I'm looking forward to read more about the campaign you are running.
Thanks.
Now, before we give Zohra her skill points, I've listed them all below. Aquelarre has 55 skills (not including languages). I've categorized them into 5 groups (the Rules don't) based on how they tend to play. Obviously this is approximate and there is overlap and every table has a different play style, so take it for what it's worth!
Magic: Alchemy, Astrology, Magical Knowledge, Theology
Mechanic: Climb, Drive (as in wagon), Heal, Jump, Medicine, Ride, Run, Swim, Taste, Teach, Throw
Role Play: Command, Commerce, Conceal, Court Etiquette, Craft, Discovery, Disguise, Eloquence, Games, Listen, Music, Pick Lock, Seduction, Ship Handling, Sing, Sleight of Hand, Stealth, Torture, Track
Knowledge/Meta: Animal Knowledge, Area Knowledge, Empathy, Language (there are many), Legends, Memory, Mineral Knowledge, Plant Knowledge, Read/Write
Combat: Axes, Bows, Brawl, Crossbows, Dodge, Knives, Longswords, Maces, Shields, Slings, Spears, Staves, Swords
Magic skills are those that allow the casting of spells and performing rituals of faith. The two main ones are Magical Knowledge for spells and Theology for rituals.
Mechanic skills have solid mechanics behind them, so they are generally carried out according to the Rules. No need to role play healing (unless you really want to!), just declare and roll.
Role Play skills provide good opportunities for role play to earn a bonus or penalty to the skill check. For example, the players describe how a search is carried out to earn a bonus to a Discovery check or even negate the need to make a check. The Rules of course give the GM the power to award bonuses/penalties to any skill check. I have found most of these skills to be the ones that my group role plays.
Knowledge/Meta skills are skills where the GM is pretty much going to reveal things that the players probably don't know. For skills like Area Knowledge, odds are the player isn't going to know much about some locale in medieval Castile, so it's just a roll and the GM feeding info to the player. Same for Empathy in gaining a clue to an NPC's true motivation (if it can't be gained just by role playing the conversation). That said, role play may work with some of these skills.
Combat skills are obviously mostly related to the combat system.
Each character has primary skills and secondary skills based on profession, as well as paternal skills based on father/mother profession. You also have language skills based on where you're from or profession.
Zohra's skills:
Primary (Curandera): Alchemy, Empathy, Heal, Magical Knowledge
Secondary (Curandera): Animal Knowledge, Astrology, Discovery, Legends, Medicine, Mineral Knowledge, Plant Knowledge, 1 chosen Arms Skill from the Townsfolk category
Paternal (Jester): Disguise, Eloquence, Jump, Sleight of Hand
Language: Andalusian 100%, Arabic 80% (CUL x4), Castilian 80% (CUL x4)
For most skills the base value is the same as the underlying primary characteristic. So for Discovery, Zohra has 10% because this skill is based on Perception (hers is 10). So all characters can try pretty much anything. Languages are a notable exception.
Primary skills start at 3x the base characteristic. So Zohra's Alchemy starts at 60% because she's a healer.
You get a pool of 100 points to assign to any skill you want to represent the training of your profession. Primary and Secondary skills go up by 1% for each point spent. All others cost double.
You also get 25% to assign to your Paternal skills to represent things you learned from your parents.
Language skills are set based on your people (in this case the Arabic people of Granada), as well as other considerations.
Next post, I will assign Zohra's points!