Breaking (Bad) Scholars

[David Bofinger]

Scholar is a big expensive broad talent, so maybe it would be a good idea to split it up into pieces. It's basically about anthropology, history and just being educated, so my plan is to break up the talent into roughly those pieces.

Delete Talent: Scholar

New Talent: Cultured (IQ 11, costs 1, requires Literacy) The character has had his culture's equivalent of a liberal arts education. They know about art, public affairs and generally the sort of things the intelligentsia talk about at dinner parties, and receive +1 to reaction rolls in such a setting. If they speak a language, they speak it as an educated person, with a large vocabulary. If speaking for a while with a character who lacks Cultured they can try to reveal this by tricking them into saying something that makes no sense: 3/IQ roll for them to avoid it; if it turns out the other character does have Cultured then the character who attempted to trick them must roll 3/IQ not to make a fool of themselves. They can recognise common extant languages, art styles, etc. on a 3/IQ roll; very common ones will be automatic. Knows a bit about history and about customs of the various races and peoples, and can (on 4/IQ) make a rough guess about the origin of artifacts or objects from well-known cultures.

New Talent: Cosmopolitan (IQ 13, costs 1, requires Cultured) The character knows about the extant cultures of his part of the world. Will recognize any extant language (even if he doesn’t speak it) on a 3-die roll vs. IQ; common extant languages will be automatic. If they speak a language, they can speak it as though they were a native. Knows a good deal about about customs of the various races and peoples, and can (on a 4-die roll vs. IQ) make a very good guess about the origin of most artifacts or objects from extant cultures.

New Talent: History (IQ 13, costs 1, requires Cosmopolitan) Knows a good deal about history and archaeology of extant and extinct cultures. Same abilities as Cosmopolitan, but applies to extinct as well as extant cultures and languages.

Issue: Cultured seems like it should be linked to Courtly Graces, and Cosmopolitan seems like it should be linked to Diplomacy. But how?

Usually I dislike ladders but it seems natural here. Is there an alternative?

Are there other talents I could add in the Scholar space? Arcana, for instance?