Skills

The types of things you can learn to do, using skills, are divided up into 19 catergories which you can learn to various levels of competence (1-4). Untrained is level 0 and you can be trained up to level 4 (higher levels exist for exceptional situations). Each level in a skill adds once die to your pool when you attempt to do something that skill logically covers. It is intended that most actions have one skill, and where more than one skill seems relevant you may choose which to use.
Skill Levels can be described as:

0	Untrained. 10% chance of failing at an easy task, 40% for an average.
1	Average for someone with some training. 0% fail for easy tasks, 25% for average.
2	Fair is someone who uses the skill regularly. You only fail 12% for average tasks.
3	Good is someone who relies on this skill and usually (94%) succeeds on average tasks.
4	Experts rarely fail at average tasks (3%), and can generally avoid complications.

Skill Pyramid

Depending on your level of experience you will start with (determined by the GM) you will have a different numbers of skills you can know at each level. For example an inexperienced character has three skills at level 1, two at level 2 and one at level 3. If after adventuring you want to improve a skill you must ensure you have at least as many skills at the level below as you have in the next level. This is the 'pyramid'. So in this case you would have to learn a new level 1 skill before you can improve an existing level 1 to level 2.

Specifying Skill Focuses

Some skills are very broad and so you must specify a area for each level you have in them: Drive, Fight, Knowledge, Performance, Profession, Shoot, Survival.
So Drive covers controlling a means of transport and basic navigation skills. It could easily cover a horse, cart, rowboat, or sailing ship. You can choose one of these areas per level of skill, and if you use it for something not specified then you drop a die from your pool. So if you have Drive 2 you can specify horse and cart, so if you need to sail a boat your effective skill level is you skill less 1 (in this case you would have 2-1=1 so you have a sense of how things move and basic concepts of navigation).

Skill Tracks and Pushing

Each skill level is also a track (a record of how many times that aspect can and has been used) that you may try to Push (apply extra effort to increase likelihood of success but that may harm you if you fail). In the sailing example above, with a Drive skill of 2, you have two tracks, so you may try to push when using that skill twice. If it is important for you to succeed in sailing (say your group is trying to chase after a villian) and you only have an effective skill of 1, so you can add an extra success to your pool to improve your level of success (but not likelihood as you still have only 2 dice to roll). If you push and fail (at least one dice is not a 6 or better) then you suffer one damage on the relevant injury track (mental or physical). If you succeed with one dice you have two successes which may allow you to catch up (succeed at a Challenging, or level 2, task).

Opposed Skill Checks

Some skills are used to defend against other skills, thus reducing the efective dice pool to determine success for the attempt. In general the player rolls for all situations.

Combat Example In combat you are trying to defend against an opponent's attack. In this case you have three options:
Dodge skill allows you to avoid the attack (it misses if you succeed on your Dodge). Athletics skill can be substituted for Dodge with a die drop. Fight skill allows you to parry (this might unbalance your weapon depending what it is) or shield block (whether you block or not your shield will reduce some of the damage).
Lets take the Dodge situation, though you are not traied in Dodge but have an Athletics skill of 2. Your opponnent is a fair combatant, having been a guard for 10 years, so has a skill of 2 in staff. You get one base die plus one Athletics die (2 with a die drop to use it for Dodge), so you have a dice pool of 2. You opponent has a dice pool of 2 from their skill so net you 2-2=0 dice pool. You always have at least one die so instead its a dice pool of 1 with a shift of 1 (either removes success or adds a complication). You roll a 5 (which for one die is a success with complication). In combat a success with complication means you partially dodge so you take 1 damage, though because you have a shift you either take 2 damage, or if the weapon only does 1 damage, you take a complication instead. Of course your shield and armor will reduce the damamge taken. However, in 1650 few poeple wore heavy armor unless on a battlefield.
Social Example Lets say you are trying to get in the good books of a guard by using Rapport. The guard resists with their Empathy as they may or may not realize what you are trying to do. You are a good talker so have a Rapport of 3 and the Guard has an Empathy of 1 as they often try to see through ruses such as this. You get a base die, plus 3 for your Rapport skill, less 1 for the opponents Empathy skill, so you roll 3 dice. You are very likely to succeed.

Optional Rule for Opposed Checks If the player wants to mix it up, they can roll both their dice and the opponents dice and compare the results instead of just dropping dice from their pool. In the Rapport example above the player rols 4 dice and also rolls one for the guard. If the player rolled 8,6,5,2 and the guard 6 then the player must use either their 6 or 8 (equal or higher) to counter the guards success (6). The player chooses to use the 6 as the 8 is a better result (success without complication).

Languages

In Europe there were many languages that people would know at various levels depending on their position and job. Languages are not a skill so you are free to choose what your character's background would logically include. Please also state a level of competence with each language.

1	Recognise the language and some common words or phrases. Can't really speak it.
2	Can understand and speak basic ideas such as for a manual labourer or shopping.
3	Native speaker with basic reading ability.
4	Excellent grammar, reading and writing.

Skill Cost

The cost to learn a new skill at level 1 is one point. To improve a skill by one level costs as many points as the skill’s new level. So to improve a skill from level 1 to level 2 will cost 2 points. You cannot have more skills at the next higher level, which leads to a skill pyramid such as 4/3/2 (no skills at level 4 in this example). You could improve a skill from 3 to 4 for 4 points giving 4/3/1/1 but not from 2 to 3 for 3 points because 4/2/3 is not a pyramid.