See Adventuring in Earthdawn for more on curses.

Characters use Air Sailing for the rowing that propels airships through the sky. To help row an airship, a character must roll a 4 on an Air Sailing Test. An above-average successwill permit the character to take the place of more than one rower: a Good success counts as 2 rowers. An Excellent success means the character can replace 3 rowers. An Extraordinary success counts as 4 rowers.

For a ship to stay airborne, at least one-fourth of its rowers must make successful Air Sailing Tests. If at least half the rowers make successful tests, the ship can maneuver at its current altitude, dive, or climb slowly in a straight line. If three-fourths of the rowers are successful, the ship can speed up, maneuver while climbing, or perform aerobatics. A ship with a rowing crew of 20 needs at least 5 rowers to succeed at Air Sailing Tests in order to stay afloat. This might also be an equivalent number, such as 2 rowers, 1 of whom achieved an Extraordinary success on the Air Sailing Test (thereby replacing 4 rowers).

After the Beastmaster has successfully used this talent one time, the animal takes a neutral attitude ("live and let live") toward him or her. A second successful use makes the animal friendly enough to the character that he will play with the character. The character cannot further attach the animal to him until he improves his Animal Bond talent to at least Rank 4. Once a character has Animal Bond at Rank 4 or more, he can begin to train the animal. When training becomes possible, a successful Animal Bond Test makes the animal loyal to the character as long as the character remains loyal to the animal. The animal willingly takes risks for the character and expects appropriate rewards for doing so. (This is more easily accomplished than for human friends. All a dog really wants is lots of affection and enough food.) A loyal animal will accompany a character on adventures if the character so desires.

The character's control lasts for a number of hours equal to his Animal Possession rank or until the animal and character touch again. When the possession ends or the animal and character touch, both spirits return to their proper bodies. If either the animal's or the character's body is killed, the spirits and bodies will both die.

Taranya has Rank 3 Anticipate Blow Talent. Using the talent successfully adds +3 to her Physical Defense Rating for that round as well as +3 to the result of her Attack Test. Anticipate Blow allows her to add +3 to this result, increasing her chance of hitting her opponent. (See Combat.)

The character makes an Arcane Mutterings Test against the target's Social Defense. If the character is attempting to use the talent against more than one character, he makes the test against the highest Social Defense Rating among the group, +1 for each additional character. That becomes the Difficulty Number for the test. On a Good success or better, the target characters become confused and feel a slight unease. They will take no hostile action while under the effects of Arcane Mutterings as long as no one takes hostile action against them. The effect of Arcane Mutterings lasts a number of rounds equal to the character's Arcane Mutterings Rank. During this time, the character must continually "mutter" or else the effect ends. While suffering from the effects of Arcane Mutterings, the characters are disheartened, which makes them easier to affect using other social talents. If other characters are also attempting to overcome the Social Defense of the targets, add a bonus equal to the wizard's rank in Arcane Mutterings to any tests he makes for social interaction.

Poorht, windling Thief, has a Physical Defense Rating of 8. The jehuthra attacking him rolls a 12 on the Attack Test, which is higher than Poorht's Physical Defense of 8. The blow would normally have landed, but Poorht sees it coming and decides to use his Avoid Blow talent. He rolls a 12, just enough for Poorht to dodge and take no damage.

A successful test reduces all the target's steps for 1 round by a number equal to the character's rank in Battle Bellow. Rank 4 Battle Bellow, for example, reduces all the target's tests by -4 steps. A target can only be affected by one Battle Bellow at a time.

A character can also use Battle Bellow to inspire his companions. If the character rolls a Good success or better in the Battle Bellow Test, it also adds a positive modifier to any Battle Shout Tests by all friendly Sky Raiders within a distance of the Battle Bellow Rank x 10 yards of the character. The bonus is equal to the character's Battle Bellow Rank; a Rank 3 Battle Bellow, for example, adds 3 steps to all Battle Shout Tests.

A troll uses Battle Shout against a group of 6 soldiers, one of whom is a sergeant. The sergeant's Social Defense is highest, so it becomes the Social Defense for the group. Because the troll is also targeting 5 additional characters, he adds the +5 to the sergeant's Social Defense to get the Difficulty Number for the Battle Shout Test.

Blood Share talent normally does not require the character to spend Karma, but if a Cavalryman wants to use this talent on another willing character, he can do so by spending 1 Karma Point. Roll the Karma dice at the same time as the Blood Share Test is made, as normal. Using Blood Share in this way requires that deep trust exist between the character and his volunteering comrade. Members of the Cavalryman Discipline almost universally honor this trust, and have coined the term "blood betrayer" to refer to anyone who uses Blood Share to transfer so much damage to another character that the second character dies. Other Cavalrymen shun blood betrayers.

The character can memorize a number of pages per round equal to his Book Memory Rank. The character must memorize the entire book at one sitting. If he or she performs any other action while memorizing, the character's concentration breaks and the memorization is lost. The character need not be able to read the language to memorize a book.

The knowledge of a memorized book stays in the character's memory for a year and a day before fading. A character can use the Book Recall talent to retrieve this knowledge later. The maximum number of books the character can hold in memory at any one time equals the character's Book Memory Rank. A character may voluntarily discard memorized knowledge in order to memorize new knowledge.

Jerreck, an elven Wizard with Rank 3 Book Recall, is attempting to recall some information from a grimoire that he had previously memorized. Jerreck currently has a total of 5 books memorized, which the above table indicates as a Difficulty Number 11. Jerreck's player rolls an 18 on his Book Recall Test. Because this is a Good success, Jerreck can recall 2 pages from the book.

In one round, a character may attack using Claw Shape a number of times equal to his rank in Claw Frenzy. For example, Rank 3 Claw Frenzy would give the character 3 Claw Shape Attack Tests. The character must spend the Karma Point required to use Claw Frenzy on the first Attack Test. He may spend an additional Karma Point on each subsequent Claw Frenzy Test, and may also spend Karma on the Claw Shape Damage Tests. For each Claw Shape attack made during Claw Frenzy, use the Claw Shape damage step (see Claw Shape) to make the Damage Tests.

As long as the weapon remains concealed, use of this talent gives the character an Initiative bonus equal to his rank in Conceal Weapon when drawing and striking with a concealed weapon.