Awareness

Basic
Perception
The Awareness skill reflects your ability to perceive hidden dangers and to notice small details about your physical surroundings. You use the Awareness skill to notice ambushes, spot traps and discern other threats to you and your allies. Awareness is not tied to any one sense; it encompasses them all.
When using Awareness to detect a hidden enemy, the Test is always Opposed. Otherwise, the thing you are trying to detect applies a Difficulty based on how cunningly concealed it is.
An Awareness Test is usually a Free Action made in reaction to something.

Eye for Detail

Particularly perceptive Acolytes are trained to take in every aspect of a scene with just a quick scan, later recalling the subtlest of details that turn out to be critical to the investigation. Awareness cannot be used as an Investigation Skill in its own right, but it can be used to assist an Investigation Skill. When examining a crime scene, you may make an Awareness Test to attempt to notice any clues. Every degree of success reduces the Difficulty of a subsequent investigation Test by one-step.

Using Awareness

Given Awareness’s importance to an Acolyte’s mission, requiring characters lacking this Skill to Test at half their Perception may be too excessive, unduly penalising the player for a poor choice of Skills or slowing game play as the Acolytes fruitlessly scour the same area in search of that elusive clue. Rather than requiring all characters to Test Awareness, just have characters Test Perception. Those with the Awareness skill should face a lower Difficulty (usually two-steps) than those without.