I was just curious, is there any significance to the words in italics on certain character cards? For instance, the Ogre Chieftan can dominate and the Highlander can Charge .

I ask because originally I thought that these italicized words labeled these abilities as "character abilities" as in those things you can choose to do when landing on a character and encountering them (rather than engaging in combat with them) but then I noticed the Thief doesn't have a steal ability listed on his card, and I thought when you land on someone with the Thief you can either fight them OR steal from them (as I had originally thought this was a character ability).

Words in italics are intended to serve as keywords for certain abilities (Beguile, Trade, Charge, Dominate, Indoctrinate, Train, etc...).

Perhaps the application of italics is not as consistent as expected, but it has no game effect; it's only to give a distincive name to certain abilities.