewing of tea is a common practice both among ordinary folk and practising mystics. It requires preparation and patience but the results are often rewardingly strong and may last for long periods of time. The only limitation is that just one tea effect can be enjoyed at a time.

Abilities

These are skills that don't work by magical principles. Hiding in bushes, fishing, tricks and perks will instead improve everything from social skills, world interactions to survival gameplay. Some can be used all the time, others require special conditions or even tools.

Passives

Even if the term is common in RPGs we treat passive skills a bit differently in Book of Travels. Obviously they work on the principle of giving permanent bonuses to your character, but many of them can give you unusual and flat out weird bonuses if used correctly. Our idea is that players can use the other categories in conjunction with their passives to create tricky chains of bonuses. An example is drinking a tea that makes you unaffected by the elements, using a knot to call for rain clouds and then having a passive skill that gives you bonuses when standing in rain. With the amount of skills we are prepping, we are quite convinced that you can come up with some pretty awesome combos.

Winds

Besides the four types of skills there are four winds. These are a big part of the world lore and are considered divine or magical. Each skill, regardless of type, has a wind connected to it. The four winds all have their own personalities and they represent differences between skills. Skills of the Southern Wind are orientated towards physicality, interactions and trade. Skills of the Western Wind are often focused towards creativity, illusions, and strong magics. Northern Wind skills are cerebral and orientated towards science, protection and group aiding spells. Skills of the Eastern Wind are naturalistic, spiritual and often include animal skills and survival tricks. Each character has an affinity for one of the four winds, making skills of that wind easier to learn.

How to acquire skills

Unlike many RPGs, your character won't learn skills per automation upon leveling up. Instead we have made gathering skills into something a bit more contextual and roleplay like (you are likely to learn the fishing skill from a fisherman, and a master at a tea house might teach you a magical tea blend). Of course there are numerous ways to acquire skills, such as learning them from NPCs, receiving them as rewards in events, trading for them, or finding them randomly in loot. A skill you write in your skill book must be activated or learned before it can be used. This is done by allocating points in the skills you want to use. Skills vary in how many points are required to learn them, and its up to you to balance your array of skills. Will you collect many cheaper, simpler skills, or a few more potent and rare?

Using skills

Skills all have conditions on when and where they can be used. We are not very fond of do whatever you like type of RPGs and will prohibit players from assembling a fireplace on a wooden deck in a tea house. Besides the conditions of when and where, skills are used differently depending on type. Passives are always active. Abilities can be used freely without cost but work as cooldowns. Knots and teas both use the same fuel: reagents. These are things that you collect in the wind that you then use to craft knots and teas. A combination is often needed to complete a knot or a tea. Dandelion plus a tuft of animal hair to give one example. In our world the magical practises are somewhat alchemic and reagents are not always gathered from nature. Coagulated engine oil and driftwood dust are amongst the things you can expect to tie into your knots. We hope you have enjoyed this summary of skills in the game. Please let us know your thoughts about them in the comments. As always we do actually read everything and will gladly use suggested skills in the future so feel free to brainstorm! Much love from the team