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Skill Merits (Varies)
This is a separate page, for a new type of merit called 'Skill Mastery'. Similar to Fighting Styles, but for non-Combat skills such as Computers or what have you, these merits provide you with a slew of extra abilities and rules modifications designed to represent increased competency and talent with a particular skill that your character might know.
Language Merits (Varies)
This is a separate page, for a more detailed look at learning languages. The material on this page is considered a House Rule, and replaces the Language Merit from the core rulebook.
Topical Trivia (* or **)
Effect: Your character is a veritable font of useful and interesting (well...sometimes useful) information on a narrow item of interest. He might know a lot about the History of the United States, Firearms, or even about something as specific as the American Civil War or Police-issue Pistols. None the less, your character is schooled on all the eccentricities of his chosen field and can spout off endless lists of trivia regarding it without any real effort.
You can make an Intelligence + Wits roll any time your character is confronted with a situation or phenomena that falls within his topic of interest. If the roll is successful, he knows some useful "factoid" that has to do with the situation at hand. The cost of this merit varies depending on the topic that the character is knowledgeable about -- very broad topics count as a two dot merit, while very narrow topics count as a one dot merit. Unlike it's big brother, Encyclopedic Knowledge, this merit can be learned after character creation if the Storyteller agrees that it's suitable.
Improved Specialization (**)
Prerequisites: Any skill *, and Any Specialization
Effect: Your character has specialized to an impressive degree in one field of his ability, gaining even greater skill in that narrow subset of the larger skill. When taken, this merit increases the dice bonus gained from a single speciality to +2 dice. This level of expertise is sufficient to allow one to act as a professional within ones area of speciality.
Drawback: This level of specialization is quite demanding, such that it is only possible to take this merit once per ability.
This merit is quite common in the modern world. While there are a few "generalists" in existance, the advantages of specialization are quite impressive! For instance, compare someone with Medicine 3 compared to someone with Medicine 2 and an Improved Specialization in "Dentistry". Both characters pay 18xp for their skill, but the specialist rolls one additional die within his speciality!
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