[quote=@Dusksong]
- If my character doesn't know magic but I want her to learn some later down the line, should I start with or without the essence ability? And if not, should I leave room for it (ie 2 optional abilities instead of 3)?[/quote]

You can use the third quality for something else and learn Essence later—there's not really a limit on how many qualities you can get. :) If you think you'll forget later, you can add Essence and just not use it.

[quote]
- Where are the "skills and abilities" in the CS? Is it just the "Learning Experiences" part?[/quote]

Skills and abilities are more of a concept tied to qualities rather than being things in and of themselves. So rather than having skills, you can instead have qualities to stand in for them if you want, eg. you can choose the quality "Lockpicking" and it'll make an attempt at picking locks better, otherwise you'd have to use a quality like Utility or Theft or something like that.

The Learning Experiences are the experience points specific to each quality—when you negatively fail using a quality (i.e. roll 1), it gives you a learning experience for that quality plus a regular experience point. It's a little hard to explain, but hopefully it's not too hard to understand...

[quote]
- Am I allowed to count 'a box of wooden pencils' and 'lunchbox' as two carried items? Even if the lunchbox has 4 small food items in it, and the box of pencils has like 12 pencils?
[/quote]

Yes! I need to update the section on Bundles so they're a little bit less vague, but yes. small containers of things are allowed. The idea is that when you use something from inside of one of them, you need to have at least 1 inventory slot open, i.e. you need a free hand.

Does all that make sense? Please feel free to ask more questions!