Athletics (sage study)

Athletics is a sage study in the field of Training, encompassing a collection of lower rank physical aptitudes the character has chosen to collect through practice and effort.

Each aptitude requires agility and conditioning of the body, applying the self to acquire sage abilities related to flexibility, precision, speed, power, endurance, balance, awareness and timing. The list of athletic forms include:

• Cliff Diving
• Free-diving
• Hurling
• Ice Sailing
• Kayaking
• Martial Arts
• Running
• Sailing
• Scrambling
• Skating
• Skiing
• Surfing
• Swimming

While technically each of these is a "sage ability," they are treated as individual pursuits under the general heading of "Athletics." As knowledge accumulates in a given athletic, the character's ability improves; thus, advancing from ability thorugh expertise, and thence achieving excellence.

Assigning Points

Unlike other sage studies, the character chooses which athletic skill to which knowledge points will be applied. Points can be applied singly to a single athletic, or varying to more than one. Most of these athletics can be done without any skill at all, though even a few points here and there can make a big difference. Any that has at least 10 points assigned to it becomes a "skilled" ability, with amateur-status. Authority, expert and sage status can be acquired by adding more and more points, as with any other sage study.

For example, Samuel begins at 1st level with 12 pts. of knowledge and assigns them to himself as an "amateur" Runner. At 2nd level, he rolls the dice and finds he has three more pts. — he assigns them to Sailing. At 3rd level, he gets six points; he assigns 3 to sailing and 3 to Running. At 4th level, receiving ten points, he gives 4 to sailing, becoming an amateur, and 6 to Running, for a total of 21 points. If he'd given every point to Running, he'd have become an "authority." The process is deliberately sparse, so the character's forced to concentrate on two or three choices ... but with time and multiple levels, a real strength can be built in various directions.

It can be seen that Athletics represents many "sage studies" under a single rubric. Becoming a jack-of-all-trades is possible, but it's very hard to excel at more than one thing.

Skill Levels

Unskilled describes zero points of knowledge in the particular Athletic. While most characters are able to run, jump or hurl objects, a lack of knowledge in these things confirms a lack of breath, technique or good judgement ... essentially, the character's minimum ability; with regards to hurling, the rules of missile weapons apply.

Talented is demonstrated by having 1 to 9 points in the Athletic. The character has no serious training and is somewhat raw in their technique, but they have sense and tenacity which they can apply to the activity.

Skilled characters have an amateur-status, or better, in the Athletic. Their status determines the degree of ability they possess.

See also,
Fighter Sage Abilities
Ranger Sage Abilities