just making things clear, Action cards, Talents cost 1 creation point, 1 extra on action cards per rank.

raising a stat cost the number of the number raising to, to raise.

where it says "you may only train a skill once per rank" that means One skill in total, or many skills only one time?

at character creation you can only train the skills on your career sheet, right? By my understanding, you can buy others with advances, just not at creation. Considered a non career advance?

Skill specializations, in the book i cant really find a detailed write up of all the skill specializations. All i see is "Okay, a specialization of skulduggery is Lockpicking, but how does this work? How does one quality for them, how does one pick them. Are they cards or something? If so, i don't see them (Biggest question)

The career mini cards are free, right? are those slotted anywhere, or just hung around next to the character sheet?

Harlock said:

Not exactly, but very close. There's some subtle differences that essentially just amount to a limit on how many points you can spend on each category.

There's a chart on page 30. Talents effectively cost 1 each, but you can buy no more than 3 total. So while it's mostly the same as buying them for 1 point each, there is a limitation to how many you can buy.

Actions effectively cost 1 each, plus you get one free, and the total number of actions you can have is 4. You could also look at it as you pay X to get X+1 Actions, where X = any number from 0 to 3. A rank 2 action (spell) uses 2 of those choices, a rank 3 spell uses 3 of the choices, etc. So if you spent 3 points (X=3), then you'd get to pick four actions. But if one of those choices was a rank 3 spell, it would use 3 of your 4 choices, and you'd only be able to take one more action (which would have to be a rank 1 action).

That chart also covers Wealth and Skills. On each of these 4 categories (talents, actions, wealth, and skills), you can spend 0 to 3 points.

Harlock said:

Yes, so if my Strength is 3 and I want to raise it to 5, I have to spend 9 points (4 points to bring it up to 4 dice from 3, and 5 more points to bring it up to 5 dice from 4).

Harlock said:

Many skills only one time. Mostly this means that on any given advancement sheet, you can only increase each individual skill once.

However, for your first career, it also means you can't upgrade with XP any of the skills you bought during character creation. There is a way around it, since it's tied to rank instead of career. If you spend at least one point on a non-career advance first, or hold off on spending your XP until you've accumulated 10 (enough to be considered rank 2) you could then spend the points to raise your skills. Being tied to rank is a little clunky, but seems intended to keep people from career-jumping to cherry-pick or artificially pump skills. Skill dice are really buff, so it makes sense they need to limit the rate you can gain them at.

Harlock said:

Correct, you can only start with skills on your first career sheet. XP can be spent on other skills after you played at least a session, but skills that aren't on your career sheet cost twice as much XP and use up a "non-career advance" slot, so they don't count towards completing the career and earning the dedication bonus.

Harlock said:

The main thing a specialization does is add a fortune die to any die pool where that specialty seems applicable. Beyond that bonus white die they don't add any other benefits, and you don't ever need a specialization to take a particular action.

The game doesn't really provide a thorough break-down of specializations. The skill listings do mention some possible specializations, but they're far from ideal. Some of the specializations seem much more broad than others ("deception" vs "con games" or "appear innocent" under Guile, "violence" vs "combat" under Intimidate, etc.). There's two lists of specializations for Weapon Skill - The list amongst the skills in chapter 1 is almost completely different from the list in the equipment chapter (chapter 9). The various lists of specializations are not all-inclusive, and the GM is encouraged to make up new ones, so it's probably not worth sweating the details. If the player comes up with a cool idea for a specialization, I'd let them have it.

Harlock said:

The career ability does not use up or fill a slot, and a higher-ranked character is likely to have several.

You get your career ability free for the career you're currently in.

If you change careers before completing it, the ability goes away. If you complete the advancement section of the career (with the 4 fixed advancements and the 6 open advancements) then you get to keep the career ability forever (it's part of your reward for completion, known as a "Dedication Bonus", and you also get bonus specializations with it).

This is twice today I've seen reference to a list of specializations in Chapter 9. You must be referring to the Group characteristic. As you noted, the examples given in the Master Skill list in Chapter 1 are just that examples. The fact that a character can take a specialization in a weapon group is just another example of a specialization that can be taken. I don't believe that the Group a weapon belongs to is intended to be the only specialization you can take with a weapon. Therefore it would be possible to specialize in say, Bow weapons, which would be broadly applicable to all weapons in this group and/or take a specialization in Longbow, a specific weapon. A character might take an additional specialization of "long range shooting" or "shooting from horseback". Each specialization would grant a Fortune die to rolls where the specialization comes into play and they do stack, so an archer might have 3 Fortune dice on his long range shot with a longbow.

so specializations are basically just a training put into anything the player wants to excel at in particular that can be based off of one of the basic/advanced skills? Like, Riding without a saddle for instance. And this cost 1 creation point ?

You're understanding of what specializations are is right, but you don't buy them separately with creation points during chargen. Per Table 3-1, you get 1 specialization when you spend 2 creation points on skills and 2 specializations when you spend 3 creation points on skills.