Ancient Knowledge (Asheville keep out)

[FishStampede]

Now that my first story arc is over, I'm busy plotting out my next one. For that I'm trying to build a new group of villains, and running into a snag.

I don't want them to be HUGELY powerful. Oh, they have some decent sorcerers and the like among them. The main thing about them though is they are true immortals. Ancients beyond measure, older than recorded human history. They are older than some creatures with legit claims to godhood.

They are called the Shonokin and once had an empire stretching across most of North America. They lost to the Invaders (what they call the native Americans), and have been in hiding ever since. Not just from the Invaders (and the Europeans) but also from their gods and monsters. Slow attrition has whittled down their numbers to the point their entire species could probably just barely fill the seats at a minor league baseball field, but they're trying to make a comeback.

I want to give them something subtle to represent their ancient knowledge. After all, they have been around for over 15,000 years. This power came to mind (undoubtedly unbalanced, though the requirements are a bit steep)

Ancient Knowledge (-5)
You have been around since before most modern civilizations. Possibly since before humanity. You have literally seen it all, and so you tend to have an extremely broad base of skills and knowledge.
Prerequisite: You must have been alive and conscious for over eight thousand years.
Effect: All your skills start at Average. Your skill cap goes up by one.
Special: You can take this multiple times, once for each eight thousand years of your life. Bear in mind most gods haven't been around and active this long.

Close enough to balanced for an NPC?

[Sanctaphrax]

You can just give NPCs whatever skills you want. No need for a Power.

On the other hand, I like the idea of a correspondence between Skills and skill caps and Refresh. It'd be rather useful.

On the other other hand, I don't think that this is balanced at all. The age requirement is a non-starter, because it turns "years lived" into a character build resource alongside Refresh and Skills.

And 5 Refresh for what's basically a flat +1 to every skill is almost certainly too good for high-Refresh characters. At PC levels it might be acceptable, but even then I'd worry.

[FishStampede]

Yeah, this is probably more just for my own bookkeeping, since Shonokin are exceptionally inhuman despite not having many innate powers (other than immortality) and I want even the basic ones to be pretty high Refresh to reflect their monstrous nature.

[atavistic]

Remember that +1 to all social rolls against supernaturals is only a 1 refresh power and there are lets say 5 social skills out of 25 skills total, so your math of 5 refresh for a +1 to every skill is ball park actuate. just make the requisite: must be Shonokin. or really just be arbitrary about their skill values and use this to calculate their refresh value in terms of how many shonokin per encounter is balanced.

PS: Dresden lore wise, Demonreach has a limp from the movement of the ice age glaciers and the Erlking reminisced about the good old days of dinosaurs. To be really older then the big movers and shakers of nevernever you need to start predating homo sapiens rather then recorded human history but predating human occupation of North America only needs an ice age or two, which would be much shorter.

[Sanctaphrax]

That strikes me as sketchy math. Not all skill boosts are equal, and Marked By Power has both a significant restriction and a drawback.