You might have noticed a little link on your character's page that says "skills". If you click this, it will take you to a page where you can assign skills to your character. Skills are things that your character is good at and you can assign 20 points across your skills initially. You can also build skills based on practice, etc, up to a maximum total of 40 skill points.

A single skill cannot exceed 10 points. This is to prevent skewing rolls unrealistically, as skills are used in posts to determine how well you perform actions. Going over 10 would unrealistically skew success.

What the skills are and what they do

Each skill has a unique and separate benefit with the other skills, meaning they are each useful in their own way. Additionally, different skill checks will have a chance of triggering different random events.

Hunting
The hunting skill is used at any point when attempting to hunt an animal in-character. This describes their ability to catch, track, identify, and handle prey. This can cover locating a scent, finishing off a character, finding carrion or other treats, or locating things like berries for a quick snack. Essentially - its a skill applied anytime your character is using their noggin to feed themselves or others.

Fighting
This skill is used almost exclusively for fights and spars. This includes combat between characters or npcs. If you are pitted against a wild NPC like a cougar, then it becomes a fight and not a hunt. This is a measure of how well your character is able to read a dangerous situation, perform in a fight, cover their defenses, and otherwise express their knowledge on the battlefield. This can be tactical skill or physical skill, depending on the character. A willowy character is likely to fight in a tactical way, while a buff character is likely to use it's brawn. We do have a separate Fighting Guide specifically for how fights work, as well.

Medicine
Medicine entails all the things your character knows to aid other wolves using a variety of remedies. All remedies are nature based and come from plants or minerals in the environment. This skill includes recognition of medicinal plants/fungi/items, implementation of those items in healing practices, knowledge of the healing process, how well they gather materials, how well they apply their knowledge in a given situation, and how successful they are in curing a wolf with an affliction.

Charisma
The rizz. Well, essentially it is anyway. Charisma is how charming your character is to those around them, or how well they can manipulate a situation. This is essentially like the "Speech" skill in Skyrim. It sets the precedence for their ability to communicate with others which can include persuasion, lying, manipulation, bolstering allies, giving supportive talks, or really anything at all where they use their voice to influence others. This skill cannot be applied to howls, as howling is only ever a sound and not a string of words.

Scouting
This skill is not specifically scouting, though it is different from the observation skill. Essentially this skill is used specifically for finding landmarks or signs of other wolves or creatures. A wolf may scout ahead of their group to get the lay of the land, for example. This skill can also be used when patrolling a pack's border to check for signs of intruders or dangerous animals. Wolves who are good at scouting will likely not get lost.

Observation
Not to be confused with scouting, the observation skill is used to assess your character's immediate surroundings. This means they can check their surroundings for signs of anything strange, check their immediate area for anything that stands out, scent whether there is anything nearby, get a general understanding for the area they are standing in, and generally will have an understanding of the nature of the area. Wolves with good observation will understand the sounds birds make, be able to identify droppings well, may spot things that others wouldn't, and generally are familiar with weather and the way the world works.

Puppies and Stats

Puppies can also distribute stats, though it is at a lower rate than adult wolves. Puppies can start applying stats at 2 months old and can gain 2 stats each sub-season until they reach one year old. In this way, they slowly build their stats linearly. Since you can only edit your stats once (at the moment), staff can help you boost puppy stats as they go, so long as you can show what they've been doing to raise that stat.