The printing press

[Vocenoctum]

I hadn't thought about it, but there's no good reason for commoners, warriors, experts or even adepts to be literate.

Aristocrats probably should be, and experts should have the option to buy literacy instead of one of their class skill choices.

Just explicitly doing that should make big difference in some of these default assumptions.

I figured Aristocrats and Experts might be literate, but 2 skill points would be enough for them to learn it without really restricting them. Giving them the option to replace a skill with it would work fine also.