Basics
All characters in H&S have 3 virtues, ratings that describe your characteristics and aptitudes. These virtues are rated from 0 to 4. Your virtues are determined through your skills, which you'll develop over time. When you raise one of your virtues, all the statistics tied to that virtue increase as well.
There are 12 skills in the game, each with a ranking from 0 to 4, that tells you how many dice you roll when you roll a check for that skill.
When faced with a problem, you choose which skill you want to use to overcome the obstacle by describing what your character does to the judge. The judge then decides if the skill is appropriate or whether or a check is even required.
Your might measures your physical capability and ability to assert yourself upon the world. Its skills favor direct action: resolve, steel, and strength.
Athletics measures your strength and fitness. Use it to climb, swim, leap, lift heavy objects, or otherwise exert yourself physically.
Command measures your assertion, authority, and leadership. Use it to give orders, compel obedience, rally others, or direct people, pets, and mounts.
Crafting represents your ability to work materials into useful things and understand how such things were made.
Survival represents your practical knowledge of the wilds. Use it to track prey, forage for food, navigate the wilderness, or handle animals.
Your Might benefits you in the following ways:
Your maximum vigor is equal to 20 + four times your Might.
You have maximum amount of inventory slots equal to 8 + your Might.
Your grace measures your awareness of others and your ability to navigate the world around you. Its skills rely on heart, awareness, and dexterity.
Charms measures your social ease and force of personality. Use it to mingle, consort, gossip, flirt, or otherwise win people over.
Finesse represents your dexterity, coordination, and precise movements. Use it to balance across a ledge, perform a stunt, juggle, or other similar tricks.
Perception sharpens your senses and helps you notice minute details.
Stealth represents your capability for subterfuge. Use it to sneak past others, spy from hiding, conceal yourself, pick pockets, or other acts of skullduggery.
Your Grace benefits you in the following ways:
Your throwing distance is equal to 6 + your Grace.
Your mobility is equal to your Grace (minimum of +2).
Add your Grace to your base endurance.
Your wits measure your intellect and ability to understand, manipulate, and combine the pieces before you. Its skills favor deliberate thought, whether working with ingredients, information, arguments, or mechanisms.
Alchemy represents your ability to mix ingredients and produce beneficial concoctions, remedies, and meals.
Letters measures your literacy and knowledge of the sciences, as well as your ability to reason from evidence and draw conclusions from clues.
Rhetorics represents your ability to construct and present convincing arguments. Use it to debate, negotiate, persuade, or engage in diplomacy.
Tinkering represents your ability to understand and manipulate mechanisms such as locks, traps, and other devices.
Your Wits benefits you in the following ways:
When you gain focus, you gain extra focus equal to your Wits.
You use your Wits to determine the amount of dice you roll for prevail checks to end states on yourself, companions, and foes.
Before you acquire the first rank in a skill, you are considered trained in it. When you learn a new skill, you gain its first rank. Each time you learn a new skill, you also raise its governing virtue by 1.
The rules sometimes refer to you "having a skill". This means that you aren't untrained and have at least one rank with that skill.
If you have the skill for a check, you receive two benefits:
Add a d6 to your die pool for the check per rank of the skill.
You can enter a devil's bargain on a failed skill check, doubling down for another chance at success.
When you create your character, your calling determines your key virtue. Your key virtue is used to determine how many dice your roll to for your deeds. Other features in the game can also refer to your key virtue's value.