I am pondering over a skill list for Fate Core game set in ancient Greece. Set in Athens of the Classical period (We do not want to pinpoint it on a precise year), the main themes are concerned with War happening everywhere, strong leaders emerging, and the clash of philosophy and mythology. The characters will probably be siding with the Gods against the new things. What should our skill list contain?
I would like the skill list to work for for a +4 cap skill pyramid, because I have no good reason to deviate from this default. It should therefore be somewhat be similar to the default one in Fate Core, which has the 18 skills Athletics, Burglary, Contacts, Crafts, Deceive, Drive, Empathy, Fight, Investigate, Lore, Notice, Physique, Provoke, Rapport, Resources, Shoot, Stealth and Will.
Best Answer
TL;DR
I suggest to take Animal Ken, Athletics, Contacts, Crafts, Doxa, Empathy, Episteme, Fight, Manipulate, Notice, Perform, Physique, Resources, Sail, Shoot, Stealth and Will, taking inspiration from existing games set in mythological Greece.
Steal from similar games
There are a few games out there that have a similar setting, so let's have a look what they list as skills for characters. Assuming the authors there did their research and spent some good time thinking about which skills to include, this should give good pointers towards creating a good skill list for this Fate game.
Disclaimer: I have played neither Fate Core nor any of these games, so please feel free to consider this a bad answer.
Arete
Arete is a game by Nicholas DiPetrillo. It is set in Greek mythology, trying to recreate Hero stories of Greek mythology. Its skill list contains the following 21 skills, corresponding roughly to the Fate Core skills listed:
Absent are the Fate Core skills Burglary, Contacts, Empathy, Investigate and Provoke. Instead, Rapport, Lore and the skills used for fighting are split into multiple implementations.
Spartan
Spartan is a two page rpg designed by McEachern for a two-page tabletop RPG competition, in which players take on the role mythical ancient Greece. It lists 12 skills:
Absent from this list are again Burglary, Empathy, Investigate and Provoke. This game has multiple ways to express Rapport and Lore, as well.
Agon
Aγων is a competitive role playing game, again about mythical Heroes of ancient Greece. Its skill list sports the following 16 abilities:
Agon really splits down Fight, and still has multiple versions of Lore and Rapport.
Skill list for a Fate Core game
Given the observations of those games set in a more mythical Greece, I suggest the following changes.
This leaves the skill list as: Animal Ken, Athletics, Contacts, Crafts, Doxa, Empathy, Episteme, Fight, Manipulate, Notice, Perform, Physique, Resources, Sail, Shoot, Stealth and Will.