Characteristics are measures of your pet's capabilities, and determine what they're able to do across the site. Most are useful in Combat and Gathering Tasks, but several have major uses elsewhere. There are seven main Characteristics, which start at 10 for each pet and have no known upper limit. Characteristics can be lowered by certain potions, events, or enemies, but only down to zero.
Sensation governs a pet's five traditional senses: sight, touch, hearing, smell, and taste. A pet with high Sensation is more easily able to find items while Wandering, Hunting, or Fishing.
Attunement governs a pet's connection to Magic and to the spirits of others. Certain Attunement values are required to progress a pet's Spellcasting, with 18 required for rank 1 Spellcasting features all the way up to 72 required for max-rank Spellcasting features. It's unknown what use, if any, an Attunement over 72 has.
Recollection governs your pet's knowledge of Everywhere, and everything within it. It can only be raised by reading books, collecting paperscraps, or completing most Celebration plots. It's mainly for bragging rights, but helps in some memory-related minigames.
Automaticity governs your pet's ability to do complex repetitive tasks effectively. It improves your pet's speed in all Crafting tasks very slightly. Automaticity is increased by completing a particular crafting recipe multiple times, but has exponentially higher requirements as you increase the score; it seems there's a soft cap in the 280's, where nobody has managed to break through 280 even after years of re-crafting Simple Wooden Chairs.
Reaction governs your pet's responses to sudden or unexpected phenomena. It improves the likelihood of positive outcomes from events with a random component and for your pet to dodge in Combat. If it's below 10, your pet is gauranteed not to dodge and always gets the "bad" outcome of random events, which can actually be a boon for tank builds or certain niche events!
Sangfroid governs your pet's control of its emotions. It's improved by spending time doing activities your pet finds meaningful (Crafting Tasks, Gathering Tasks, Games, or Socializing, as selected at pet creation), but can be permanently decreased during combat with an Appearance of the Absolutes. If it reaches zero, your pet is unable to engage in Combat until it returns to at least 10.
Saturation governs your pet's strength of personality, and how much they stand out. It causes you to get different reactions from most NPCs and some Combat opponents, as well as adding quirky extra dialogues from your pet on certain pages. It seems to raise at random when engaging in Combat, customizing your pet's Color or clothing, or as a pet ages.
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